Digital Animation: Cartoons That Rock

What do Godzilla, Gollum (of the Lord of the Rings movie), Shrek and Dragonball Z have in common? If you say that they are all products of modern animation, then you are right. Animation has come a long way since Walt Disney’s first full-length animation “Steamboat Willie” in the 1950’s. Steamboat Willie was the precursor of Mickey Mouse.

Today, creatures like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and fight scenes in sci-fi movies routinely make their appearances in movies. Thanks to digital imaging technology, animation has become a burgeoning industry churning out millions of frames of films each year.

The basic technology for this wonderful and creative tool is, in fact, available to us. The computer is the most important tool. Animation computers are high-speed and high memory machines capable of processing information at incredible speeds. Then there are the state-of-the-art software.

Graphic software which we use in our homes, for instance, such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, allow us to create digital images. These images may be used to create an impression of movement by duplicating it at, say, 25 or 32 frames per second, adding just tiny movements or changes in each frame.

Of course, industrial animators use full-blown graphic software; many of them developed by the companies themselves and well-guarded secrets. Combined, these hard-and software are able to do surprisingly impressive things. For the character of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies, motion-capture technology was used to map his movements, creating a very life-like digital character. A model was wired with sensors on major body parts and joints. These sensors are picked up and tracked by the computer and reflected the different motions and movements of the model as he went through Gollum’s part. These movements are then filled in the computer and used to move the body of the digitally-created character. The result is that of a seamless, fluid and realistic image.

Whether it be 3- or 2-dimentional “cartoon” characters, animation has provided audiences the world over with entertaining and visually-stimulating shows that has prodded, challenged and stimulated the man’s intelligence towards even greater creativity and innovation. We have glimpsed the world of the future through the use of these leading-edge technologies. It has provided us with hours of fun and introduced us to new friends like Spiderman who is part animation, resurrected history such as that of the Titanic and ventured far out into space like what they did in Star Trek.