From: jk87377@cc.tut.fi (Juhana Kouhia)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,rec.arts.animation
Subject: Re: Pixar, Disney, Beatuy and the Beasty, and Computer Animation
Date: 16 Apr 92 13:57:52 GMT
Organization: Tampere University of Technology


Hi, here is the original article on animations.
I repost this to comp.graphics and to rec.arts.animation.
(Hopefully n+1 persons did not do the same.)

The person in article is Ed Catmull... is Ed a short form?

BTW: rec.arts.animation doesn't have e-mail address because it's
     not moderated, these things from which we read articles are
     called as newsgroups, not mailing lists -- it seems Cornell
     doesn't educate people on basic things (and doesn't even
     provide information for selfstudy?).

Juhana Kouhia

 From: stsao%sunlab.cit.cornell.edu@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU (Tsao)
 Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
 Subject: Pixar, Disney, Beatuy and the Beasty, and Computer Animation
 Message-ID: <9204142330.AA26844@hibiscus.cit.cornell.edu>
 Date: 14 Apr 92 23:30:43 GMT


Ed Catmul (sp?), the president of Pixar came to Cornell to give a talk.  Before
the talk he gave an informal talk to the Cornell Computer Graphics Group and
here are some of the interesting things he said in there and during the actual
talk.

1. Little Rescuer's Down Under is the first animated film where no cells were
   used.  All the animation were computer assisted.  The backgrounds were done
   in the traditional way and the scanned in, and so are the initial sketches.
   But the traditional inking and paiting of the cell were done using special
   hardware and software produced by Pixar for Disney.  The finished composite
   is recorded using a 2000 line CCD (charge coupled device) camera.  This
   system has 16 times the resolution of a previous system used at
   Hanna-Barbera (which was only suitable for producing TV animation. "About
   2/3 of the Smurf were produced on that system.")

2. LRDU almost didn't make it on time.  The two new directors got too
   excited with the new medium and threw all sort of things at the software
   and the hardware and there are a lot of delays in the initial stages of
   the project.  Fortunately the bugs got fixed and people got used to the new
   system and the film was finished before schedule.

3. Beauty and the Beast is the 2nd animated films where the computer assisted
   animation was used.  This time things were a lot smoother.  Note that this
   time even the lines are colored.  So after nearly 30 year, colored lines
   are back (the last time the lines were colored was Sleeping Beauty, the last
   film were the lines are inked.  After that the lines were put on the cell
   by xeroxing.)

4. With the new system, the Disney Animator do a lot less rough testing.

5. The Little Mermaid, the last film to use traditional cels, used about
   150 painters.  B&B used only about 25.

6. The new process is 10 to 20 times faster.   One painter used to be able to
   produced about 25 to 50 cells per day, but now thy can produce 250 to 1000
   frames per day.

7. Disney management doesn't want people to know that computer are used to do
   this because :

   - They think people are afraid of computers
   - They think that people will say "the Disney magic's gone now that
     computers are being used to do the animation.
   - They are afraid that the reporter will distort the facts.
     That is, they will say that computers, not people, did the animation
     (Catmul : "One reporter said that one day a computer will go on stage
     to pick up the Oscar, but this same person probably wrote this on his
     computer, why doesn't he think that his computer wrote it?")

8. He predict that 7 to 8 years from now, 3-D animation will be cheaper than
   traditional 2-D animation ("it will look different, but it will still be
   high quality) and might take over.

9  B&B is the most expensive animated movie ever made : twice the cost Disney
   announced to the press.  ("I hope there are no recorders in here" ^_^)

10.  The next Disney-Pixar feature film will probably be out in 21/2 year from
     now.  It will be directed by John ????, who also directed "Luxo Jr",
     "Red's dream", etc.

11. There are many advantages to the new system.  The lines are clear, there
    are no jitters, and the lines can be colored.  special effects such as
    shadows, etc can be used easily.  3 times the normal amount of color is
    available (close to 1500) It's a lot faster.  There is also no limit in the
    number of layering, which makes animating very complicated scenes feasible
    (sliding multiple layers of cell across one another is a traditional way to
    create the illusion of 3-d movement.)

12. Computer makes it possible for Disney to make their feature films in house,
    which has the advatage of immediated feedback and quality control, rather
 than
    shipping them to the Far East for post processing.

13. Finally, when asked if the film and entertainment industry need people with
    training in computer graphics, he said there is no great demand.  What they
    need are talented animators, and they need a lot of them.

BTW : I don't know the mailing address of the rec.arts.animation mailing list
     (if there is one at all.)  So if you find this article interesting please
     also post it over there.


P.S.  I can not receive e-mail though this account.  Please send any
      reply to "tsao@tristan.tn.cornell.edu"

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Newsgroups: comp.graphics