Table Of ContentThe Art and Science of Computer Animation
Stuart Mealing
First published in Paperback in United Kingdom in 1998 by
Intellect Books
School of Art and Design, Earl Richards Road North, Exeter EX26AS, UK
Copyright © 1998 Intellect Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
Consulting editor: Masoud Yazdani
Copy editor: Cate Foster
Cover design: Sam Robinson
Text layout: Stuart Mealing
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1-871516-71-4
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press, Wiltshire
For my mother
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am pleased to offer my thanks for help in connection with the production of this book
to:
Roger Fickling, Dr. Wendy Milne and Coral Mealing for the many helpful comments
and suggestions passed on after reading the draft copy of the book, many of which have
been acted upon. Apple Computers Inc. for kind permission to reproduce the paper by
Galyn Susman on 'The Making of Pencil Test' as an appendix. Program Now magazine
for permission to reproduce passages from an issue. Paul Hooker of 3C Systems,
Worcester, Bill Allen at Gromark Ltd (London), and Daphne Powers at Symbolics Ltd
(High Wycombe) for generously taking time to produce material used in diagrams and
plates. Mick Winning and Brian Carroll of Splash (Cardiff) for advice and for allowing
me to browse through and photograph their artwork. Mark Watt of Digital
Pictures,William Latham of IBM UK Laboratories Ltd, Craig W. Reynolds of
Symbolics Graphics Division, Karl Simms of Optomystic, Professor Eihachiro
Nakamae of Hiroshima University, Deirdre Warin at Pixar, Jarrett Cohen at University
of Illinois and Alan Stone at Rediffusion Simulation for very kindly supplying slides
for reproduction as plates. The Apple Centre (Exeter) for help and advice. Malcolm
Kesson, Paul Reilly and Bill Tingle for specific advice and discussion. Professor John
Lansdown and the staff at CASCAAD (Middlesex Polytechnic) for much information,
acquired both formally and in casual discussion, which has percolated through to the
book.
Trademarks:
Atari & Atari ST - Atari Corp.; Symbolics, S-Paint, S-Render, S-Dynamics & S-
Geometry - Symbolics, Inc.; Pixar, RenderMan & RIP - Pixar, Inc.; CyberStudio,
Cybercontrol & Cyberpaint - Antic Publishing, Inc.; Swivel 3D - Paracomp Ltd; TDI &
Explore - Thomson Digital Image America, Inc.; Luxo - Jac Jacobson Industries;
MC68000, MC68020, MC68030, MC68040 - Motorola Corporatio; IBM -
International Business Machines Corporation; Postscript - Adobe Systems Inc.; Apple,
Macintosh, Mac, Hypercard, Hypertalk-Apple Computer, Inc.; Commodore-
Commodore Electronics, Ltd; Amiga - Commodore-Amiga, Inc.; Paintbox - Quantel
Ltd.
COLOUR PLATES
Front cover A numerically severe storm (a)
This animation is used to study the water and ice structure of a severe storm, the
movement and rotation of air in and around the storm, and the different physical
processes which influence storm rotation near the ground. The cloud formation and
movement, as well as the movement of other elements in the animation, was created
numerically from mathematical equations which are based on contemporary laws of
physics.The measurements for this model were taken from a severe storm that occured
in Oklahoma on April 3, 1964. Produced by the Visualisation Group, National Center
for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Back cover Particle Dreams (waterfall)
This waterfall is part of a group of animations entitled Particle Dreams, which are all
created using particle systems, created by Karl Sims at Optomystic.
Back cover Wet, misty road
This plate is taken from research at at the Electric Machinery Laboratory, Hiroshima
University, into the creation of a light model aiming at drive simulators
Back cover Flight simulator
A two and a half ton flight simulator from Rediffusion Simulation. Its 6 hydraulic legs
move the 'cockpit', in synchronisation with the cockpit display, to realistically
reproduce the flight movements generated by the 'pilot'.
Plate 1 Storyboard
Created by Mick Winning (now at Splash Computer Graphics Ltd., Cardiff) for S4C to
demonstrate an animation idea (not transmitted). The scene opens with mountains
reflected in rippling water, reflections turn into the number '4' and lift from the water,
bands of light and water orbit the '4' and then form the letters 'S' and 'C'.
Plate 2 Stills from the storyboard
Three stills from the storyboard (Plate 1), generated on a Paintbox.
Plate 3 Rendering sampler
Examples of quick Lambert shading, smoother Gouraud shading and raytracing, which
includes shadows and reflections.
Plate 4 Luxo Jnr.
From an award-winning animated short film created at Pixar in 1986 by John Lasseter
with William Reeves, Esten Ostby and Sam Leffler. At the time, the fire broke new
ground in its ability to imbue inanimate objects with personality and emotion using
computer animation. It is the first 3-D computer animated film to be nominated for an
Academy Award.
Plate 5 Tin Toy
This 1988 Pixar production is the first computer animated film to ever win an Oscar. A
3-D model of the baby's body was digitized from clay figures and merged with a
skeletal description of the character. Special software fits the body model to animation
of the skeleton, so that the body moved and flexed according to the animator's
directions.
Plate 6 Sunlight on water
From Light-water interaction using Backward Beam Tracing, SIGGRAPH Proceedings
1990 by Mark Watt of Digital Pictures. A fuller treatment is given in Advanced
Rendering & Animation Techniques: Theory and Practice, (pub) Addison Wesley
1991.
Plate 7 Mutations
Produced by William Latham with Stephen Todd at the IBM UK Scientific Centre,
Winchester. The programs used were Esme, Mutator and Winsom.
Plate 8 Numerically severe storm (b)
See the description of the front cover plate.
Plate 9 Quarry
From an animated simulation of a quarry created for an environmental impact analysis
(EIA) by 3C Systems, Worcester.
