Computer animation

Computer animation is the art of creating moving images via the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation. Increasingly it is created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still widely used. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, sometimes the target is another medium, such as film.

The future

The future of animation is unimaginable, there is no way we can know what will be released next. Every day a new program, a new rendering technique enters the market, flipping everything around. Some are so good that the prices for the new capability can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

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In the future, some people expect the current level of animation (2D, 3D) will be replaced with virtual reality; meaning the person watching a movie will see himself in the movie as a person watching from the side.

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One open challenge in computer animation is a photorealistic animation of humans. Currently, most computer-animated movies show animal characters (Finding Nemo), fantasy characters (Shrek, Monsters Inc.), or cartoon-like humans (The Incredibles). The movie ' is often cited as the first computer-generated movie to attempt to show realistically-looking humans. However, due to the enormous complexity of the human body, human motion, and human biomechanics, realistic simulation of humans remains largely an open problem. It is one of the "holy grails" of computer animation. Eventually, the goal is to create software where the animator can generate a movie sequence showing a photorealistic human character, undergoing physically-plausible motion, together with clothes, photorealistic hair, a complicated natural background, and possibly interacting with other simulated human characters. This should be done in a way that the viewer is no longer able to tell if a particular movie sequence is computer-generated, or created using real actors in front of movie cameras. Achieving such a goal would mean that conventional flesh-and-bone human actors are no longer necessary for this kind of movie creation, and computer animation would become the standard way of making every kind of a movie, not just animated movies. This is not likely to happen very soon, however such concepts obviously bear certain philosophical implications for the future of the film industry.

Related Topics:
Finding Nemo - Shrek - Monsters Inc. - The Incredibles

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There's no way of knowing how far computer animation can go, every day new effects are created which make it more realistic and more immersive.

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