Another syllabus switch around.
This week we watched Monster House. OK, tell me what's the big appeal of mo-cap (other than technologically) why are you driven as an artist to create something that's not "real" in order to make it look so "real" no one can tell the difference between the "real" and the computer animated/generated image? Why not just work with actual humans and be done with it already?
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There are a million reasons to use things like mo-cap and other technologies to make characters look more real instead of using just real characters. And about a half a million of those reasons are in the film Beowulf, but since this week's film is Monster House, we will use examples from this film.
One reason, and perhaps the biggest reason is film style. In my opinion, Monster House is not made to look like a computer animated film, it is meant to look like an old claymation film. I have a few reasons to believe this, one, the texturing of the characters does not look "real" it looks like the textures of clay models. Their cheeks are painted slightly more red and no matter what the lighting they always stay that way. Also, the set is reminiscent of a claymation film, everything is very flat and only short far away shots are used. Except for the finale with the construction site and the mobile house. What really makes this film great is the motion capture. The viewers eyes tell him or her that it is an animated feature because of all the things I mentioned, but when one sees the movement, they are taken to another level. The acting and movements are astounding, especially if the film is being compared with a claymation film. Even the greatest claymation films sometimes lack in timing. Take for example the Nightmare Before Christmas, every attention to detail is made, yet their are still a few scenes that lack especially in timing. One of the first scenes in the film is a far away shot of many characters at the town fountain and although everyone is clapping, everyone looks very stiff and un-animated. It was just not practical to move every character for the shot. In Monster House, every single character including the house is brimming with action and life. It is a new experience for the viewer. Since 1896 when film began being used, the same things have been shot over and over. This includes early clay-mation or puppets (sometimes made out of different levels of paper on glass plates). To see real, human timing and emotions acted out in modeled characters is unique and exciting. It is something new in a media that constantly presents the same things in new packages. Another example of this is Beowulf. Sure, the characters seem almost real and are painstakingly life-like, but the film could not use real characters. The director and producer Robert Zemeckis explained this in interviews before the film was released. In the film Beowulf takes on sea monsters and dragons and demons. All of these things would prove to be difficult or impossible to shoot. Creating 3D models in a 3D world most importantly frees up the camera. Any shot imagined can be achieved. one is not limited by man made cranes or bound by the rules of gravity, anyshot can be achieved and any emotion portrayed or emphasized by the camera. These is just as true for Monster House. The entire sequence when the kids are inside the alive house is filled with extroadinary camera angles. It's interesting to watch the evolution of Zemeckis as a filmmaker. In his early comedies the camera stays stagnant most of the time. If it is moved, it is a generic crane shot or dolly move. Even in films like Castaway he maintains a generic camera movement and relies on story and comedy to progress his plot. But as he frees himself of the chains of reality, Zemeckis becomes an in depth interesting filmmaker. He does elaborate shots and specializes in making the film seem like a ride. He transforms from an ordinary filmmaker with taste for good stories, to a creative filmmaker whose shots make the film more exciting and relevant. That is the power of creating 3D characters that emulate real actors and environments, the freedom of the camera.
Motion Capture when used properly and professionally can be just as effective as the tried and true use of keyframe animation. Motion capture has become more common use in games, simulations, and of course movies just within the past few years. However, with the prevalent and new use of any new method, ideology, and/or technique, there will always detractors who prefer to either stick to the old methods that have been more reliable and more respectable than the new methods that seem to cheat the process. In this day and age, this has become true with motion capture as there is already an ongoing debate between those who embrace motion capture and those who prefer keyframe animation and look down upon motion capture animation. Keeping on the example subject of motion capture use, Monster House uses both motion capture and facial capture to complete its animation process to positive effect in terms of realism in a timely manner. The keywords being positive, realism, and timely.
The style of Monster House leads to more of a claymation look than that of other computer animated films. Upon viewing the film, it looks like most of the shaders and the texturing used minimal amount of realistic texturing in terms of skin and environment in order to get the general audience the basic idea and look. There seems to be very little amount of reflectivity in the movie except the obvious materials such as light bulbs, windows, and anything that we know should be completely shiny. The claymation look seems to be due to possibly the director’s style. The director’s style might have not focused on complete realism like Beowulf and Final Fantasy, however, it’s more likely that the director’s style was possibly more of completing the movie with the best look and the type of realistic style to fit the story subject matter in a timely manner.
As most experienced CG animators know, the more complicated the models, textures, and lighting schemes they put into their production, the longer it takes to complete due to the increased render times needed to completely render out every frame. The story though may have missed its mark for some people however it is a solid story as it is easy to understand and follow. With that in mind along with a deadline to complete the movie, to boost the modeling, texturing, animation, and lighting to max realistic quality would’ve helped the movie tremendously but doing that would most likely push production back way further to the point that it would’ve financially bombed at the box office due to the additional costs of pushing production and additional render times to complete it. In order to complete the movie on a timely schedule, the director and the studio most likely decided to focus their strengths on the use of motion capture, camera angles, and the story complement for the claymation look.
The use of motion capture and facial capture gave a big boost into the animation performance and timing of the movie. There are a couple of basic reasons why motion capture was used for this movie. One it was an economical choice than key-frame animation as long as the equipment was up beyond par and the cleaners were able to clean the raw data easily. The successful use of facial capture with Chowder’s face in Monster House, showed a dynamic range of animation that may have taken a long time to pull off via keyframing. Keyframing animation from scratch tends to be tedious and time consuming as opposed to a good solid motion capture setup. Of course, if a motion capture studio is not up to par and/or is badly setup the results will be more time consuming in terms of cleaning frames and being forced to reference key frame animation for bad captures that can not be retaken due to any possible reason (i.e. actor cannot be called back due to other commitments). Another reason, was to financially research and solidify a working motion capture pipeline for future movies while focusing on other aspects such as decreasing render time per frame.
When one person asks why not film a real person instead of going through the process of creating a 3d person? The answer is more likely what type of person are you filming and the conditions and look of the person to accomplish why you need to film one or make one. Is the person a dwarf, an alien, female, male, short, tall, handsome, ugly, disfigured? Is there more than one person you need to film? A thousand clones perhaps? Why do you need to film or make one in the first place? How long will it take to complete before I can see it? The last two questions are the more pertinent as one needs a purpose in order to accomplish what type of realism is needed and how to pull it off as effectively without wasting too much life and resources in the process. If you want to pull off a real crowd effect but can’t afford 1000 extras, you would use a software package that you may know to pull off that effect as it would be cheaper and cost effective that way. If you can pull off recording one regular person doing somersaults for a commercial and you’re pressed for time, you wouldn’t necessarily need to create and rig a realistic 3D model to do it unless the project specifically called for anything special that requires CG involved.
The search for realism either through keyframe or motion capture has been in order to complete what we want in a professional timely manner that does not detract the audience into thinking that the creators put enough effort to the best of their ability to complete a masterpiece and not something that looks utterly derogatorily horrible. There is also the instinct in all of us that artists go the realistic route that we can do better than the other artist in some remote part of the world. If artists can not achieve the overall realism look then at least they put more emphasis on the part(s) of the look that they feel they’re the strongest at. Hence why there are a lot of CG movies that put emphasis on techniques and methods that producers and creators know will succeed and gain recognition to keep producing more movies. In the case of motion capture, Monster House and Happy Feet are prime examples focusing on motion capture for realism, whereas a movie such as Surf’s Up focuses on the use of dynamics to create realistic ocean waves. The big idea that anyone is able to accomplish these methods is that they figured out that there’s an easier and faster way to accomplish the realistic look with the best use of resources available.
Conclusively, motion capture is basically a tool, a method, and a technique that some people perceive and/or know will accomplish their projects with a sense of realism that they want to show off in their projects while at the same time quickly produce more in the future. People prefer using better tools and faster effective techniques that would allow them to show all of their creativity to the world and live in the limelight within their lifespan. If that drive to create better tools to achieve the realistic was not there, chances are that there would be less CG related movies out in theaters than there are today.
max:
Good points. Freeing the "eye" from the boundaries set by camera equipment and human capabilities is the "real" gift of animation.
z:
Another good defense of motion capture. Nice points and comparisons. Nicely thought out and presented.
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