Animation mediums, Workflow and Ethics.
polycounter lvl 10
I have been wondering to myself of recent about the double standards when it comes to ethics or standards concerning the two main mediums of animation- hand drawn (2d) and 3d animation.
In 3d animation, if one uses motion capture, or animates a 3d character, copying a reference video down to the letter T or even go as far as scanning a human person, doing motion capture and everything. This is still seen as animation and the work gets a lot of praise and approval. I have even seen portfolios or shot progression of 3d animators showing reference videos they have taken from the net and copied down to the letter for a shot. Some act out the shots themselves.
I have noticed in hand drawn animation, this is not the case. If u rotoscoped which could pass the same way as motion capture, it is seen as cheating even if u are drawing your own character over the reference video. Some ppl would go as far as saying tweening in 2d animation is cheating, that every frame should be redrawn while some would say the animator cheated or stole from a particular video placing the 2d animation side by side with the alleged real footage. Whereas when u watch Disney movies, the 2d ones, u can see heavy video references was used, some even rotoscoped with the required character drawn over the footage and later modified or adjusted.
Why is this so? Most times clients don't care how the work is done, is the result that matters. I would really like to hear other animators' thoughts on this matter.
In 3d animation, if one uses motion capture, or animates a 3d character, copying a reference video down to the letter T or even go as far as scanning a human person, doing motion capture and everything. This is still seen as animation and the work gets a lot of praise and approval. I have even seen portfolios or shot progression of 3d animators showing reference videos they have taken from the net and copied down to the letter for a shot. Some act out the shots themselves.
I have noticed in hand drawn animation, this is not the case. If u rotoscoped which could pass the same way as motion capture, it is seen as cheating even if u are drawing your own character over the reference video. Some ppl would go as far as saying tweening in 2d animation is cheating, that every frame should be redrawn while some would say the animator cheated or stole from a particular video placing the 2d animation side by side with the alleged real footage. Whereas when u watch Disney movies, the 2d ones, u can see heavy video references was used, some even rotoscoped with the required character drawn over the footage and later modified or adjusted.
Why is this so? Most times clients don't care how the work is done, is the result that matters. I would really like to hear other animators' thoughts on this matter.
Replies
As for shooting reference of yourself, any animator who doesn't use it likely isn't very good. Either 2D or 3D. In 2d it's easier to "hide" a lot of stuff by making things overly cartoony, but a lot of 2D animators who try body mechanic stuff or acting without reference ends up with a poor result. 2D animator's who don't shoot reference only hurt themselves in the long run. Its extremely rare for a 2D animator who can do this without reference. (Glen Keane). Animators who purely copy the motion and timing of the reference without adding animation principals ends up with a result that looks copied, evenly spaced, poses that aren't pushed, and doesn't completely "come alive". (Although that aspect is harder see with CGI when compared to hand drawn) Character animator's are actors.
That being said, 2D animators face the additional challenges such as draftsmanship and keeping things on model. This usually takes away from acting and focusing on the body mechanics. 3D animators don't have to worry about this, especially if they don't have to do the 3D modeling/rigging. So in 3D animation the acting and body mechanics tend to be better because more time can be allocated to this.
But to completely answer your question. Anything in which you move something that is not real is animation. So even moving a character around with a person in a mocap suit is animating the puppet. If people make the claims in which stuff is "cheating" or "that isn't animation": That's all just pretentious nonsense. Those people usually are just insecure and believe that their specific craft is "better" than the alternative and in order to prop themselves up they shoot they other techniques down. The quality of the end result is what ultimately matters and what you are aiming to achieve.
I have to split everyone with a dog in this fight into two groups - students, and professionals. For the sake of my example, students are everyone who are not in a production environment, and are therefore learning with the objective of those who work in one.
Students must learn, and they must learn to draw without any crutches. The idea there is that what you can draw without reference is the measure of your skill as a student, because the fewer tools you can use to get something better, the more 'innate' the fundamentals are for you. The more you can control your work with lower-order tools, the more control you have over the higher-order tools later on in your skill development. I think this is enforced socially between students in schools but also between self-educated people on message boards. Tracing is a 'bad' word. Photo-bashing is a 'bad' word. roto-scoping is a 'bad' word.
Students then impose some of those attitudes on professionals because students are discouraged from using them, but are expected to produce professional quality work. On the flip-side, professionals use every tool at their disposal to get the work done efficiently. Obviously the fallacy here is holding the professionals to the same rules that students hold themselves to, which is why I make the point of splitting artists into these groups: Those who are learning (students), and those who have learned (professionals).
With regards to the double standard, specifically, I don't have too much experience with that, but my guess is that 3D guys have a tendency to think of themselves less as artists and more as problem-solvers. 2D animators are "artists", 3D animators are guys looking for a solution to a puzzle. And I think this 'cheating' attitude is a plague among "artists" specifically.
The implication of tracing/rotoscoping/copying is that it is done mindlessly... like a robot reproducing shapes. In those instances there is some merit calling it "cheating". I'm pretty sure "mindless reproduction" isn't what's taught in any learning situation, even at bad schools. The injunction against "mindless reproduction" could be taken to be against tracing/rotoscoping as a tool, but in spirit that is not the case.
Like Chauser said, I agree that most animators would like to see hand keyed animation 9.999 times out of 10, however I'd consider this to be the best case scenario, and as development of anything goes, you only sometimes get everything you want. (but if it was up to us, it would probably be that, haha)
As far as "cheating" (?) is concerned, I'm not sure I'm understanding that. Work done should always be properly credited, (i.e. if you only cleaned up mocap, not passing that off as hand keyed frames) and if thats not the case I guess their are other problems at work going on. I guess if you were constantly just shipping out rotoscoped/mocap'd work with out any artistic flair one might consider that "cheating", but once again I'd like to believe that any animator would always try to inject some personality into their work instead of copying reference completely.
Otherwise, tools are used by artists to achieve results they need to hit, either for themselves or for the powers that be.
Whats that saying about swords and masters?