The Art of Pixel Performers

scriptedfun writes "The BBC features the growing role of computer graphics in movies, but points out that it is still the human actors behind the CG characters which make them alive. From the article: 'It seems that the performance artist can still bring something to a performance, which [ a CG ] artist cannot.'"

Comments

Nothing new.

[Eightyford]

Motion capture is nothing new. The real credit should still be given to the animators.

Re:Question: What is the difference in pay?

[MarkByers]

Actors almost have to take a pay cut to be the voice because 3d movies are EXpENSIVE TO MAKE.

Wrong, sorry! You don't take a pay cut because the thing you are working on is expensive to make! Did the Titanic actors have to take a pay cut because the film was so expensive to make? No!

You take a pay cut because you are easily replacable by someone capable of filling your spot equally well and willing to work for less. And the further you are from your audience, the harder it is to make yourself irreplacable.

You are probably still going to get modded up and I will get modded Troll though, because this is Slashdot after all, and people here seem to like dreaming that the world is different from how it is!

This BBC writer can't even speak English!

[SysKoll]

The lame content of the article is not helped by its bad grammar. TFA says: Certainly mother nature has always been difficult to recreate. Fire and water are so infinitesimally complicated to model that animators can only create rough approximations on screen.

Last time I checked, "infinitesimal" meant "extremely small, negligeable", which is the exact opposite of the notion the writer has in mind (that is, that water is hard to animate).

And it went right through the BBC editors, who are apparenlty easily dazzled by latinate words,

Poor Beeb.

I suggest that the author of the article, Spencer Kelly, should be replaced by a random tech news generator.

Re:Larry The Cable Guy is not actually a tow truck

[AvitarX]

Correct,

Pixar actually auditions the actors while looking at 2-D sketches of the characters. The actors who make them "jump off the page" get the part.

Re:Realism

[Anonymous Coward]

Perspiration, probably. Followed by signs of fatigue or injury. Wrinkles and grime come after those two, but are likely to be better-modelled first.

The issue is that when a CG character exerts itself, it should get tired. This means its movements, including their speed, acceleration, deceleration, and precision and the character's posture will change in very subtle ways. Even motion capture doesn't entirely address this because the motion-capture actor tends to work in shorter takes - and thus isn't as tired, hurt, or sore as his character. So even a faithful motion capture won't pick up on these missing changes.

Perspiration is similar - you don't just perspire all over, you tend to do so in patches. This partly affected by how you have been moving. This is another area where the modelling still needs a lot of work. Give 'em another few years, though, they'll get there.