The Disney film "Rescuers Down Under" was the first 2d animated
film to incorporate CGI. Also it was the first feature film to be completed with
digital software, such as coloring and computer amimation.

Pixar was heavily involved in parts of the movie such as the New York City scene,
where buildings and cars were modeled in 3D. Mcleach's Truck was a huge
achievement in expressing character in 3d animation.

Cel-shading helped to disguise the meshes in the otherwise 2D environment.
The opening scene of Rescuers Down Under uses layers of trees in a
digital environment to create the feeling you are traveling forward; foliage
grows in size as huge buttes on the background increase in size as you get closer.

This summarized the CAPS process that subsequent Disney movies would follow;
computers would facilitate compositing, digital art processes, and camera movement
to speed up production.

Ub Iwerks

Ub Iwerks was the animator that came up with Mickey Mouse during Disney's dark ages, when the rights to Oswald the Rabbit got taken taken from Waltt Disney.

He first began animating with Walt Disney on the Alice Comedies; where a real life girl was shot in a cartoon world. Iwerks also made Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar for the Disney cast. He was very prolific, being able to animate 700 frames a day. He also completed the cartoon short 'Oswald the Lucky Rabbit' all by himself.

He was a good animator, but he is most famous for his work in special effects and camera work. He made the special effects for Alfred Hitchcock's movie, 'The Birds'. He also helped develop the disney animation pipeline by making better versions of the multiplane camera and using celluloid for copying animation on paper.

He and Walt Disney were good friends, and both died within several years of each other, Walt Disney first. He was beside himself knowing his life-long friend and boss was dead.

Spore utilizes Impressive Animation

The video game Spore is fairly old now, but it was ambitious in creating a world where the player can design his own creatures with a unique amount of appendages and body shapes. The player's choices would determine how the creature would behave when it walks, runs, picks things up etc.

The developers studied arc movement and how it is affected by the length of bones and positioning of joints. The height of the character determined the length of his stride and sway. Also they took into account mass, so if you have a really top heavy creature, it would walk in a way that would teeter back and forth in order to maintain balance.

It's incredible what Spore did when it came to customizing animation; add an extra pair of legs, you have an animal, add another and you have an insect, you could even add more if you wanted.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of glitches in the game that limit the possibilities of animation. There's plenty of mesh-clipping that ruins suspension of disbelief. 4 legs animate like 2 seperate people instead of an actual animal walk. Weight and balance is an issue at times especially when it comes to sitting or idle poses.

EA and other companies should continue to support Spore's innovation in animation since it still needs development.

Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge successfully captured human and animal movement using photography in the late 19th century.  He would place cameras in a line attached to a series of strings. These strings would be tripped by the animal or human in order to set the camera off. The pictures were then viewed through a zoopraxiscope.

Muybridge gave lectures and wrote books on animal locomotion. He helped solved the dispute to whether a galloping horse is suspended in midair in part of its run. Many artists would use this as reference for poses, and eventually animation. The great disney animator Milt Kahl used Muybridge's photography to study animal motion.

You can argue Muybridge was the final force in creating animation as it is today. His work inspired innovation in moving pictures as well as making drawings move.

The Disney Family Album

Youtube has the whole collection of the Disney Family Album. It interviews all except one of Disney's "nine old men". It's an impressive experience being able to see their thoughts on animation and the difficulty and satisfaction of improving it. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24CWgNWf7eE

Mit Kahl, Ollie Johnston, and Art Babbit are just a few of the animators that interested me. You get to see the struggles they made in learning how to do things such as acting their characters, making believable animals(Bambie) and keeping the audience interested for an hour.

The whole series is worth a look, especially for an aspiring animator.

Music is like Animation

I'm a big fan of Classical music, my all time favorite is Bach. It's amazing to listen to his stuff and think about how he could make such things.

I realize now that music shares a lot of similar principles to animation. Music is built upon chords that carry the weight of the piece. You could compare this to key frames, which are the main poses that sell the animation.

Music also has connecting notes between chords, one of them is called a passing tone. You could consider this an inbetween that connects the two main poses together.

Different chords create different moods, like going from tonic to dominant, then back to tonic. Animation does the same thing; by moving from a key pose, to a breakdown, then back to another key pose.

Easing in and out in animation is the same in music. In music you dot a note, this causes it to last longer by borrowing time from the note after it. This last note now plays faster, just like easing out.

Last but not least, music has multiple actions and rythm. Both animation and music try to accomplish the same thing.

Many parts are involved in a musical score, such as melody, countermelody, harmony, and percussion. The same can be said for animation. You have the main action, secondary action, and facial action that all play together like an orchestra.

Porco Rosso

I watched my first Miyazaki movie a few weeks ago. Normally I prefer western animation to anime in style but Miyazaki makes a strong statement in the movie "Porco Rosso".

It's about a pig that flies old biplanes for a living. He is a bounty hunter in Italy hunting airplane pirates. The best part of the movie are the airplanes and visual effects animation.

A friend told me Miyazaki has a hobby of flying and loves old-World War I airplanes. You can obviously note the attention to detail he put into them.

He focuses on drawing stylistic planes with bright colors, which he indulges them into reacting to forces like wind, water, and collisions.

The planes would also exhibit a tense strain by repeatedly drawing frames over the same plane. This popping effect gave an organic trait to the metal hulls of the planes.

Overall, the strongest animation was in the effects and airplane models, enhanced by wide and sweeping camera shots. Usually western animation focuses more on character animation in place of effects. Imagine if both were executed together flawlessly.