COMPUTER ANIMATION WITH THE HUMAN TOUCH

As the flashy high-tech look of computer-animated network logos and rock videos dazzles viewers, artists are attempting to use computers to create believable animated characters comparable to the ones in the classic Disney and Warners cartoons.

“Computers can reproduce and, in some cases, be made to create all kinds of movements, but movement alone is not animation,” says computer animator Bill Kroyer. “I think of animation as a performing art: A computer can create action, but not acting. A good computer animator must first be a good animator who understands and employs the principles of acting, staging, timing, etc.”

Kroyer is one of a small number of artists who are attempting to introduce the lifelike motions of conventional drawn animation into the new medium of computer graphics. A former Disney animator who worked on “The Fox and the Hound,” Kroyer did the key animation of the striking, skeletal figures in the video of Mick Jagger’s “Hard Woman” and the realistic owl for the opening of the feature “Labyrinth.”

This week he’ll be serving as co-chairman of a special course in three-dimensional character animation at the 14th annual international computer graphics conference, SIGGRAPH ‘87, at the Anaheim Convention Center. An annual program of workshops, classes and technical sessions, supplemented with film, art and trade exhibitions, SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group for Computer Graphics) is being held for the first time in Southern California; previous sites include Detroit, Dallas and San Francisco.

A soft-spoken, handsome man, Kroyer talked about computer graphics and the entertainment industry at the Hollywood offices of his production company, Kroyer Films.

“You analyze motions in the same way for both computer and drawn animation,” he explains, “and you apply the same rules of acting, gesturing and staging that evoke a response from an audience: Those things don’t change. But when you draw, the only technical limit is your ability to move the pencil. You can alter the two-dimensional image in a drawing any way you choose.

“In computer graphics, you’re working with a tremendously deep, three-dimensional puzzle: You have to encode and interpolate shapes in the computer’s memory. The almost hypnotic precision and perfection of the computer image creates other problems--if anything stops moving for more than two frames, it looks stone cold dead.”

Co-chairman of the character animation course is Philippe Bergeron, director of production research at Whitney/Demos Productions. A native of Quebec, Bergeron was one of four artists who created the award-winning short “Tony De Peltrie,” at the University of Montreal in 1985.

“Tony” depicted an over-the-hill cabaret pianist reminiscing about his former stardom. The film attracted widespread attention because it was one of the first attempts to use computer graphics to animate a convincing human character and to imbue that character with believable emotions.

Like Kroyer, Bergeron believes that the greater illusion of three dimensions in computer graphics distinguishes the new medium from traditional drawn animation.

“Computer animators actually work more like three-dimensional sculptors--say, Will Vinton or Ray Harryhausen--than two-dimensional ‘draw-ers.’ Most of Harryhausen’s creatures display a limited range of emotions. They’re great in their own way, but if you combined those models with computer-generated footage, you could give them subtle movements of the eyes and mouth that can’t be done in stop-motion animation.”

Both artists believe that computer graphics have reached only a limited number of viewers, and that the animators need to make better films that will appeal to larger audiences. Many computer films are technically dazzling, but devoid of content: They resemble beautifully wrapped packages with nothing inside.

“We need people with stronger filmic skills,” says Bergeron. “Computer graphics have traditionally been associated with logos, TV ID’s and video clips. We have to compete in the traditional markets for drawn animation, providing comparable entertainment with better-quality images.”

“The problem is that computer graphics has never been associated with a hit,” adds Kroyer. “You’ve had people doing excellent work on less-than-ideal projects, and their work disappears because nobody wants to watch the film. The technical people aren’t film makers, and their demo reels have nothing to say. We have to entertain people.”

Both artists believe that the future of computer graphics in the entertainment industry will involve combining the new medium with conventional techniques.

“In traditional animation, the animator has to do everything, including a lot of tedious details,” says Bergeron. “We can’t automate the entire process, but in the future, the computer will be able to do a lot of those things, freeing the animator to concentrate on what he wants to do--make the characters act believably.”

“I don’t think the computer ever will--or should--replace the organic spontaneity of drawn animation,” concludes Kroyer. “But the 3-D power of the computer opens up a new world of entertainment imagery: We want to take the new things a computer image can do that a drawing can’t, and combine the best of both media. We’re in the entertainment business, not the computer business: People have to care what we put on the screen.”