Keyframe animation and motion capture for creating animation: a survey and perception from industry people

Abstract

The history of animation is generally referred to early production of traditional animation. It has begun in the early 1900. "Animation is the essence of animation" as explained by Halas (1991). It is a series of images that appear to be in motion. It can be either traditional animation or computer animation. In addition, Greenberg (1997) explains "Animation is a deliberately interpreted "illusion of life". It has been practiced for the last 70 years in both drawn and stop motion animation, and as such, is not an attempt to mimic human and animal life exactly" Traditionally animation is produced by drawing illusion of movement created by photographing a series of individual drawings on successive frames on film. Gleicher (1999), explains "Animation is a uniquely expressive art form: it provides the creator with control over both the appearance and the movement of characters and objects. This gives artists tremendous freedom, which when well used, can create works with tremendous impact." According to the historical timeline, many forms of animation have been introduced. This includes cel animation, clay animation, stop frame animation, three dimensional (3D) computer animation and virtual reality. With the rapid growth of this industry various types of techniques, methodologies and computer technologies have been developed, for instance keyframe animation, non-linear animation, motion capture, procedural animation and etc. This research discusses about producing animation by using two methods: motion capture and keyframe animation. Throughout this, the author covers some feedback from the respondents about the priority of using these both methods. It also highlights the pros and cons of these two approaches.