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Chapter 4 : A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION 3/20/92 42 functionality ; the functionality must not only be defined and perfected, it must be integrated into the language as well . The advantages lie in standardization of how you put things together, and, especially when the language is implemented graphically, in performing graphical operations graphically . Animation Stand and Optical Printer Control Languages Another vector of development were languages to control animation stands and optical printers . The syntax of these languages tended to be more defined in the terms of the machinery involved (eg, counters and fields), and not as virtual images . After all, the artwork is in the real world, and the cameras are physical equipment . In LANGUAGENAME, developed by Cinetron, typical commands include table pan and tilt, camera zoom, shutter, and frame advance (aka shuttle)(figure) . Computation is employed to calculate eases, simplify skip and repeat framing, and alert the user to problems such as potential temporal aliasing . Temporal control is provided by simple interactive commands . In practice the translation of the graphical layout notation used for optical printers to computer text is more straightforward than that of dopesheet animation because the computerized stand camera operator must still mount the background and cels artwork on the stand, often changing it on a frame by frame basis . Obviously low level command language also exists for manipulating camera and rigs moving in three dimensional space, however in practice it is semantically equivalent to manipulating virtual 3D cameras and props . Whether it uses mathematical-like notation or studioese depends more upon the pleasure of its users that the physical equipment . Concept of simulation Graphics processes may be implemented in hardware or software-in the last analysis this distinction is secondary to identifying the functionality itself, that is, the definition of the variable and its domain . Making animation is a procedural task that can be described with a series of steps . Animation involves manipulating both the data of the image (by drawing or by procedure 2D or 3D environments) as well as temporal variables such as velocities, accelerations, and directions . So thinking about the functional parameters of animation makes a great deal of sense . It is how one directs animation, talks with an animator, and how an animator operates the system .
Chapter 4: A HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION 3/20/92 43 It is safe to say that there appears to be an efficiency in building new ideas first in the more rapidly malable software, and then implementing a subset of these ideas in hardware in order to achieve efficiency as well as constrain the design . As the hardware becomes more specialized it may become unable to "think about" new ways of solving problems ; these in turn are attacked with more general purpose software, and the cycle repeats itself . The first generation of computer animators understood this . Given software the pioneers recognized they could simulate all kinds of processes . Simulation is a word with many meanings in the moving graphics milieu, but in this meaning it may be thought of as a procedure which models some actions of real life . And so the pioneers discussed the simulation of drafting, of images, of the lens and the camera, of lighting, of painting, of page makeup, of the cel animation processes, of the physical world, of abstract and artistic processes, of thought . The simulation of drafting The low level graphic subroutine packages simulated the drafting table . The very lowest level commands only draw lines, but slightly higher level subroutines defined arcs, circles, conic sections, and constructions like perpendiculars, tangents, and angle bisection . Still smarter software can simulate the typesetting machine, calling letters from font memory and, given parameters like letter width and justification method, can calculate how to place them correctly . Lines can be drawn which are equations, X and Y axes, even entire line graphs, scattergrams, or bar charts . In fact coupled with the computer's ability to make decisions, virtually all facets of drafting may be computerized, including blueprints, maps, and perspective drawing . Drafting simulation is not really animation, except when it moves . The simulation of lens and camera photography In addition to representing line drawing and images, the pioneers quickly grasped they could simulate the camera and lens, and in turn make pictures of 3D environments . The first simulation of lens perspective on a computer was accomplished by Larry Roberts and Steve Coon at MIT (1963), and by Bill Fetter at Boeing . Lens simulation allows one to describe an object with three spatial coordinates and to calculate its projection on an imaging plane . Like a real camera or eye, the synthetic camera may be moved in space and pointed in different directions ; this gives it 6 degreees of freedom (3 position, 3 orientation) . This is codified by Anderson
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