by Greg Bear
with feature-length motion pictures. Taylor is reportedly hard at work on a film
called DREAMER for Paramount. In advertising, two of the biggest film companies
have made a major commitment to computer graphics. Robert Abel in
Hollywood--long renowned for the beautiful combinations of live action and
back-lit animation in his Levi's and Seven-Up commercials--assembled a computer
graphics division while assigned to do special effects for STAR TREK: THE MOTION
PICTURE. Unlike Digital Productions, however, Abel kept all his other special
effects techniques, considering computer graphics as another tool, not an end in
itself. "A lot of the stuff we do is combination," Abel explains, "where we
combine miniatures and live action with computer images." Pure computer
animation, at present, is more expensive than many other techniques, and in
Abel's view, flexibility and variety are necessary to the production of
commercial advertising films.
Bo Gehring, in charge of Bo Gehring Associates in Venice, California, originally
came to the west coast to do computer animation tests for Steven Spielberg's
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. The tests proved unsatisfactory but Gehring
stayed on to found his own company--again, with a complete spectrum of
techniques at his disposal. Unlike Abel, who began as a documentary film maker,
Gehring's roots are in computer graphics, but he agrees with Abel that
commitment to one technique is risky. As for getting involved in feature films:
Page 4
Bear, Greg - The Machineries of Joy.txt
"Ninety million dollars is spent each day on advertising in the United States,"
Gehring says. "Feature films can't begin to match that level of financing. I'm
secure where I am."
Both Gehring and Abel believe that computer graphics is still in its infancy,
and will probably have a major effect on all forms of visual communication. For
the moment, however, neither is willing to make the leap of faith required for
an operation such as that being conducted at Digital Productions. And
truthfully, Gehring admits that his financial backing is not equal to Digital
Productions', which is supported by Ramtek, a major computer company. "I am a
bit envious of what John Whitney Jr. and Gary Demos have come into at
Digital--all that [computing] power. But I'm happy with my situation, and just
can't see taking that kind of risk right now."
Gehring also expresses an interest in digital sound synthesis. "I'm one of those
people who has to pull off the road when something really intriguing comes on
the car radio. I firmly believe that sound is at least the equal of sight in
bandwidth-- complexity of information--and synthetic sound is a fascinating area
that's barely been explored." Another of the Big Three companies, R. Greenberg
in New York, is rapidly building its computer graphics division.
Computers have revolutionized the film industry in many more ways than computer
graphics. Virtually all commercial studios, whether producing advertising or
feature films, use computers to control complex camera movements or integrate
different elements of photography. At Robert Abel, slit-scan photography is a
staple item. The process was originally developed by Con Pedersen and Douglas
Trumbull while working for Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Pedersen
now works at Abel, where he supervises other aspects of special effects
production, including computer graphics. (Trumbull, interestingly, seems to
eschew full computer animation. In his recent film BRAINSTORM, even sequences
which appeared to be computer-generated were done using other techniques.)
In slit-scan, a camera is mounted at the end of a long track, at the opposite
end of which a piece of flat artwork is masked to reveal only a narrow
horizontal slit. As the camera moves forward very slowly, a computer coordinates
the motion of the slit up or down on the artwork. The result is a drawn-out
image of the artwork, stretched in perspective by the camera's approach.
Computers are also responsible for the many forms of motion-control used to
photograph space battles at Lucasfilm and elsewhere. Signals from a camera mount
are fed into a computer, which memorizes the camera positions and can then
control the camera for repeated passes. Different models, mattes and other
special effects elements can be added with great precision.
Computers are even involved in stop-motion puppet animation at Industrial Light
and Magic. The "Go-Motion" computerized system was used in DRAGONSLAYER to
memorize the motions of an armatured miniature dragon as it was manually "walked
through" its sequences.
All these elaborations--from slit-scan to Go-Motion puppet animation--are likely
to become passe, before the end of the century. Whatever the risks, Digital
Productions is obviously where the field is moving. But computers have one major
hurdle to leap before they dominate. Character animation--whether it be the
fluid motions of a Disney cel-animated deer, or a human being--is still very
difficult for computers. Computers are happiest when dealing with shapes defined
by simple mathematics--planes in perspective, spheres, cones, polygons and
polyhedrons. Humans (not to mention Bambi or dragons) are not composed of these
objects, at least not at first glance. Living characters are lumpy, bumpy and in
constant motion--all parts of them. Muscles shift beneath skin and skeletal
angles change. Facial expression is a nightmare of complexity, with hundreds of
muscles providing a bewildering variety of shapes--all of them familiar to the
viewer, and therefore difficult to fake convincingly.
For the artist, years of study are required to convincingly replicate human and
animal shapes. The human mind is enormously more complicated than any modern
computer, with millions of "algorithms" all smoothly blending in unconscious
processes. How can a computer hope to match the work of a skilled cartoon
animator, much less the reality of a human being?
Tim Heidmann, at R&B EFX in Glendale, believes character animation is the
stumbling block of computer graphics. "When you think of all the expertise
required to get a Disney- type character on film--including the distortion of
reality, stretching characters to add life, exaggerating expressions--the
Page 5
Bear, Greg - The Machineries of Joy.txt
problem seems insurmountable." Heidmann does computer graphics for R&B EFX using
a much smaller Hewlett-Packard business computer. The HP manipulates wireframe
images which are then photographed and enhanced by hand in R&B's own small
animation studio. The entire system cost under $25,000, "What computers do
best," he explains, "is what human animators do with the most
difficulty--changing perspective, drawing geometric shapes. And what humans do
best is most difficult for computers--especially a small system like ours:
coloring, shading, characters." R&B combines the two with ingenuity instead of
massive number- crunching.
Digital Productions is hard at work using both ingenuity and brute computing
power to overcome the difficulties of animating characters in a computer. Most
; of this work is under tight wraps of security, but it appears they are building
up human and human-like figures by creating "intelligent shapes" which will
mimic muscles on fixed skeletal frames. These "intelligent shapes" will be
programmed to interact with other shapes--other muscles--around a skeleton,
within the constraints of skin.
Motion studies of animals and humans are programmed into their machines to give
them parameters within which to work. Ron Cobb explains: "A computer doesn't
know where to stop. If you have a character's arm swinging, the arm in the
machine isn't real. It doesn't have an elbow or a shoulder to stop it. It just
keeps swinging in a circle until you tell it what the limits are. Then it has
the limits in memory, but you have to be very specific, very careful."
The computer cannot intuit anything. It is literal. Everything must be described
in detail. Consequently, the computing capacity and time required to control
these figures will be enormous--at first. But the cost of the early stages in
labor and money can be compared to research and development costs in any
industry. The initial outlay is always greater than the cost of later work.
One small hint of the coming revolution is provided by the locations of two
major companies relying on computer graphics. Cranston-Csuri, founded by pioneer
computer artist Charles A. Csuri, is located in Columbus, Ohio. Computer
Creations takes pride in being based in South Bend, Indiana--far from the
advertising capitols of New York and Los Angeles. Electronics can deliver
messages and products around the world; in the future, location will be less and
less important.
Size will also become less important. With computers, a commercial studio can
begin operations with only a handful of creative people. Pacific Data Images, in
Sunnyvale, California, has only four employees, yet has already landed major
advertising and promotional contracts. With initial costs of less than a million
dollars, entrepreneurs like PDI's Carl Rosendahl are already taking advantage of
the built-in flexibility of the computer. Costs are dropping, and software is
improving, albeit more slowly than hardware. Within ten years, the big
advertising companies will be surrounded by smaller, tougher firms with equal
capabilities. The bottom line will then be not money, but creativity. There is
no lack of creativity. The computer images and motion pictures produced by
artists around the world are dizzying in variety and quantity. California's
David Em is well known for his architectural fantasies and abstractions. Paul
Allen Newell has animated M.C. Escher-inspired tesselated designs that transform
with enchanting smoothness and precision.
Nancy Burson of New York (profiled in OMNI, "The Arts," June 1983) uses
computers to digitally combine photographic images of people and animals. She
was responsible for the portrait of Big Brother commissioned for CBS's tribute
to Orwell's 1984. By digitizing and melding the portraits of the twentieth
century's worst tyrants, she came up with a hauntingly familiar, somehow
benevolent and yet very unsettling hybrid. Much more charming is her mix of
woman and cat.
Em, Burson and Newell highlight the successes and problems of presenting
computer graphics on the printed page. Em's and Burson's images are static,
suitable for magazine reproduction, but the charm of Newell's work lies in
motion.
Even more difficult to convey is the wonder of a live computer art performance,
where performer and audience are one. Ed Tannenbaum of Raster Master in San
Francisco has installed a performance art center in his city's public-access
science center, Exploratorium. A video camera photographs people in a room as
they move about and then feeds their images to a computer. The result is
Page 6
Bear, Greg - The Machineries of Joy.txt
projected in real-time (that is, live) on a large screen, allowing infinite
varieties of human-machine artwork. Children can dance and paint with their
bodies, becoming their own kaleidoscopes.
Educators inevitably become more involved with computer graphics as classroom
computers proliferate. Simple graphics programs can teach even very young
children how to work (and play) with computers. Today's youngsters will find
computers and computer art a part of their lives. This is where the revolution
truly becomes powerful.
In one or two decades, at the present rate of progress, computers cheap enough
for home use will be capable of graphics even more sophisticated than those
being produced by today's major studios. Graphics buffs will be creating,
trading and selling programs to generate different kinds of images--including
images of realistic characters.
Eventually, perhaps by the end of this century, a kind of visual typewriter will
be possible. Any scene the programmer/artist/writer can imagine, will be brought
to life using computer animation. As software and hardware advance and become
cheaper, and as information and image networks expand, virtually anybody can
become a Cecil B. De Mille. The major requirements will be time and talent--not
money.
The greatest handicap to cinema at the moment is the dominance of accounting
over creativity. Faced with budgets of tens of millions of dollars, studio
executives are justifiably concerned that their products should appeal to large
numbers of people. The result is often pabulum. Primary creativity is endlessly
ignored or second-guessed.
Commercial television networks are even more handicapped; to satisfy
advertisers, incredible numbers of people must tune in to their programs. Few
artists or writers have ever made anything worthwhile by pandering to the lowest
common denominator, yet this is the current state of most of network television.
The printed word allows more freedom. A pencil and a piece of paper are all that
is required for expression in print. The production of a book is measured in
tens of thousands of dollars for an average press run, not millions.
Publishing--for the moment--still allows a great many writers to create personal
works. A writer can establish a reputation with only a few hundred or a few
thousand steady readers.
Yet only ten to twenty percent of Americans regularly read books. Newspapers and
magazines fare better--but less than half of all Americans receive any of their
information from the printed word. What we have is a colossal failure of a
communications medium--print--to reach the masses.
For many people, print is difficult to assimilate. It has many uses and
advantages, but often it cannot convey information as quickly and efficiently as
other media.
The dilemma is clear. Print offers diversity and individual expression--as well
as the active participation of the reader, in imagining and fleshing out what
the words convey--but cannot reach as many people as television or motion
pictures.
Television and motion pictures appeal to the masses, but more often than not
spoon-feed pabulum to a barely conscious viewer.
By combining both print and vision, computers will break the money
monopoly and
allow many more people to work with "pictorial narratives," a catch-all phrase
for the multitude of art forms which will inevitably develop.
Robert Abel sees a future society with individuals becoming more and more
isolated, physically, as the electronics revolution allows them to work at home.
With increasingly sophisticated entertainment forms, there will be less need to
leave home for recreation. With more leisure time, the public will demand more
entertainment. And with more artists able to produce complicated pictorial
narratives, the demand could well be met with an explosion of creativity--if the
audience isn't already conditioned to textureless drivel. If it isn't too late
even now...
Take a deep breath.
We're going to enter a possible future, and it will take some effort to get used
to it.
Page 7
Bear, Greg - The Machineries of Joy.txt
You're on a street. A woman approaches you. She appears to be wearing a jungle.
You stare in amazement as she passes; to a distance of about six inches, all
around her, you can see gnarled trees, vines and creepers, exotic birds, even a
leopard lying in wait.
She walks along a wall and the building suddenly smiles at her--the entire wall
one massive pair of lips in three dimensions. "Good morning, Miss Andrews," it
says. "How may we serve you today? Shopping for apparel, or just out for a
stroll?" AdWalls are formal and slightly stodgy by design. Virtually everyone is
known, on sight, by ad companies who use computers to target not just groups of
consumers but individuals.
The woman pays no attention and continues on. The smile disintegrates into a
flight of wildly colored butterflies as you approach.
"Distinguished sir," the AdWall says. Butterflies flitter around you. "I don't
have your name in memory at this moment. How may Freepic serve you today?"
You mumble something about wanting to find a computer store.
"Chips'n'discs, the city's oldest computer store, lies but two blocks away." A
map appears in front of your face, then transforms into a speeded-up visual
tour. You see yourself walking two blocks south, turning left, and entering the
store. The image ends with a large-scale projection of the storefront. Symbols
conveying hours of business, product lines available, and even clerk's faces are