DMO: Okay, last question. What is the next "Big" thing for the animation industry?
Joe:
CG characters need to become better actors. I don't think it's as simple
as saying we need better animators, I think the software bogs the animators
down a little too heavily with details. I still think AI will play a
role in this; motion capture (in my estimation) is a pointless exercise
(for features, great for games).
Mark: Directed Characters, models with intelligence - behavioral control of animation, is my first answer. The real answer is making this technology that we have developed over the past 17 years truly intuitive, easy to manipulate, and approachable. The learning curve is still perilously steep - for us as an industry to grow any larger, we will have to pay attention to the coming class of young animators that don't have the years of growing up with innovation like we did - they are forced to learn it all, quickly, so that they can get into the food chain - unfortunately it is not that easy. Yet.
Dave: The
next big thing? Well, you'll have to wait and see what Discreet brings
to the table… ;-)
But the next big hurdle to overcome is education of the growing number
of student animators. Project-based education is the key to having new
animators fit into a production pipeline and be at a point where they
help the pipeline rather than having to then be educated on how it actually
works in the real world.
And the next "big" thing technology or process-wise? Well, next year's desktop computers will rock - and from my perspective, we're going to see some pretty crazy levels of interactivity available to artists sooner rather than later… but what I'm waiting for is the Holodeck that's currently under development - let me jack my brain into THAT puppy when it's done!
Rowsby:
That's a good question. Right now, I think it's improved software, doing
better soft dynamics and compositing, etc.
As for trends... Furry things seem to be replacing creatures that were scaled. Was a time, you could only want to hope to pull off a dino in a film. Fur technology has gotten quite good in the last couple years, and there are more examples of fully CG animals in the movies now. 102 Dalmatians used a lot of them, for instance.
I think there will be more attempts at doing believable humans, since that's the benchmark of our species, but I think it will take a while to fully fool the audience, as they become more educated as well.
Daryl: Not sure there is a big thing left…it's all refinement.
Gregg: We haven't seen it yet... if it's on the radar now, that's not it.
DMO: Thanks for your time and great responses.