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The Art (and Science) of Stop-Motion Animation | Brian McLean | TED

ฟัง/Video/TED Talk/The Art (and Science) of Stop-Motion Animation | Brian McLean | TED

The Art (and Science) of Stop-Motion Animation | Brian McLean | TED

TED Talk
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0:04We spend great effort into trying to capture moments.
0:08Freeze-frame memories,
0:10drawings, paintings, sculptures,
0:13photography and home movies
0:15are all our attempts to remember something after it's gone.
0:19But did you know that your brain and eyes are already hardwired to do this?
0:24I'm not talking about memory.
0:26I'm talking about the fact that your eye continues to see an object
0:30for a split second after that object disappears.
0:35I've been thinking about that fact for over 35 years.
0:42(Video) Hi, I’m Brian McLean, and I’m doing my science fair project on
0:46the principle of persistence of vision.
0:48Many of you are probably wondering what is persistence of vision?
0:52Well, it's really pretty neat.
0:54Your eye is an amazing organ, but it has one little quirk.
0:58It continues to see an object for a 10th of a second
1:02after the object disappears.
1:04Here's an example.
1:05This principle is what makes movies,
1:07cartoons and even TV possible.
1:11Can't believe the sweater still fits.
1:13(Laughter)
1:16Brian McLean: Yep, that was me,
1:1712 years old and going deep into the science of animation.
1:22I didn't want to do my science fair project
1:24on the principle of persistence of vision.
1:27I was forced to.
1:29I wanted to do my science fair project on claymation,
1:32but my dad, he wouldn't let me.
1:34He said, "Brian, this is a science fair.
1:37If you want to do claymation, you have to focus on the science
1:40that makes animation possible."
1:43So I opened up my collection of encyclopedias and I got to work.
1:47It was here that I learned about this strange optical phenomenon
1:50called the principle of persistence of vision.
1:53Of course, our brains play a huge role in this.
1:55It's not just the quirk in the retina that allow us to see film and animation.
1:59Our brains are hardwired to be imaginative,
2:03to take in reality,
2:05in this case a series of still images,
2:07and create something new and innovative
2:09out of what it was given.
2:11But when I was in sixth grade, I wasn't thinking of any of that.
2:14I just loved stop-motion animation.
2:17King Kong, Rudolph the Red-Nose reindeer,
2:20scenes from "Star Wars,"
2:22"Nightmare Before Christmas" and Wallace and Gromit.
2:25I spent my childhood wondering what types of tools these filmmakers use
2:29to create movie magic.
2:31Artists, technicians, cinematographers and animators
2:35were creating groundbreaking visuals
2:37using primitive tools compared to today's standards.
2:40Audiences leaving the theaters
2:41wondering how the heck those geniuses pulled it off.
2:45That was me.
2:46So I went to school to study art.
2:48When I graduated college in 1999,
2:51I barely knew how to write an email.
2:54Computers were not something I was comfortable with, so I resisted.
2:58Like many artists, I bounced from job to job.
3:00My career path was not a straight line.
3:02Eventually, I ended up at a design school
3:05running their model shop.
3:07It was here the trajectory of my life changed.
3:10I was introduced to a 3D printer.
3:13This amazing tool was like science fiction.
3:15It bridged the digital world and the physical worlds together.
3:19And for me, it made the digital world far less intimidating
3:23and more approachable.
3:25So I'd read the instruction manual at night
3:27and teach the students how to use it during the day.
3:31I realized then that creativity isn't just about making things,
3:36it's also about reinventing how we make them.
3:38So a 3D printer isn't as unusual as it was 20 years ago.
3:43But the potential impacts are enormous.
3:46Humans love to work with our hands.
3:49For thousands of years, everything we made was handcrafted and unique.
3:54More recently, we've drifted towards making lots and lots of things.
3:58Now, as we mass produce these objects,
4:00each object needed to be the same by design.
4:04Innovation has built assembly lines and tools
4:07that can pump out thousands of widgets a day,
4:09precise but all the same.
4:12With a 3D printer,
4:13it takes a three-dimensional object
4:15and slices it into hundreds, if not thousands,
4:18of two-dimensional images.
4:21Kind of like a CAT scan.
4:23And then those images are built up layer by layer.
4:26A polyjet printer sprays down liquid resin
4:29and a bright UV light goes and cures that resin.
4:35It’s a lot like your inkjet printer at your house.
4:38Imagine printing the letter A on a piece of paper
4:41and jetting down the A in the exact same spot.
4:43And between each pass of the printer head,
4:45imagine dropping the paper slightly.
4:48Eventually you're going to end up with an extruded A.
4:52Now, just like your inkjet printer at your house,
4:55it doesn't take any longer to print a paragraph of Shakespeare
4:58or a rudimentary sentence.
5:00The detail of what you're printing doesn't necessarily add more time.
5:05We’re so used to the equation:
5:07the more detail,
5:09the more complexity to something, the longer it takes to make.
5:14But with a 3D printer,
5:15you can utilize the speed of a mass-produced object,
5:18but each object can be unique,
5:20have their own bespoke design and personality.
5:24And they were about to have a fundamental impact
5:26on the way that stop-motion movies are made.
5:29(Music)
5:38(Yawns)
5:42Starting in 2006,
5:44working with a small team
5:46at a fledgling animation studio outside of Portland, Oregon,
5:49called LAIKA,
5:50we pioneered the use of using 3D printers for stop-motion animation
5:54to produce replacement animation.
5:57Our novel idea
5:58was to take this 100-year-old technique of replacement animation,
6:02and fuse it with 21st-century 3D printing technology.
6:07We'd harness the power and subtlety of the computer animation,
6:12but instead of rendering out a model like Pixar or Dreamworks would,
6:15we would send face geometry to a 3D printer
6:18and then have it become a physical object
6:20that would snap onto a stop-motion puppet.
6:24"Coraline" was the first film to have 3D-printed faces.
6:28Over the course of the next 18 years and six films,
6:31LAIKA’s continued to pioneer what stop-motion is capable of,
6:35as well as really redefining what's capable
6:38in the 3D printing industry.
6:40(Video)
6:41(Water bubbling)
6:44Character: Awesome.
6:46BM: At first, we started printing faces out of a single material
6:49and we had to hand-paint things.
6:51But then for our next few films, we started using color printing.
6:56Now, color printing was different
6:57than the resin printing we'd used before.
7:01Here, colored glue is sprayed down onto white powder.
7:06Now, the science behind this printer is the absorption rate
7:09between the liquid and the dry powder.
7:13Together, they came together to create the geometry as well as the mixed color.
7:17Now the problem is we live in Portland, Oregon.
7:20I don't know if you guys noticed, but it tends to rain a little bit here.
7:24So what that means if we printed a face in the summer
7:27and that exact same face in the winter,
7:30they would come out different sizes and different colors
7:33because of the humidity differences.
7:35But it was the only color printer on the market.
7:37So for years we made do.
7:40Now we'd also design and engineer the entire head in the computer.
7:44Computer modelers wore many hats.
7:46They were first the sculptor
7:47that was sculpting the outside of the face,
7:50and then they would switch gears and become the engineer
7:52to engineer all the inner components.
7:55We refer to these as very fancy Mr. Potato Heads.
7:58(Laughter)
8:00Now, starting in 2016,
8:03something really exciting happened in the 3D printing world.
8:06I don't know if any of you guys heard,
8:08but man, us 3D printing nerds were stoked.
8:11Are you ready for this?
8:13Voxel printing.
8:15You've all heard -- thanks.
8:17(Laughter)
8:19You've all heard of pixels, right?
8:21The little 2D dots that make up 2D imagery.
8:25Well, a voxel is basically a three-dimensional pixel.
8:28A voxel is tiny.
8:29There's something like 338 million voxels in a cubic inch.
8:35So unlike the inkjet printing we'd used before
8:39that were based on decades of 2D inkjet technology,
8:42where colors can overlap to mix color,
8:45voxels cannot mix.
8:47Each voxel has to occupy its own 3D space.
8:52The printer jets down distinct voxels of cyan, yellow, magenta,
8:57black, white, and clear resin
8:59layer by layer in different patterns.
9:02Now, because we're printing a three-dimensional object,
9:06the shape of that object,
9:07and the way that light hits the surface and is either reflected off
9:11or absorbed in,
9:12affects the colors our eyes see.
9:15So what that means is the pattern of voxels of magenta and yellow
9:19to print an orange sphere
9:22are different than that of an orange cube.
9:26If you were to take one of our faces
9:28and look at it under an electron microscope,
9:30you would not see smooth mixed color,
9:33but instead millions and millions of distinct voxels.
9:37It's a lot like a pointillist painting.
9:39If you stand back far enough,
9:41it appears as though the colors are mixed.
9:43But when you get close to the canvas, you can see the individual colors.
9:48This was groundbreaking in the 3D-printing world.
9:51Not only could you create sophisticated color parts,
9:54but you could start to control the interior as well.
9:57Remember, there are voxels throughout the entire volume,
10:00not just on the surface.
10:02By leveraging visual effects software packages typically used
10:05in big-budget movies to render explosions, tornadoes,
10:09or raging oceans,
10:11LAIKA has been taking super-dense point cloud data
10:14and transferring them into 3D printed voxels
10:17and being able to precisely control voxels in a 3D space.
10:21We're at the tip of the innovation sphere in this area.
10:24We can take hard materials and soft materials
10:27and combine them on a voxel level,
10:29producing a brand new material with unique properties in the process.
10:34Anyone wondering what this is over here,
10:36this ominous object under the black cloth?
10:40Well, remember how a 3D object is built up out of layers?
10:45Well, it turns out you can take the CAT scan data,
10:48and you can 3D print a perfect replica of a patient's body part.
10:52By taking voxels, you can create materials
10:55that are like bone, tissue,
10:57muscle veins, and skin.
11:00A surgeon can take real patient data
11:04and 3D print a perfect replica of a patient's head
11:07with the exact placement of their tumor,
11:10and then do a practice operation removing that tumor.
11:14(Applause)
11:22LAIKA’s very own Rob Ducey,
11:24who was part of that original team in 2006,
11:28has helped write a research paper,
11:30along with Nick Jacobson
11:32and other researchers in the medical field on this very subject.
11:35It's amazing to see LAIKA Animation Studios,
11:38alongside other prestigious medical researchers,
11:42as the one pioneering the use of voxel printing in the medical field.
11:48But we're like any other user in the 3D-printing world.
11:51Yes, we've won a scientific and technical Oscar
11:53for pioneering the use of 3D printing in stop-motion animation,
11:57but most other users are creating prototypes.
12:01We’re using a 3D printer as a creative expression.
12:04In a way, bringing still objects to life.
12:07Each face we print is unique.
12:09Each one is a work of art that's hand-finished by artists.
12:13For our latest film, "Missing Link,"
12:15we printed over 106,000 unique faces.
12:19We have a face library run by face librarians
12:23who catalog and archive each individual expression.
12:28We've also won a Guinness Book of World Records
12:31for the most number of 3D-printed faces in a stop-motion animated film.
12:35(Laughter)
12:36I don't think anyone else is competing in that category,
12:39but it's still pretty cool.
12:41(Laughter)
12:42So the geniuses at LAIKA have been trying to figure out a way,
12:45in real time,
12:47that I could demonstrate how we use 3D printers for replacement animation.
12:51You see, stop-motion animation is an extremely slow process.
12:56The average animator, working 40 hours a week,
13:00can produce three to four seconds of footage.
13:04I would be up on this stage for weeks trying to animate something for you guys,
13:08and if any of you stuck around that long, you'd be disappointed
13:11because I'm not an animator
13:13and it wouldn't look very good.
13:14(Laughter)
13:16So at first we thought about building one of these.
13:19This is called a zoetrope.
13:21It was invented before film cameras existed
13:23as a way to see still images come to life.
13:26We thought about dragging one of these out here
13:28and having me spin it like crazy,
13:30but the problem with this design is all the beautiful artwork is hidden
13:34behind those large cylindrical walls.
13:36So instead,
13:38we designed, engineered and built something specific for this TEDx stage.
13:44(Applause)
13:50So this is Norman.
13:52He's one of our typical stop-motion puppets.
13:56Norman is about ten inches tall.
13:59He's got a metal armature.
14:01Animators will move the puppet,
14:03and they will also remove his face.
14:06This is one of those 3D-printed faces.
14:08There are magnets on the back,
14:10and the magnets snap the face into position.
14:14So when an animator goes out to set,
14:16they go out with their little character, the little puppet,
14:18but they also go out with a box of faces.
14:22We're delivering 24 faces for every second of footage.
14:27This represents three seconds of Norman animation.
14:33Think about this contraption,
14:36this camera as your eyeball
14:38and this flywheel mechanism as your eyelid.
14:42As I move slowly, it's like you're blinking slowly.
14:47As I move backwards --
14:50I can move forward and backwards.
14:52Now, you can also kind of probably hear some sounds, right?
14:55Those are broken up sounds of words.
14:58As I move faster, it's like you're blinking faster, right?
15:02Now, let me get this set up.
15:04Once I hit the magical speed of 24 frames a second,
15:10your mind's imagination will fill in the gaps,
15:13and you'll be left with the beautiful and creative world
15:16coming to life before your eyes.
15:19Alright, so this is 16 feet long,
15:21and I've got to get over there in about two seconds.
15:24I've had to get in shape for this part.
15:26They didn't tell me that when they built this thing.
15:29Are you guys ready?
15:31Audience: Yes!
15:32(Cheers)
15:33Norman: Hi. Nice to see you guys.
15:37(Applause and cheers)
15:47BM: Alright, one more time.
15:49That was pretty cool.
15:50Faster, slower?
15:51Audience: Faster!
15:53BM: Oh, I was afraid you were going to say that.
15:55Alright, can we dim the lights?
15:57Here we go.
15:59Norman: Hi. Nice to see you guys.
16:03(Cheers and applause)
16:12BM: That kid you saw before in the video
16:14loves stop-motion animation.
16:17That led me down a path of first discovery,
16:20then resisting something I feared: technology.
16:23The artistic drive of the individuals that I have an honor of working alongside
16:28have built an environment
16:29where we get to bring imagination into reality
16:32and forge the path forward of not only inventing new things,
16:36but using creativity to reinvent how we make them.
16:41(Video) Mr Pickles: Mmm.
16:43Mr Trout: Just keeping the streets clean.
16:45Mr Pickles: Free from evil.
16:46Mr Trout: Yeah.
16:47Mr Pickles: You ever think about the universe, Mr Trout?
16:51What if our world is just like a tiny speck.
16:55Mr Trout: A tiny little speck.
16:56Mr Pickles: And there are giants looking down on us?
16:59Mr Trout: And every time we move --
17:01Mr Pickles: It's actually them moving us.
17:04Mr Trout: Seems a bit tedious.
17:06Mr Pickles: Like that, just there, me blinking.
17:08That would have taken them a day.
17:10Mr Trout: Me moving my arm, 500 men.
17:13Mr Pickles: I mean, none of them are going home.
17:15They're having to do this bit.
17:17And now this bit.
17:18And this bit.
17:21I mean, this should stop.
17:25BM: Thank you very much.
17:26(Applause)