Pub6093 CS4FN Issue 11_v4_DL786 HR Briefing 3.

qxd 08/06/2010 16:59 Page 1

ISSN 1754-3657 (Print)

ISSN 1754-3665 (Online)

Computer Science for Fun Issue 11

Computer
animation
proudly
presents…

Films!
Films!
Fights!
Fights!
Filth!
Filth!
Fireflies!
Fireflies!
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Welcome to cs4fn

Computer animation is
everywhere. The latest
innovations play on cinema
100,000 frames
screens worldwide. Better
technology is making computer Ben Stephenson of the generated. Artists manipulate the model,
changing things like the position of the
animations more and more University of Calgary gives character’s limbs (so that the character
realistic, and now computers us a guide to the basics of can be made to walk, run or jump) and
can simulate everything from animation. aspects of the character’s face (so that
it can talk and express emotions).
huge jungles to tiny hairs. In Furthermore, since the models only
Animation isn’t a new field – artists
this issue we’re going to turn have been creating animations for over a
exist as data on a computer they aren’t
confined by the physical realities that
our focus behind the scenes, hundred years. While the technology used
people are. As such, artists also have
to tell you how those to create those animations has changed

The
the flexibility to do physically impossible
immensely during that time, modern
animations get made. computer generated imagery continues to
things such as shrinking, bending or
stretching parts of a character. Remember
employ some of the same techniques that

animation
You might not realise, though, that the Elastigirl, the stretchy mum in The
were used to create the first animations.
connection between animation, computation Incredibles? All made of maths.
and technology goes way beyond films. In this
The hard work
issue you’ll find out how computer animation Once all of the mathematical models have

issue
of hand drawing
fits in with sailboats, light shows, wallpaper been positioned correctly, the computer is
During the early days of animation,
and bar fights. Plus we’ll reveal why a used to generate an image of the models
moving images were created by rapidly
mechanical duck was a showstopping piece from a specific angle. Just like the hand-
showing a sequence of still images. Each
of early computer science. Perfect for a topic drawn frames of the past, this computer-
still image, referred to as a frame, was
that can take you anywhere your imagination generated image becomes one frame in
hand drawn by an artist. By making small
leads. the movie. Then the mathematical models
changes in each new frame, characters
representing the characters are modified
were created that appeared to be walking,
slightly, and another frame is generated.
jumping and talking, or doing anything
This process is repeated to generate all
else that the artist could imagine.
of the frames for the movie.

Open your In order for the animation to appear

smooth, the frames need to be displayed The more things

mind with these quickly – typically at around 24 frames change

You might have noticed that, despite
each second. This means that one minute
the use of computers, the process of

animation facts!
of animation required artists to draw over
generating and displaying the animation
1400 frames. That means that the first
remains remarkably similar to the process
feature-length animated film, a 70-minute
used to create the first animations over
Argentinean film called The Apostle,
100 years ago. The animation still
required over 100,000 frames to create.
consists of a collection of still images.
Creating a 90-minute movie, the typical
The illusion of smooth movement is still
In 1979 some computing students feature length for most animated films,
achieved by rapidly displaying a sequence
at the New York Institute of Technology took almost 130,000 hand drawn frames.
of frames, where each frame in the
began making The Works, which would Despite these daunting numbers, many
sequence differs only slightly from the
have been the world's first film made entirely feature length animated movies have
previous one. The key difference is simply
from computer animation. However, script and been created using hand-drawn images.
that now the images may be generated
technology problems forced the project to be
by a computer, saving artists from hand
abandoned and the distinction eventually went to Drawing with data
drawing over 100,000 copies of the same
Toy Story, more than fifteen years later. Today, many animations are created
character. Hand-drawn animation is still
with the assistance of computers.
alive in the films of Studio Ghibli and
Some frames of a typical Pixar film are so complex it Rather than simply drawing thousands of
Disney’s recent The Princess and the
can take up to ninety hours for a single computer to translate images of one character using a computer
Frog, but we wonder if the animators of
all the information held in them to a finished image. drawing program, artists can create one
hand-drawn features might be tempted to
mathematical model to represent that
A 5,200-year old bowl found in Iran features an early precursor of look over at their fellow artists who use
character, from which all of his or her
animation. Along the bowl's side are five drawings that, when viewed in a computers and shake an envious fist. A
appearances in individual frames are
sequence, depict a wild goat leaping up to eat leaves off a tree. cramped fist, too, probably.

Character animation students at the California Institute of the Arts use classroom
number A113. The number appears somewhere in every Pixar film, from a car number
plate in Toy Story to a secret computer directive in Wall*E, and a courtroom in Up. Read on to find out how things are changing...

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Automata: the
good, the bad
and the cheaters learn how to make a fake pooing duck
when you started reading this article, but
that mechanical feat is nothing compared
tightrope, and an automaton doing
the famous conjuring trick the cups
and balls. After he became a full time

(and a bit of
to what we’ve got next. magician, one of his most famous effects,
the Marvellous Orange Tree, put an
Check mate automaton at centre stage.
or cheat?

magic too)
In 1769 the naughty Hungarian A Magical Clockwork
Wolfgang von Kempelen took a Orange
chess-playing machine called This amazing stage illusion involved first
‘The Turk’ round the courts of vanishing a spectator’s handkerchief, then
Europe, making a florin or two doing various tricks with a lemon where,
on the way. The Turk was, he said, with each trick, the audience believed the
an automaton that could play a handkerchief would reappear. It never did.
blinding game of chess. It fooled Finally assistants would bring onstage a
many but was eventually exposed small orange tree planted in a box. The
as a hoax. Inside the box, rather orange tree’s branches were bare, until
than a complex chess playing Robert-Houdin magically caused them
Movie animatronics create camshafts, rotary motors, methods clear the tables for visiting politicians. machine, was a real person, to sprout orange blossoms. Then from
for water pumping and so on. He It wasn’t to be: a government official good at playing chess, who the blossoms grew oranges, which the
some breathtaking computer- also described ways to build complex decided his work was "profane", and was actually responsible for magician would pick off and throw into
controlled movie monsters programmable humanoid automata, ordered that the workshop be destroyed. the puppet’s moves above. the audience to prove they were real. The
(see p10), but the history of which had real applications to improving Kempelen did redem last orange from the tree would then split
people’s lives. One of his inventions was Poo! himself though, by open and two butterflies would appear
making things come alive and a hand washing automaton, which stood Undaunted, in 1737 Vaucanson built The inventing one of carrying the spectator’s handkerchief.
move the way you want them by a bowl of water until the lever was Flute Player. This was a life-size figure of the first human The tree and the butterflies were of
pressed. At that point the water drained a shepherd that could play twelve
to stretches way beyond the (using a method similar to today’s different tunes on the pipes, a bit like a
operated speaking course exquisite mechanical clockwork
machines. This automata, programmed by cogs to pull
Hollywood hills. Automata, flushing toilets) and the automaton big, flute playing iPod. The mechanics of proved a real off this amazing trick. Even today
mechanically animated figures refilled the bowl. One of his most the shepherd’s fingers were poor though, advance in magicians the world over cherish and
interesting inventions was a boat with four so Vaucanson gave him gloves to cover phonetics, the science of studying human collect automata because of their beauty
and creatures, go way back automatic musicians. This musical group them. His dad must have been proud. speech processes. In fact the Wolfgang and their clever programmable craft.
in history and show just how floated on a lake to entertain guests at In 1738, he presented his flute player to von Kempelen Computing Science History Magicians even recreate the timeless
clever inventors the world over royal parties. His cunning mechanism had the French Académie des Sciences. The Prize was (much) later named in his effects. So it’s perhaps not surprising that
what we would probably think of today as scientists recognised that Vaucanson’s honour. one of the largest collections of historical
can be. The contraptions they a programmable drum machine. A series design was more than a toy – it was and up-to-date magic automata belongs to
built were the forerunners of of rotating pegs would bump into small programmable, and therefore Stage struck like a magician and pioneer computer games
today’s computers, and if these levers that would then operate the drums. a revolutionary step towards clockwork developer – Richard Garriott from Austin,
Moving the pegs around would make the mechanically created life-like The use of automata in magicians’ stage Texas. (See issues 8 and 9 for more of
inventors were at work now, drummer play different drum patterns. machines. He went on to create a shows came to be popular in the 19th Richard’s adventures.)
they would be computer tambourine player and, famously, century. There is something exciting
a mechanical duck. Vaucanson
scientists. So let’s have a Dinner, music and a
even built the world’s first
about watching mechanical people Today learns from
duck do real human things, sometimes even yesterday
look at some of the more In the 1700s automata had become flexible rubber tube for the performing magic tricks. The famous Today’s robotics researchers owe a lot to
interesting and influential very popular with the rich and famous. duck, which allowed it to eat magician Robert-Houdin was a popular those past pioneers who built automata.
They were must-have toys to impress and poo. He did cheat a bit user of automata. The story goes that as a From developing fundamental principles
characters in automata history. your friends. Frenchman Jacques de on the effects: what went kid he saved up for books on clockmaking on how lifelike movement can be
Vaucanson, the tenth child of a poor glove into the duck wasn’t the so he could get a decent job, and by achieved, to entertaining us in magical
Boat the beat maker, hit the scene and became the bad same as what came out mistake he was given books on magic. ways, to helping us begin to understand
The Islamic inventor Al-Jazari really boy of the automaton makers. Through his of the duck. Vaucanson From there he never looked back. While what’s socially acceptable in robot design,
moved things forward in 1206 when he early ingenuity he managed to get funds had stashed a hidden he worked in a clock shop he also we’ve learnt more than you’d expect from
wrote his book the “Book of Knowledge of to set up a workshop in Lyon where he compartment of ‘pre digested developed automata including a a history that includes chess-playing
Ingenious Mechanical Devices”. In this he set about building androids, human-like food’ in the duck to make the gross-out singing bird, a dancer on a hoaxes and pooing ducks.
described many of the mechanical devices automata, which would serve dinner and joke work. You might not have expected to
and designs we still use today, like
Automaton image courtesy Richard Garriott

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Getting there in
One of the most common ways to create A jungle
animated characters is with motion capture.
The movements of real actors are applied to
with
character
much less time
animated characters, making it possible, for
example, for Andy Serkis to play the tiny,
What does the army of orcs in
thin Gollum in Lord of the Rings, followed
The Lord of the Rings have in
by the enormous King Kong in Peter

with a little
common with the lush jungle in
Jackson’s remake.
Avatar? It’s hard to imagine that
the murderous hordes of Mordor
In order to capture the data from Andy’s
would share anything with the

soap or slime
movement, he wore a suit made from Lycra
beautiful greenery of James
and decorated with markers at important
Cameron’s imagination, but
spots on his body. Computers track the
it’s a pretty big thing to have
movement of the markers and translate that
in common. In fact, it’s
into an animated character. The next step
massive. Go to the
in research, though, is how to capture
magazine+ section
people’s movement without needing to
We all like to get around, but what’s the blobs of putty as spacers between the of our website,
put them in special suits. The suits are
best way? Being able to find the shortest Selling stuff in sheets at the positions of the stations www.cs4fn.org,
expensive and time-consuming, not to
route between a group of train stations, or Germany’s 15 largest given by your mini map. Now stand back to find out more!
mention revealing. Not everyone wants
the least amount of petrol needed to visit cities means you need and have a look. What you have created to wear a Lycra uniform to work.
twenty different towns are important, but to find the shortest is a mini model of the world. All you need
often difficult, questions to answer. The among about 43,000 is to find the shortest distance joining all Fortunately, a group at Dundee University is
classic Travelling Salesman problem – million possible the stations, solving that rather tricky helping to relegate the form-fitting motion
find the shortest route to visit a set of routes computational problem. capture suit to the past. They’ve developed
towns, visiting each only once – has kept a system for getting the actor’s motion data
many a mathematician and computer Physical computing And the answer is? straight from a video of their performance.
scientist up late at night. The problem for hard problems Pour plenty of washing up liquid into The key to grabbing the data is a
looks simple, but if you try to work out Most of today’s computers use millions the bucket and add water to create a search technique called
a general way to solve it for any large of electronic switches to do their very soapy solution. Froth up that bucket ‘particle swarm optimisation’.
number of towns you’ll just go berserk. It calculations, but what if today’s switches of soapy water and dump the plastic Imagine you’ve got a frame
takes too long to work out the route and aren’t enough? You need a physical sandwich in, swish it around gently and of video with your actor in it.
no one has yet come up with a way to computer. Every molecule and every cell pull it out. In front of you is the perfect To find the body position of
calculate it that doesn’t seem to take in the natural world has rules to follow, solution (pun intended). The soap film your actor, you release a
forever! (See issue 10 for more about so you could think of it as a big computer. left will cling to all the spaces in between swarm of mathematical
this.) The way stuff behaves is like a program your stations, connecting them together. particles into the image.
we have yet to fully understand. Luckily, The clever bit is that due to the physical Within their programming is a
The long way round we know enough to harness bits of that process of surface tension, bubble films way of finding the actor, and rules
It’s believed that the first people who program to answer questions for us. must always take up the least surface on how to follow what their neighbour
started to worry about this were, not area they can to minimise the physical is doing as well. What this means is that,
surprisingly, travelling salesmen. In 1832 One early example of a physical computer forces acting on them. This means that over time, the particles swarm towards the
a travelling salesman’s handbook was solving a tough problem involves a bucket your network of soap bubble tracks are image of your actor in the frame of video,
produced, giving useful tips and preferred of soapy water. You can try it yourself. as short as they can possibly be. The soap like bees to a flower.
routes around towns in Germany and has effectively solved a problem that the
Switzerland, but what about those selling Computing with a poor old on/off electronic switches find One of the biggest challenges with this of the deep knowledge
stuff in France or Great Britain? There little bit of soap so difficult. You’ve done some clever method of motion capture is something you of algorithms and swarms
was no mathematical method given to You will need: physical computing, so have a break might not think about when you’re using has to be embedded in
discover the best way. Finding this 1. A big bucket and chill. software. It’s very important for the Dundee the software so it can
shortcut to calculating the route is hard 2. Washing up liquid team to make their system easy enough for fine-tune itself to
because the problem is so complex that 3. Water the film crew to use. After all, not many spot any actor, even
the amount of time you need to solve it, 4. Two clear plastic sheets directors are computer scientists too. All when they might
depending on the number of cities, just 5. A small blob of ‘poster adhesive putty’ Capture move in lots of
gets too out of hand. So is there another
way?
(it may be blue and it may tack onto the
wall, we couldn’t say)
that actor! different ways.
Whatever weird
creature Andy Serkis
Start by drawing a map of your stations plays next, the computer
(they could be stations in the real world has to be sure to capture him.
or ones you made up). To find the shortest
route between your train stations take two
transparent plastic sheets and stick them
together, sandwiching small, same-size

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A different kind The virtual Jedi

of airbrushing
A virtual reality animation is giving users
an experience that was previously only sensors attached to the
available a long time ago in a galaxy far, headset and lightsabre
If you’re in a room and the walls look like Scrub up far away. Josh Holtrop, a graduate of check their position in
Chloe says Filter the Filth is designed “to create awareness of the magnetic field and
they’re moving, you might think it’s time things that we never really think about but which are affecting
Calvin College in the USA, has
send that information
constructed a Jedi training environment
for a trip to the hospital. If you’re in a room us every day”. When you’re in a room with her wallpaper, as inspired by the scene from Star Wars in to the computer. As you
with Chloe Albert’s animated wallpaper, long as the air is clean the wall is motionless. When the which Luke Skywalker goes up against move your head and your
though, it means you’re less likely to need sensors begin to detect pollutants, the filters begin to move a hovering droid that shoots laser beams sabre the sensors relay
gently out of the wall, almost like a breeze. But if the VOC at him. Fortunately you don’t have to be their position, and the
the hospital in the future. That’s because levels went up, Chloe explains, “the movement would get view in your goggles
blindfolded in the virtual reality version,
she’s designed some ingenious animated more erratic and quicker, which would be like a visual gauge like Luke was in the movie. All you need changes. What’s more,
wallpaper with built-in air filters, which of what’s happening invisibly in your air”. As the filters did to wear over your eyes is a pair of goggles each of your eyes receives
their work and brought the pollution levels down, their a slightly different view, just
respond to pollution in the air around you with screens inside.
like in real life, creating the
movement would die down and eventually stop.
and help clean it up. When you’re wearing the goggles, it’s feeling of a 3D environment.
Sense and react as though you’re encased in a cylinder
Her project is called Filter the Filth, and she made it as a Chloe installed a prototype version of her wallpaper at the Once the sensors have gathered
with rough metal walls. A bumpy metallic
master’s student in Textile Futures at Central Saint Martins final show for her design course, where, she says, “people all the information, it’s up to the
sphere floats in front of the glowing blade
College of Art and Design in London. It starts with two were very receptive of the idea”. Did people find it surprising software to create and animate the
of your lightsabre – which in the real
wallpaper patterns – one with clouds of pink, green and to be told that they were potentially breathing unsafe air? “I virtual 3D world – from the big cylinder
world is a toy version with a blue light
blue, and another that mixes big slabs of grey with gold tree think they were a bit freaked out,” says Chloe, “but I think you’re standing in to the tiny spheres
and whooshy sound effects. The sphere in
branches. The colours are nice, but they’re not what sets generally they really liked the idea”. The wallpaper is the droid shoots at you. It controls the
your goggles spins around, shooting yellow
Chloe’s wallpaper apart. Her design calls for sensors that take designed to alert people to danger, but not in a scary way. behaviour of the droid, too, making it
pellets of light toward you as it does. It’s atoms together, a bond forms between
a reading of the pollution inside a room. When the readings “It was designed with fun in mind as well as purpose,” move semi-randomly and become a
up to you to bring your weapon around them. Two new atoms then appear, which
get above a certain level, motorised filters poke out of the says Chloe. But the purpose – raising awareness of our tougher opponent as you go through
and deflect each menacing pulse away the user can then add to the existing
wallpaper pattern to clean the air, then retract back into the surroundings and invisible dangers – is a good one. No one the levels. Most users seem to get the
before it hits you. If you do, you get a structure. By doing this over and over,
wall when they’re done. that Chloe spoke to at her show had heard of VOCs before. hang of it pretty quickly. "Most of them
point. If you don’t, your vision fills with you can build virtual molecules.
yellow and you lose one of your ten lives. take about two minutes to get used to
Invisible danger Eventually, the researchers at Calvin
The future the environment. Once they start using it,
At the business end of the wallpaper, the sensors are sniffing College hope to build a system that
Filter the Filth was good enough to win Chloe the Apple Digital Tracking movement they get better at the game. Everybody's
out volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are chemicals lets you ‘zoom in’ to the molecule to
Innovation award at her show. To take her project into the real with magnetism bad at it the first sixty seconds," Josh
that are often found in aerosols, cleaning products and the point where you could actually
world, she’ll need to partner with an engineer to see how to It takes more than just some fancy says. "My mother actually has the highest
building materials. Not all VOCs are bad – in fact almost walk round inside it.
turn Filter the Filth into a product. She imagines it could be goggles to make the Jedi trainer work, score for a beginner."
anything you can smell is technically a VOC – but certain installed in homes, hotels, hospitals – any building where though. A computer tracks your movement The team have also just bought
ones can damage your health. They can cause complaints having clean air is especially important. But already she’s The atom smasher
in order to translate your position into the themselves a shiny new magnetic field
ranging from headaches to liver disease. Modern buildings succeeded in bringing a bit of smart technology and 3D Much as every Jedi apprentice needs
game. How does it know where you are? generator, one that lets them generate
can be particularly rife with VOCs, as they’re kept really movement to traditional wallpaper. So in the future, if you to find a way to train, there are uses for
Because the whole time you’re playing a field that’s almost nine metres across.
airtight to ensure heat doesn’t escape. Only problem is, walk into a room where the walls are moving you won’t have Josh’s system beyond gaming too. Another
the game, you’re also wandering through That’s big enough for two scientists to
neither do the chemicals. to worry you’re hallucinating. You’ll know that your wallpaper student, Jess Vriesma, wrote a program
a magnetic field. The field comes from walk round the same molecule together.
is hard at work cleaning the nasty stuff out of your air. a small box on the ceiling above you and for the system that he calls the “atom
Or, of course, two budding Jedi to spar
stretches for about a metre and a half in smasher”. Instead of a helmet and
against one another.
all directions. Sixty times every second, lightsabre, each sensor represents a
virtual atom. If the user guides the two

The 10p napkin scam

You take a napkin and fold it into a perfect square. Pop it on
the table and dump a load of 10p pieces on the table beside it.
Challenge your friend to a dynamic game of wits and cunning.
One by one each of you will place a 10p onto the napkin. The first
person who can’t place their 10p piece on the napkin without going
over the edge loses. Simple game, simple rules, and a simple way to
always win this animated game of strategy. Find out how in the
Images courtesy of Chloe Albert magazine + section of www.cs4fn.org

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The art of
animatronics

How do you create a full-sized dinosaur Growing up More than just the Does my bum look big
without a hint of computer graphics? Here’s where the model goes from the bare bones in this?
The answer is through the amazing art small to the large. The mini maquette is Skin done, now the technology really Putting the skin over the animatronics
of animatronics. Animatronics is a field laser scanned, capturing all the detail of kicks in. The animatronics skeleton inside isn’t always easy. As each of the sections
of special effects that uses sculpture, the model sculpture and feeding it into the creature is where all the smart stuff of foam rubber skin are added to the
mechanics, electronics and computer a computer aided design (CAD) software happens. It’s clever and custom made. It skeleton the construction team needs
engineering to create life-size moving package. From this data whirring, has to be – it’s the part that moves the to check that the new bit of skin added
creatures for films and theme parks. computer-controlled blades automatically outside skin to make it look believable. doesn’t look too stretched, or too baggy
They’re like puppets only much bigger, sculpt a full sized model using blocks of Attached around the main skeleton with lots of unsightly flabby folds. One
much smarter and much scarier. While polyurethane foam. The blocks are frame, which is often built with strong- cunning way to help the image conscious
today many film creatures are created assembled like a big 3D jigsaw, and but-light graphite and looks a lot like creature is to use elastic bungee cords
using computer graphics in post sculptors add the extra fine detail. Now the real creature’s skeleton, we find to connect areas of the skin to the frame.
production, some filmmakers prefer it’s big, it’s real and it’s ready for its the actuators. These are little clumps of These act like tendons under the skin,
to have their creatures ‘live’ on the set screen test! clever computing that move the pieces stretching and bunching when it moves,
so the human actors have a real co-star around to make the creature look alive. and making the whole effect more relaxed
to act along with. In a theme park, Pouring in the skin Computer science abounds here, along and natural. Once the
animatronics can put a weird creature, If the full-sized version shows that star with other state-of-the-art techniques. skin is on, it’s a
like a zombie pirate or a great white quality, it gets molded. Using the life-size Mechanical and electronic engineering quick paint job
shark, right there and in your face. model a set of moulds are made to allow combined with computer-controlled and the creature
Famous movie animatronics stars the outside skin of the creature to be motors are used to move small expressive is ready for its
include the shark in Jaws, the gigantic created. With the outside finished, now bits like eyes, or to control the more close up. Action –
Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park III and you have to think about the insides – heavy-duty hydraulic systems that grrrr -– shriek!
the lovable alien in ET. How are these namely, the skeleton, the mechanics of move limbs. The systems may be Computer science
amazing effects created? Let’s get which depend on how the creature will pre-programmed for characteristic takes centre
primeval with some state-of-the-art be expected to move. Using a rough behaviours like blinking or swiping stage.
computer science. shape corresponding to the form of the a claw. In essence the
core skeleton innards, the outer foam animatronics under the skin
On and off the rubber skin can be poured in so that it produce a gigantic remote
drawing board only fills the negative space between the controlled lifelike puppet
An animatronic creature starts out in outside creature shape and in the inside for the director to play
life as a sketch on the drawing board. In skeleton. This reduces the weight of the with.
some cases it’s a new creature-tastic idea skin and allows more believable, flexible
thought up by the designer. In the case of movements.
dinosaurs, the sketches are created with
the help of expert paleontologists. The
sketches are then converted into a scale
model, called a maquette. This scale
model allows the designers to examine
and correct their design plans before the
big money is spent bringing the creature
to full size ‘life’.

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Stirring up
virtual trouble

What would you do if you saw someone stir up a fight. The user and touch the Friendly with Arsenal groupiness – is a factor in determining of the animation might affect whether
getting beaten up? Would you jump in? doesn’t know it, but this is characters, while Scientists are trying to figure out what the likelihood of intervention in violent people intervene. Richard explains that
Call for help? Is it possible you wouldn’t the part the scientists are others try speaking makes the difference between whether emergencies.” If the person feels like they the original experiment featured pretty
do anything? Social scientists have found watching. What does the to the tough guy to people try and help, or decide share a bond, that feeling might basic animations, “and there were
that people don’t always help others, even user do? Will he or she try and calm him to mind their own business. prompt him or her to step complaints about it from several of the
if they realise someone’s in trouble. The intervene? down. Still others One of their theories is in. That’s why one of bystanders – they said the animations
only way to figure out why this happens, try looking around that it can depend on the elements of the were unrealistic.” But Richard’s team
and what makes a difference whether It turns out that almost half the room, to see how much experiment was doesn’t actually know if that changes the
bystanders help someone, is to study do, but most don’t. Eleven whether the barman togetherness the about togetherness. results of the experiment, or, if they do,
situations like it. But how? Scientists out of twenty-five bystanders will catch on or if subject feels with Sometimes when by how much. So they’re going to try
can’t just go around beating people in the experiment so far have there’s someone else the character in the user went into improving the animations and seeing
up to see how others will react. intervened. Some people in the they can get to help. trouble. Richard the virtual pub, the if people react differently.
virtual room reach out to try Many, though, just try explains some friendly character
A team of computer scientists may have and stay out of the way. studies have wore an Arsenal shirt, Helping out
the answer: use virtual reality. The team shown that and sometimes he There are a few good things that could
includes researchers in the UK and Spain, “being a didn’t. The idea is that come out of all this research. For one,
one of whom is Richard Southern at member of if the experimental subject Richard explains, their results could help
Bournemouth University. Richard a particular is an Arsenal supporter, in dangerous situations in the real world
explains that by donning 3D glasses group – they might have a better because “it might benefit the emergency
and stepping into a room with generally chance of stepping in. services to know what to look for on CCTV
animations projected on the cameras, for example”, or finding out
walls and floor, subjects can The unreal world ways to help make it more likely that
test their reactions without The illusion of reality might make bystanders will intervene when something
anyone getting hurt. “While the difference between helping and not unpleasant happens.
people know it’s not helping too. That’s the bit Richard and
real,” Richard says, his group at Bournemouth are particularly Of course one big benefit of this research
“they behave as if it interested in. He explains that people is that with every experiment done in a
is real.” will generally believe the illusion until virtual environment, Richard explains that
they’re given a reason not to – scientists have a chance to confirm that
You say, if the user finds out they virtual experiments get good results. Plus,
lookin’ can walk through another he says, “you can avoid the ethical issues
at me? character. In the bar fight, of exposing people to violence and other
When you step into the some of the users said dangerous situations”. Which means that
illusion, you step into a they didn’t intervene it’s possible to do experiments that
pub. The team has designed an because they didn’t couldn’t have been done without virtual
experiment in which the user is hanging think the virtual reality. And you can rest easy knowing
around in a virtual pub when a character setting would let that there won’t be any wandering gangs
approaches him or her and begins talking them. But even of scientists on the street looking to start
about football. After a short conversation small issues a fight. Not that you were worried about
the character goes away, but soon he gets with the that before, of course.
himself into trouble. Another character realism
goes up to the friendly one and tries to

Character images courtesy Gavin Lewis

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From creepy The virtual

to credible way around
the world
If you saw Up last year, you’ll know that the animation isn’t Using the data from the light scans, the USC team The sailing clipper Hull & Humber is, right now, coming to the end
designed to look completely realistic – you’d never mistake Carl could also build 3D maps of Emily’s face. One was a of a monumental voyage. Since September 2009 it’s been taking
and Russell for real humans. Ultra-realism isn’t exactly Pixar’s low-resolution map that showed her basic bone structure, part in a round-the-world sailing race that has taken it over 35,000
style, fortunately, because it’s still very difficult for CGI animators and another was in such high detail that they could see miles. But at least one version of the Hull & Humber hasn’t gone
to make people look realistic. They usually end up looking creepy the individual pores of Emily’s face. Next, the lab team took anywhere at all. Researchers at the University of Hull have made
instead. photos of Emily with 33 different facial expressions, which a virtual 3D version of the boat, which lives in a special immersive
allowed them to capture the movement of her entire face, environment on their campus. Visitors can put on special goggles
especially the trickiest parts to get right, her eyes and that let them walk round the vessel in virtual reality.
Animated or re-animated?
The problem is the face – people’s facial movements are incredibly mouth.
subtle, and we’re all very good at picking up on them. If anything The 3D model was made by scanning the entire boat with a
is amiss, an animated human looks kind of zombie-ish. That’s Then the team analysed the pictures. With resolution that laser, then turning the geometric data contained in the scan
exactly what went wrong in 2004, when the Tom Hanks film The went down below a millimetre, they could even see how into a virtual copy. Having a digitised version of the Hull & Humber
Polar Express came out. It was meant to be a charming Christmas Emily’s pores got longer and shallower when she stretched comes in handy, as it lets visitors do lots of things they wouldn’t
film, but instead it got a reputation for creepiness – one CNN critic her cheek. They also gathered information about the colour be able to do to the boat in real life, like give it a personalised
said it should have been subtitled ‘The Night of the Living Dead’. of her face at every point, and they even took exact models paint job and sails, and even captain it in a virtual clipper race!
of her teeth! All of that data would be used to create the
What went wrong? Well, the performances in The Polar Express most realistic picture of a moving face they could get. All Want to know how the real Hull & Humber is getting on in its
came from real actors wearing motion-capture suits (Gollum in the that was left was to animate the picture. round-the-world adventure? Follow the links from our magazine +
Lord of the Rings films is the most famous example, but see page section on www.cs4fn.org.
7 for more on motion-capture). The problem came because there Making Emily move
were two crucial bits of the actors where the Polar Express The USC lab team handed their scans over to their partners
animators couldn’t put sensors: the inside of the mouth and the the animators at Image Metrics, and within a few months
eyes. Those areas had to be created from scratch by computer they had made a fully movable model. It was so detailed
animation, and at the time, the technology just wasn’t good enough that, unlike the Polar Express characters,
to get it right. The same CNN critic said that when the characters the digital Emily even had fully modelled,
spoke, their tongues looked “like slabs of meat”. Eww. moveable skin around her eyes. The next
step was for the animators to record a
But there is hope. In 2008 the University of Southern California’s video of the real Emily speaking the lines
Graphics Lab partnered up with an animation company, Image of her monologue. Then they pulled,
Metrics, to try to produce a completely photorealistic animated stretched and shifted the muscles of
face. They were going to try to break through the creepiness Emily’s digital double so that they
barrier. matched the real movement exactly.
In the final video of the monologue, the
animators replaced Emily’s real face with
Right in the face
First they chose an actor – Emily O’Brien, a soap opera star – to the digital version. They did an amazing
deliver a monologue about computer animation. Once they had job: it’s practically impossible to tell the
their actor, they needed to gather all the information they could difference, and many people can’t even
about her. Well, her face anyway. To do this, they put Emily into tell after they watch the video many
what’s called a light stage. It’s a huge spherical rig, with lights all times.
around it. By turning various combinations of lights on and off,
the lab researchers can record how an actor’s face looks under It may not be long until we see
different lighting conditions. They can eliminate the natural realistic digital humans in the
reflection of the skin, so that the team were able to see Emily movies. When we do, it’s
as evenly lit as you could possibly get. entirely possible that animators
will look back to Emily as the
beginning of a new era: the first
time animation left creepy,
zombie-like humans back in the
horror films in which they belong.

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Firefly
Imagine. Imagine sitting with a laptop are often networked together. By sending Actually there is still a slightly tricky With this 'calibration' process done, other side of the stadium and you see the Imagine now controlling lights on roofs
on the bank of a river as it flows through instructions over the network from the problem to overcome. To make the the tough part is out of the way. Now ones there are showing a gigantic image across a city. As planes circle above,
the city centre. Both sides of the river network controller to all the microprocessors, microprocessors as cheap as possible they you just use a 3D drawing program to of the action on the pitch. You are too waiting to land, the passengers looking
are lined with trees decorated with lights. the lights can then be switched individually. all have to be identical. That means there draw pictures in virtual 3D space on your close to see, but that's what yours are out the windows see more than just the
Now imagine all the lights make up a is no way of telling them apart once they computer. The controller can switch on doing too! lights, they see city-sized images as the
giant computer screen that can display Wait a minute though. Aren't computers are strung together. They would all hold the lights in the equivalent places out in city itself welcomes them.
pictures or messages in 3D. And you a bit expensive to be putting them into the same program and all flash the the real world. You could program this in Imagine instead that that you are in a
control them. thousands or even millions of individual same pattern! To get round this each advance or control it interactively – draw concert hall, the audience behind and Think bigger still. Imagine looking out
lights? That's the surprising thing. No! microprocessor needs to be allocated an in the 3D space and see your pictures an orchestra in front. As the conductor of the space station at the lights of the
This was an idea someone floated in Computer chips are very, very cheap. In identity number to tell it apart from the immediately appear out there in the trees. conducts the orchestra you conduct the continent passing below...
one of those random what-if discussions fact, the most expensive part of each rest. These numbers can also identify The pictures you create don't need to be light show. Every gesture is picked up
inventive people tend to have when sitting Firefly light is the LED not the which ones are being told to switch on still of course. You could create a 3D by cameras and turned into changes Perhaps the sky isn't the limit for good
around chatting over a drink. With most microprocessor. Remember too that at any time. Assigning a number from animation, with words or pictures snaking in images that fill the auditorium. ideas after all.
groups such up-in-the-clouds ideas Firefly saves money by doing away with the central, controlling computer isn't around the trees along that riverbank.
wouldn't go much further, but this group the expensive wiring other lights depend easy. Instead, it turns out to be easier
of people were computer scientists from on. Less wiring makes Firefly greener than to get each microprocessor to just pick Once you've started thinking of lights
Lancaster University, and they were other lights too. a number itself. In a perfect world, as like this you can imagine some
intrigued. So they decided to make it all the chips are identical, they would all more. Imagine being in a
happen. OK, so you have strung together lots of pick the same number. Luckily the world, stadium where everyone is
computer-controlled lights. How does that and particularly chip manufacture, isn't holding a light stick. The
The result they came up with is called get you any closer to your riverside vision perfect. The speed that different chips light sticks around you are all
Firefly. One of the team, Alan Dix, has of controlling a 3D display in fairy lights? do things is very, very slightly different. pulsing in some mysterious
been telling us about how it works. Well, now for the really clever bit. You If each picks a number based on that pattern. Look across to the
pretend each light is a tiny part of a timing they will mainly end up picking
Christmas tree lights can of course flash massive computer screen. different ones.
in different patterns, but those patterns
are pre-set before the lights leave the A normal computer screen is made up of The network controller then just needs to
factory. The different patterns are a result thousands of individual lights, or pixels. know if any two chips did pick the same
of the way the lights are physically wired Each can be switched between different number by chance, and get them to pick
together. Using physical wiring has two colours. The pixels can be combined into a new one. The Lancaster team came up
problems. First it’s not very flexible. To images because they are positioned in a with a clever way to do that too. They
change the lighting effect you may have regular grid, and the computer knows the realised that there is a noticeably large
to rebuild it from scratch. Secondly it location of each one. That makes it easy drop in power when more than one light
uses a lot of wire and wire is expensive. for a computer to know which pixel to switches on. The controller can watch for
switch on to show the desired image. that happening.
What the Lancaster team were thinking
of was something different. What if you Trees aren’t exactly as smooth and regular How does the controller do that? First it
made every individual light a networked as a flat screen, though. If we string our sends a command to all the lights saying
computer? It would be like connecting Firefly lights around a tree (or any solid that any chip that picked number 1
them into a mini-internet. If each light object for that matter), their actual should flash its light. Next tell those that
is a computer then it can be programmed positions are hard to control. To turn picked number 2 to do so, and so on.
to do clever things, rather than putting them into a display we need the network Each time the controller watches the
the cleverness in the physical structure. controller to know exactly where each power drop to see if more than one light
one ends up. came on. If that happens, the offending
Each firefly light is made of a single chips receive a message telling them to
LED, its own personal microprocessor, So, how do we do that? Easy. Just choose new unallocated numbers. The
a capacitor and a diode. Nothing more. position three cameras round them, and result is that eventually every light has
Thousands of these can then be strung instruct each light to flash its own unique a unique identity and the programmers
together in long lines using a pair of pattern. A computer vision program can can go back to creating their 3D map.
wires, with a computer that acts as a then use the three camera images and Because each light has a unique number,
network controller at the end. This is some simple geometry to spot each it will flash a unique pattern at the three
how the computers in a school or office pattern and figure out exactly where cameras, waiting to create a three-
it’s coming from. dimensional map of the sea of pixels.

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Grabbing Calling all animators!

attention, Toby Howard of The University of Manchester gives you some animation start-up tips.

saving lives
Computer science is clearly helping
animators do their jobs more easily. It
do you best focus a pilot’s attention to
the place it needs to be to take in vital Gaming
is less obvious how the animators might
teach computer scientists a thing or
information in situations like this?
together
two, but Rachid Hourizi of the Having been on a course on animation
University of Bath thought maybe for fun, Rachid realised that the
they could. animators might be able to help.
Throughout the 1900s, the Disney
He was studying how to improve the animation studios were worrying about
design of airline cockpits and was a similar issue. How do you grab the
particularly interested in what is called audience’s attention so they don’t
situation awareness. If a pilot loses miss any of the action, even though
track of the current state that the important things might happen on
autopilot is in, for example, then different parts of the screen? The
they might crash the plane. solution they came up with was The rise and rise
In modern planes, the computers
to have the characters do what
is called a ‘predictive’ movement.
of social gaming
do most of the flying. You might think Before Mickey Mouse starts to run Computer games are getting all sociable
that makes things easier for the pilot, forwards he will take a single step these days. Loads of popular games
but if at some point the pilot has to backwards. That movement draws live on social networking sites like
take over, then he or she has to rapidly everyone’s attention to Mickey so Facebook, where they are easy to
understand the current state of the that when he does start to run get started with, and even free to play.
plane. If not things can go badly wrong. everyone sees it. Rachid What’s more, many of these games are
For example, in 1992, an Airbus A320 suggested the same might work brilliant ideas turned into reality by just
coming in to land at Strasbourg in cockpits if we can find a few creative programmers.
crashed because the pilot, who ways for the autopilot
wanted to enter an angle of to make similar
descent into the computer,

Their games are loved and played by

didn’t millions, and yes, there are millions of
realise that the pounds to be made, just like in the
autopilot was in a heyday of the early games industry.
mode that treated But what’s the psychology behind the Now that you’ve seen what other people There's also stop-frame animation, When you've made a great animation, why
the number he biggest money-spinning social games? are doing with computer animation, why where you build your film out of hundreds not enter it in the UK Schools Computer
entered not as an Find out in the magazine+ section of not try making your own? It's easy to get (sometimes thousands!) of photographs, Animation Competition, held each year by
angle but as fast our website, www.cs4fn.org! started, and there's lots of free software with the positions and shapes of objects The University of Manchester? There are
speed to ascend. for PCs and Macs that you can use. changed very slightly from one frame to always great prizes to be won, and an
He flew the plane the next. When you watch the frames at even bigger audience will see your
into a hillside Two programs that many schools use the rate of about 20 every second, the impressive work.
to teach the basics of animation are still images come to life. There's lots of
Scratch (www.scratch.mit.edu) and Alice stop-frame animation software around, Want to be an animator? Start right away!
(www.alice.org), both of which are freely such as I Can Animate and iStopMotion. Simples!
available from their websites, along with
step-by-step guides that take you through Once you've got some experience with
killing all on board.
Similarly, if the
the whole process of making an animated
film. Scratch is for making flat, 2D
the basics, you might want to move onto
Adobe Flash. Flash isn't free, but many
See for
autopilot makes
adjustments to the course anticipatory actions.
animations like traditional cartoons,
while Alice lets you create 3D worlds
schools already have it available, so ask
your ICT teacher. With Flash you can
yourself !
it is important that the pilot realises it, More work is needed to find with objects and characters. With both produce results that look very cool and
For links to all the brilliant animation
so he knows where they are heading on out if the approach really does help, systems you can add sound and music very professional! If you want your
stuff mentioned in this article, see the
taking over. A person’s attention can but if it does then one day this Mickey to your animations. animations to be interactive, and to
version on the magazine+ page on
only be in one place at a time, so how Mouse technology could just save lives. learn a serious programming language
www.cs4fn.org.
at the same time, try Greenfoot.

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Back (page)
on the big
screen
What do James Cameron’s Let there be red
Avatar, Tim Burton’s Alice and blue light
in Wonderland and a The first wave of 3D movies used a
method called anaglyptic stereo. The
cinema advert for Doctor film was shot using two slightly separated
but synchronised cameras, each camera
Who featuring Matt Smith recording a one eye view of the action. The
as the travelling timelord two films were then developed and were
tinted either red or blue. The audience had
have in common? They to wear special 3D glasses, one with a red
are screened in three lens the other with a blue lens. What this
produces, as well as a grievous fashion
dimensions. 3D movies nightmare, is the effect that the red
are currently making a covered eye only sees the red parts of the
image and the blue parts get blocked, and of the cinema couldn’t see the pictures
comeback, and computer vice versa for the blue filter covered eye. properly, and your eyes and brain hurt after
science is helping to add The brain then does the sums to fuse
these two images together, assuming
a while. So the second wave of 3D washed
away until the large screen IMAX systems
that extra dimension of the differences are caused by different arrived and new computer technology made
depth. distances, and 3D happens. This method
was also used to make 3D comics because
it possible to manipulate the images to be
projected to reduce the viewers’ eyestrain
it was cheap and easy to do, but it really The tagline: I’ll make them an offset they
The mysterious messed with the colours in the pictures. can’t eye fuse.
floating sausage The tagline: I see red, people.
illusion In future forget
Make two fists, and then stick out your
Build a better pair the glasses
index fingers. Keeping the rest of your Computer technology will open up whole
of glasses
fingers clenched bring your hands up Polaroid sunglasses work because they new possibilities in 3D displays in the
in front of your face and touch your two block polarised light. The next wave of 3D future. Methods include having lenticular
extended index fingers together. If you technologies used this method. A two-lens arrays – a sheet of two types of tiny thin
focus your eyes on the other side of the camera system meant that the two separate lenses which bend the light coming
room and observe where your index fingers images were squashed side by side on through them left or right. The 3D image
join a fleshy sausage appears. Moving your the same film frame. When played back is created by taking the two pictures and
hands forwards and back will make this through a single projector each of the slashing them into tiny strips. You then
illusory floating breakfast product change squashed images was expanded by two switch on all the strips under left bending
size. It happens because each of your eyes special lenses, each lens having a different lenses, followed by all the strips under
has a slightly different view of the world polarising filter on them. The projection right bending lenses, and back again. If
and your brain computes like mad to had to be onto a special thin metal screen you switch between them quickly enough
combine these views together to give you a to keep the reflected polarisations perfect. the brain doesn’t notice this flicker, but
sense of depth. In the case of the sausage, Each audience member wore special instead gets two different views through the
there is enough similarity in the two out-of- Polaroid glasses, where one polarisation left and right eyes, creating 3D. Technology
focus views of your index fingers that your was blocked from one eye, and the other like this is being developed for TV and
brain mistakenly matches them, and 3D polarisation was blocked from the second mobile phones, so in the future depth
sausage magic occurs. eye. This once again produced two will be as common as today’s breadth
The tagline: In a world divided by left and different images, now in their proper and height.
right, only a sausage could unite them. colour, that the brain blended together The tagline: In the future, every 3D film will
to deliver that 3D experience. But the be a slasher film.
screens were expensive, seats at the side

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