BASIC ANIMATION AESTHETICS-基础动画美学
“这篇文章大卫写于2009年金熊奖之后，距今已6年。
就像他在文中所预言的： A small aesthetic discrepancy may only be seen by one person in an audience, but we know from experience that in a few years others will notice it, and in ten-fifteen years audiences will find it blindingly obvious and laugh at it.
现在当初那些追求细节的流行的风格，已经部分被简单规则美学所替代。
我仅仅做了字面翻译，没有细究文法，如果有什么看不懂，我在下面附了原文。”
*如有所需转载，请私信。
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BASIC ANIMATION AESTHETICS
基础动画美学
大卫 奥莱利
当我们谈论起动画，美学无疑是图像和音乐构成的影像世界中诸多元素中的一部分。
谈论动画美学的重要性是极其微妙的重要的。从表面来看，是因为摄影机对于内容和故事的作用比单纯的美学体验要多的多，尽管动画本身的视觉特性对此引起了争论。现在，有持续大量的动画作品，包括商业的和独立的，这些看起来都差不多，但是我不觉得这些就应该是这样。我们越多的思考这个主题，那么电脑动画就会变得越有趣，这感觉对我来说，就好像打开了一个仍旧需要试验，理解和驯服潘多拉魔盒。
公平的来说，我们经常能解释一个故事是不是到位，但是屏幕上的图像却是超越语言表述的。尽管我们知道有些图像看起来是错的，即使我们说不出为什么。一个动画可以同时看上去是真实的和不真实的。烂的美学会让影像无法表述他想表述的东西，这看上去是不专业的和脱离的。关注美学可以获得观众的信任，让他们扩张他们的感受，从而使他们忘记是在观看一个影像。我的目标就是解释为什么这些东西起了作用，而另外的一些没有。
3D动画是一个舞台，许多人参与进来搞，但是很少人可以获得有用的指导。这个问题出在力量太大太少控制，本质上说，你免费得到太多了。另外一些形式的动画从他们固有的缺陷中受益，但是这中间的大多数，不存在于3D动画。
这篇文章大多数是以我最近的短片为中心的，获得柏林金熊奖的PSS。尽管这个奖和现在的讨论并不相干，但是它可以说服我，我的关于动画美学的思考以及所有动画背后的理论是起作用的。甚而言之，我并没有必要去解释影片中的元素，以及表述影片本身甚至是那些关于影片的宣传资料。因此这篇文章并不是关于我影片的介绍，而是分析我的创作意图。
我的主要想法是构建一个可以交流情感并保持电影真实的人造的非真实的电影世界。这个影片作为一个电脑动画并没有打算去抄袭真实世界，它使用了远离真实的矢量效果，这更贴近制作它的软件。这个想法直接和当今那些使用真实灯光渲染或者重视手绘或纯朴风格的动画趋势对立。直到我写这篇文章的时候，这个趋势也没有任何明显的停止信号。
美学一致性
现象是在艺术作品通过尝试重建内部连接的整个生存架构中被真实的创造的。
------塔可夫斯基
我的核心看法是美学的要点是一致的。在3D中，我们重点创造手工模型世界，我认为让这些世界可信的办法是让他们相似，是把所有的元素设置在一个规则之下让他们保持一致。一致性覆盖了一个影片的方方面面，对白，设计，音效，音乐，动作等等。同时他们生成了一个反馈环，使我们一再确认我们看到的是真实的。人类的眼睛需要这种美学调和。
有趣的事是，动画可以随你所想的创造一个真实场景。只要规则在让这些元素保持一致，它对动画的控制力几乎是强制的以及虚拟的，就好像是一个谎言重复很多次之后变成了现实。如果有东西在这个一致性的动画世界跳出来，如果他打破了这个规则，可信度就消退了。我们可以把原因看的非常简单，简单的动画风格可以和一部拥有世界级演员精心制作的电影一样吸引人。甚至有些动画技术做的很差，但是差的很一致，它一样可以保持一致并且让人潜意识觉得可信。这也就解释了为什么黑白的动作影片和彩色的的动作影片一样效果斐然。
美学和谐来自法则。有些可能被技术限制加强，另外一些可能被风格，能力，预算，甚至决心影响。一致性不会形成于遵循明确的想法，比如吸引人的形状或者确切颜色的合并，而是保持法则的一致。在3D中，一些法则几乎大家普遍的坚持，比如不要让运动的物体插入彼此，不管你用高细节物体还是低细节的。没必要去说哪一条法则是正确的，哪一条是错的，我觉得这样一个看法注定是要被人反驳的。迪士尼出了一堆书来告诉大家为什么他们的想法是唯一的可信的，现在他们在像南方公园这种动画出现之后全部都宣告失败,很少人能拒绝吸收材质。这也是为什么我觉得让人觉得可信的唯一办法是保持协调一致。
在一部影片里，这个世界的法则和限制只能被制作人真正的了解。所有的感受，声音，情绪，角色，颜色，形状等等，对他们来说是立刻明显的呈现。铺设一个美学规则渗透到你创造的世界中，往往是个好主意。对颜色声音感受胸有成竹的导演永远不会对一个决定想两次。每一件小事都显而易见，而且容易捕捉。
我的短片PSS采用了在美学上采用另一个特别的规则。他们都是以经济为中心的。3D动画的主要问题之一是花费太多时间去学习才能从建造到渲染的使用。还有很多事可视作弊端，大体上3D会限制艺术家更有艺术的去运用它，过程本身非常不鼓励个人制作影片。简单的改变需要成小时的时间，经常性的流程本身的死板会不允许你再做任何更改。
因此我的目标就是缩短这个流程。我全部渲染流程都使用preview renders,这是效率更高的网络截屏，我们可以直接在屏幕上看到效果，而且只花费几秒时间。
第二步显而易见的决定是用简单的模型去构造世界，让他更快的制作，改变，赋予动画。你知道在3D软件里构建角色时候使用smooth是非常简便的，只用按一个键，但是我不需要去按。大体来说，对于好看图片和模型的筛选都是被避免的，它经常成为基础材质不是很好的一个标志。筛选就好像是给个女人化妆，他们可以让她非常好看，但是你对一定对没化妆的她更感兴趣。
第三，我用了扁平材质，没有灯光和影子在全片。这个决定不全基于经济，我可以使用基础照明，但是这个片子大体上都是口头对话，要比灯光主要，所以基础照明也不再那么必要。
关于这影片还有一些小的想法。其中之一比较明显的美学处理是用了与渲染会造成图片毛边或锯齿。每个在场景里的物体的像素都有固有色。为了固有的美，许多软件和羽化用来抗锯齿或者柔化图片。我放点例子来解释怎么生成了这些障碍，又怎么来处理他们来保持美学一致。
首先我用了大家都常用的模糊羽化。问题是它毁了硬边缘审美，因此不和谐。这个规则大体上很好解决，除了一个远程遥控老鼠倒带那个场景，于是我找了michael haneke的funny games做参考。在电影里，倒带的角色频繁的进出摄像机的焦点和闪烁，这是个非常有特色的镜头，我需要放进老鼠的行为里，这是个参考，我并没有只是盗用倒带的情节设备。
问题出在我想用焦点模糊，这和我无模糊的规则是相悖的。解决办法是，我用了很多层，叠在一起，让他们动起来像模糊一样，这样可以让像素保持锐利。
另外一个规则是在影片里运用褪色。自然褪色是像素透明度的变化，但是硬边缘审美需要每个像素都是固态和清晰的。有一大堆的情况我需要使用褪色，但是我不想改变我的规则，所以我找了个办法，让图像以像素的方法消失，就好像是透明度变化，效果如下：
最后一个例子是我打算一拍二。我们看了太多及其流畅的3D动画。这是3D技术最初最大的优点，你可以自由的做一拍1流畅动画，不同于传统动画每帧都要独立画。只要是静止或者运动缓慢的摄影机，眼睛会自然接受一拍二。如果摄影机运动太多，会让动画看起来起伏和不平常。在最后，我需要一个镜头用动态镜头，所以我打破了规则用了一拍一。
这只是在坚持3D世界一致连贯中遇到的一小部分障碍。每个新的项目都会遇到新的问题。这些问题迫使我脱离框架去思考，并经常以不同寻常的方法去使用软件。（原句是often to use sofrware in ways it wasn't built to be used.）最后的结果并不一定都很好，但是一定是一致的，虽然他看上去不那么真实，但它感觉是真实的。
风格注解
全神贯注于创意的形式或多或少是见徒劳的事。一个真正有创意头脑的人不会在旧的形式中运作，而是去做点不同的事。另外那些在形式上有些想法的人，通常从事旧有的传统的形式种类。
------库布里克
风格通常被理解成是影片制作者的无意识美学外表。他们倾向于确认的世界因为他们看上去更单纯和真实，或者是因为通过他们的知识和经验他们可以如实的得到它。制作者通常无意识于他们的风格，是因为他们所作的对于他们来说是显然的和自然的。用一个确认的颜色系或者摄影机角度是简单的，因为这是他们的唯一办法。
风格是一个人想法的副产品，并不是要素，是计划之外的，而不是计划之内。风格总是曲解成一种对外观进行表面改变以创造个人身份的方式。这些作品的美学选择与内容有些许或并无关系，但是在看起来特别与流行上却是做得炉火纯青。这种想法可能更应该叫做“表面风格”。
对表面风格迷恋的媒体是音乐视频，广告和时尚。他们固有的目标比起探索视觉本身，更重要的是出跳，提供身份，仅仅有很少一部分不是这样。做这些作品的人往往迷恋于工业本身以及对被敲竹杠或作品风格被否富有敌意。当然，创意存在于许多媒介，我们都希望创造出新的，不同的有趣的东西，但是仅仅在外表加强是实现不了的，还是要从基础做起。
关于简单的注解
一切应该尽可能的简单，而不是肤浅。
------爱因斯坦
美学规则决定了一个尽可能更少的世界。环境越基础越简单，当我们想改变它时就会变得越有意思。举个例子，如果一个电影每时每刻都使用光谱里每个颜色，就失去了随着时间推移使用颜色的创造力。
简单在只适用于它听从的一系列美学规则，而并不不适用于细节和错综复杂的事物。依照这个，米开朗基罗的大卫拥有非常简单的美学，纯白的大理石，运用逼真，大胆的外形和放大的比例。虽然组委会可能会赞成越多颜色越好或者拼接不同的大理石更优这样的观点，它仍旧坚持了它的简单质朴。简洁美学的想法产生了雅致的特性。我们遵循的规则越多，雅致的特性就会越多的被折衷。
一个简短的关于使用简洁美学规则的注解：如果我们的作品没有强力的完成度支撑，它可能会被仿造和复制。总是有些讨论是关于什么才构成剽窃，尤其是在当今的商业动画范畴，无论如何我不觉得这个讨论是主观的。剽窃是在一个美学规则从一件作品复制到另外一件时候发生的。美学规则会被定义所以也会被比较。
美学规则决定了PSS是简单的，这些特点可以被列出来：明确的像素，等角透视混合正常透视，故意使用元素打破安全区域，没有材质贴图，完全使用人造声音，动画是一拍二。当然，你用了什么规则和你要避免什么规则对你来说一样重要。这些主要是：没有运动模糊，没有焦点模糊，没有光线跟踪或者复杂的光影，没有柔化，没有手持摄影机运动，没有装饰，没有发光，没有衰减，没有淡入淡出，擦除，或者变形。
结论
这是一个关于我制作动画和构建模型世界测试的基本介绍。动画的应用是足够广阔的，像特效，游戏,同时对于细节的忽略和讲究也足够具体。
3D动画技术每年在制作速度，新工具和技巧上都有新的开发和添加，但是仅仅有少数影片使用了这些新的功能，并无限期使用。关于这些发明有一个影响，我们把它叫做"迅速扩大的审美图书馆"，这是每一个动画制作者和数字艺术家内在掌握的。每年通过3D制作的一切都在缓慢精炼，人们内部的图书馆都在更新导致突然间一切在开始前就已经过时，甚至被程式化。业余观众也又一个内在图书馆，只是更新的时间比较长。曾经让人感动的那些真实的3D动画，现在却很少能产生任何影响，或者有些看上去就是错的。小的审美差异可能仅仅被一个观众从一个人那里看到，但是我们从经验中可以知道，在一些年之后，另外的更多人会注意它。然后紧接着的10-15年，它会变得随处可见以及愉悦大众。当然我们现在可以制止那些烂的审美，可以用新的效果和技术迷惑观众，但是事实是，电影史是一个审美老学究。它非常懂得选择把什么留下，把什么遗忘。
对审美的理解给予了影片制作者从概括和细节观察一个影片以及理解他的能力。这让他们能在直接知道什么可行什么不可行的基础上建造一个可信的世界，而不是仅仅感觉东西好像是错的。这给了他们明确指出错误和不可行的能力。最后，审美的知识是创意的基本途径。当我们专注于检查我们审美选择的时候，就是我们指引我们自己寻找新方式和新想法的时候。那些心中没有完善审美构造世界的人,只能在默认的选择，已有的共识，或平庸中往复。
事实上，在3D软件中有太多可能去创造一个独创的世界，我们没有借口不去试，不去再创造另外的。想到这点的时候，我觉得我应该忘掉所有的正确与错误想法，美丽与丑陋的界限，而仅仅专注于一致连贯的信念。
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BASIC ANIMATION AESTHETICS
David OReilly
For the purposes of talking about animation, aesthetics are simply any of the elements thatmake up the world of a film, the building blocks of images and sounds.The importance of animation aesthetics is such a subtle yet vitally important one. It mightseem superficial to discuss these things, especially because cinema is so much more todo with content and story than a pure aesthetic experience, but nonetheless the visualnature of animation calls for debate on the subject. There is a continuous raft of animation,both commercial and independent, which looks the same, and I don’t believe it has to beso. The more we think about the subject the more playful and interesting computeranimation becomes, the medium feels to me like a recently opened Pandora’s box which isstill being examined, understood and tamed.
Equally, we can often explain why a story works or doesn’t work, but the way pixels mix on the screen is just beyond our verbal grasp. Despite this we know that some things can just feel wrong in an image, even if we can’t explain why. An animation can seem simultaneously real and unreal. Bad aesthetics can make a film say things it’s not supposed to, look unprofessional and disengaging. Attention to aesthetics gains an audience’s trust, makes them forget they are watching a film and by extension feel any emotion you can think of. My goal is thus to explain why certain things work and others don’t.
3d animation is at a stage where many people have access to the tools but very few have any meaningful guidelines on how to use them. The problem is that there is simply too much power and very little control, essentially you get too much for free. Other forms of animation have benefited from their inherent limitations, but largely these do not exist with 3d.
This essay will mainly centre around my latest short film, Please Say Something, which won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 2009 Berlinale. Though the award is irrelevant to this discussion, it nonetheless convinced me that my way of thinking about animation aesthetics and all the hidden theory behind it worked. Moreover, I never had to explain these elements of the film, either explicitly in the film itself or in promotional material surrounding it. As such this essay is not a guide to the film but more an analysis of my approach.
My central idea in constructing the world of the film was to prove that something totally artificial and unreal could still communicate emotion and hold cinematic truth. The film makes no effort to cover up the fact that it is a computer animation, it holds an array of artefacts which distance it from reality, which tie it closer to the software it came from. This idea is in direct opposition to all current trends in animation, which take the route of desperately trying to look real, usually by realistic lighting and rendering, or by forcing a hand-made or naive appearance. At the time of writing, this trend shows no apparent signs of ceasing.
AESTHETIC COHERENCE
‘A phenomenon is created truthfully in a work of art through the attempt to rebuild the entire living structure of its inner connections.’ – Andrei Tarkovsky
My central belief is that the key to aesthetics is coherence. In 3d we essentially create artificial models of worlds, I contend that what makes these worlds believable is simply how coherent they are; how all the elements tie together under a set of rules which govern them consistently. This coherence spreads to all areas of a film; dialogue, design, sound, music, movement etc. Together they create a feedback-loop which reaffirms that what we are looking at is true. The human eye wants this aesthetic harmony.
The interesting thing is that the sense of reality in animation can be whatever you want it to be. The rules governing an animated world can be totally arbitrary and artificial as long asthey are kept consistent, just as a lie repeated often enough becomes truth. If somethingin a world seems too out of place, if it breaks or overextends these rules, believabilityevaporates.[1] For this reason that we can look at a very simple, basic animation style andfind it just as absorbing as if it was filmed world-class actors in an elaborate set. Even ifanimation is technically bad, but consistently bad, it will be coherent and thus potentiallybelievable. It also explains why a live action film can be just as effective in black and whiteas well as in colour.
Aesthetic harmony comes from laws. Some may be imposed by technical limitations, others by style, ability, budget or even arbitrarily. Coherence does not come by following specific ideas like ‘appealing’ shapes or certain colour combinations, but just by keeping one’s laws consistent. In 3d some laws are almost universally adhered to, such as not allowing objects intersect each other, while others are variable, like using high-detail models or low-detail ones. It’s futile to say one rule is wrong and another right, I feel such a claim it’s destined to be disproved. The Disney studio published several books on why their methods were the only way to create believability, yet it all falls flat when applied to something like South Park, which few could deny is just as absorbing material. This is why I feel the only way of understanding believability is through the idea of coherence.
In a film, the exact rules and limitations of its world can only ever truly be known to the filmmaker. All feelings, sounds, moods, characters, colours, shapes and so on should be immediately obvious to him or her. It’s always a good idea to lay down the aesthetic rules which permeate the world you are creating. The director who internalizes his world to a great degree and immerses him or her self in the colour and sounds and feelings of it will never have to think twice about decisions later on. Each little thing will seem obvious and will find its place neatly.
My short Please Say Something employed a very specific set of rules in its aesthetics. They are all centred around the idea of economy. One of the main problems with 3d animation is that it takes so long to learn and then to use, from constructing a world to rendering it. There are many knock on effects of this, mainly it prevents people from attempting to use it and employ it artistically, the process is very discouraging for the individual to go ahead and make their film. Simple changes can take hours to do, and very often the process is so rigid it doesn’t allow any changes at all.
My goal therefore was to shorten this production pipeline to a bare minimum. I removed the entire process of software rendering by using preview renders, which are essentially snapshots of what you see on the screen, they take a split second to be generated.
The second most obvious decision was to use simple geometry (or models) to describe the world, this made it much faster to create, change and animate. It must be understood that it’s actually extremely easy to make an object or character in 3d smooth, it literally takes the click of a button, but it’s one I didn’t deem necessary to push. In general I always feel that any filter that appears to easily add a lot of beauty to an image or 3d model should be avoided, it’s usually a sign that the base material isn’t that good in the first place. Filters are like makeup on a woman, they can make her look really beautiful, but you’re really more interested in what she’s like without it.
Thirdly I used flat shading, there are no light sources or realistic shadows in the entire film. This decision was not entirely based on economy, as I could’ve used basic shading, but the drama of the film is essentially told through verbal dialogue rather than lighting, so it simply wasn’t necessary.
There were many other small decisions in the film. One of the most obvious aesthetic results of using preview-renders was that the image appears aliased or jagged. Every pixel has a solid colour which belongs to an object in the scene. While this is intrinsically beautiful, most software and filters are made for working with anti-aliased, or smooth images. I will explain some examples of how this created some hurdles and how I found ways of working around them to retain the film’s aesthetic coherence.
Firstly I handicapped myself from using the blur filter, which is one of the most commonly employed effects of them all. The problem with it is that it destroys the aliased aesthetic and therefore affect coherence. This rule was generally easy to uphold, except for one scene; I made a reference to the film Funny Games by Michael Haneke, in which the Mouse character rewinds the film itself with a remote control. In Funny Games, the character who rewinds the film frequently comes into focus and winks at the camera, it’s a very distinctive shot and I needed to include the Mouse doing it to get across that it was a reference, I wasn’t just stealing the rewind plot-device.
The problem was I needed to use a focal blur, which was against my rule of no blurs. The alternative I came up with was to use multiples of the scene which, when layered over each other, act like a blur, but crucially allow the pixels to stay aliased.
Another rule was using no fades in the film.[2] The nature of the fade is that it changes the opacity of the pixels, but the aliased aesthetic calls for every pixel to be solid and pure. There are a few instances where I wanted a fade but didn’t want to change my rule, so I found a way of fading something out pixel by pixel in a way that reads like an opacity change, the effect looks like this:
A last example was that I decided to animate everything on 2ʼs, or every second frame. We are used to seeing extremely smooth 3d animation (on 1ʻs, or movement in every frame). This was one of the main advantages of the technology in the beginning, that you would get all these in-between frames for free, whereas in classical animation every frame would have to be drawn individually. The eye will happily accept movement on 2ʻs but only if there is a static or slowly moving camera, if the camera is moving to much it makes the animation look choppy and unusual. In the end of the film I had one shot where I needed a moving camera, so I briefly had to break the rule and animate on every frame.
These are just a few examples of the hurdles one encounters in keeping a 3d world consistent and coherent. There are new ones in every project I encounter and they always force one to think outside the box and very often to use software in ways it wasn’t built to be used. The end result may not always be beautiful, but it will be consistent, and although it may not look realistic, it can still feel realistic.
A NOTE ON STYLE
‘A preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.’ – Stanley Kubrick
Style can simply be understood as a filmmaker’s unconscious aesthetic preferences. Their leaning towards certain kinds of worlds because they seem more authentic or pure, or because through their knowledge and experience they can recreate them faithfully. Filmmakers are usually not aware of their style because to them what they are doing is natural and obvious. To use a certain colour scheme or camera angle is simply because it’s the only way to do it.
Style is a by-product of following one’s ideals, not an ingredient, it’s something which comes out of a project, not goes into it. Style is often misinterpreted as a way to create an identity by superficially changing the look of one’s work. The aesthetic choices in these works have little or nothing to do with content and everything to do with looking different or current. This kind of thinking may be better defined as surface style.
Media which have an obsession with surface style are music videos, advertising and fashion. Their inherent aim is to stand out, to promote an identity, rather than pursue a vision, with only a small number of exceptions. The individuals making these works are often obsessed with their own industry and are viciously aware of being ripped-off or having their style bitten, as it were. Of course, originality is possible in any medium, and we all wish to create something new, something different and interesting, but this cannot be achieved by simply enforcing a look, it has to work from the ground up.
A NOTE ON SIMPLICITY
‘Everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.’ – Albert Einstein
The aesthetic rules defining a world should be as few as possible (but no fewer). The more elemental and simple an environment, the more exciting and visually rewarding it is when we introduce changes to it. For example if a film uses every colour of the spectrum all the time, it loses the power to use it creatively over time.
Simplicity in this light does not necessarily refer to visual detail or complexity, only the amount of aesthetic rules it allows. As such, Michelangelo’s David would have very simple aesthetics: pure white marble, use of exact, bold shapes and large scale. Although a committee might have agreed some more colours would be nice, or perhaps a mix of different marbles, it sticks to its simplicity. The idea of aesthetic simplicity produces the quality of elegance. The more rules we allow the more this elegance is compromised.
A short note on using few aesthetic rules: if the work is not bolstered by strong execution it may become copied or imitated. There is always discussion about what constitutes a rip off, particularly in the world of commercial animation, however I don’t believe it’s a subjective thing. A rip off occurs when the aesthetic rules of a work are copied by another. Aesthetic rules can be defined and therefore compared.
The aesthetic rules defining Please Say Something are specific and can be listed, these are: aliased pixels, use of isometric (flat) perspective mixed with normal perspective, elements which intentionally break the safe area, no texture maps (all colour was applied by painting the geometry directly), the use of completely synthetic voices and animation on 2ʼs, or every second frame. Naturally what rules you make are just as important as what you avoid using, these were primarily: no motion blur, no focal blur, no ray tracing or complex shading, no mesh-smooth, no handheld camera, no vignettes, no glow, no fades, no crossfades, wipes or transitions.
CONCLUSION
This was a basic introduction to my way of creating animation and my model for examining it. It’s broad enough to apply to any form of animation, extending to things like special effects and video games, but specific enough to isolate and describe details.
The technology of 3d animation is developing at a blinding speed, new tools and techniques are being added every year, and it is only a few films which survive this development and manage to appear undated. There is an effect relating to all this invention, lets call it the rapidly expanding aesthetic library, which every animator and digital artist possesses internally. Each year what passes for 3d realism gets slowly refined, people’s internal library gets updated and suddenly everything before starts looking dated and even stylized. An audience of nonprofessionals has the same internal library, it’s just updated over longer periods of time. 3d animation that once would stun an audience with its realism now barely has any effect, or looks wrong and out of place. A small aesthetic discrepancy may only be seen by one person in an audience, but we know from experience that in a few years others will notice it, and in ten-fifteen years audiences will find it blindingly obvious and laugh at it. Of course one can pass off bad aesthetics in the present, one can dazzle audiences with new effects and technology, but the fact is that cinematic history is an aesthetic pedant. It’s very selective about what it keeps and what it forgets.
An understanding of aesthetics gives the filmmaker the ability to observe a film both broadly and in detail and understand it. It allows him or her to make any kind of world believable by knowing exactly what works and doesn’t work, and rather than feeling things seem wrong, to be able to point them out specifically. Finally, knowledge of aesthetics is an essential key to originality. When we are forced to examine our aesthetic choices we lead ourselves to new ways of thinking and new ideas. Those who aren’t fully conscious of the aesthetic fabric of their worlds will revert to default decision making, essentially to the common doctrine, or mediocrity.
The fact is that there is so much possibility in 3d software to create original worlds there is simply no excuse to try and recreate other ones. To get there I feel we should forget everything about the idea of right or wrong, of beauty and ugliness, and focus on the idea of coherence.
[1] An analogy would be a storyteller using a wrong word in his delivery; when there is a break in the flow, our focus shifts from the story to the error.
[2] There is a single fade to black, which is where the story ends, but this is the exception to the rule.
就像他在文中所预言的： A small aesthetic discrepancy may only be seen by one person in an audience, but we know from experience that in a few years others will notice it, and in ten-fifteen years audiences will find it blindingly obvious and laugh at it.
现在当初那些追求细节的流行的风格，已经部分被简单规则美学所替代。
我仅仅做了字面翻译，没有细究文法，如果有什么看不懂，我在下面附了原文。”
*如有所需转载，请私信。
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BASIC ANIMATION AESTHETICS
基础动画美学
大卫 奥莱利
当我们谈论起动画，美学无疑是图像和音乐构成的影像世界中诸多元素中的一部分。
谈论动画美学的重要性是极其微妙的重要的。从表面来看，是因为摄影机对于内容和故事的作用比单纯的美学体验要多的多，尽管动画本身的视觉特性对此引起了争论。现在，有持续大量的动画作品，包括商业的和独立的，这些看起来都差不多，但是我不觉得这些就应该是这样。我们越多的思考这个主题，那么电脑动画就会变得越有趣，这感觉对我来说，就好像打开了一个仍旧需要试验，理解和驯服潘多拉魔盒。
公平的来说，我们经常能解释一个故事是不是到位，但是屏幕上的图像却是超越语言表述的。尽管我们知道有些图像看起来是错的，即使我们说不出为什么。一个动画可以同时看上去是真实的和不真实的。烂的美学会让影像无法表述他想表述的东西，这看上去是不专业的和脱离的。关注美学可以获得观众的信任，让他们扩张他们的感受，从而使他们忘记是在观看一个影像。我的目标就是解释为什么这些东西起了作用，而另外的一些没有。
3D动画是一个舞台，许多人参与进来搞，但是很少人可以获得有用的指导。这个问题出在力量太大太少控制，本质上说，你免费得到太多了。另外一些形式的动画从他们固有的缺陷中受益，但是这中间的大多数，不存在于3D动画。
这篇文章大多数是以我最近的短片为中心的，获得柏林金熊奖的PSS。尽管这个奖和现在的讨论并不相干，但是它可以说服我，我的关于动画美学的思考以及所有动画背后的理论是起作用的。甚而言之，我并没有必要去解释影片中的元素，以及表述影片本身甚至是那些关于影片的宣传资料。因此这篇文章并不是关于我影片的介绍，而是分析我的创作意图。
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我的主要想法是构建一个可以交流情感并保持电影真实的人造的非真实的电影世界。这个影片作为一个电脑动画并没有打算去抄袭真实世界，它使用了远离真实的矢量效果，这更贴近制作它的软件。这个想法直接和当今那些使用真实灯光渲染或者重视手绘或纯朴风格的动画趋势对立。直到我写这篇文章的时候，这个趋势也没有任何明显的停止信号。
美学一致性
现象是在艺术作品通过尝试重建内部连接的整个生存架构中被真实的创造的。
------塔可夫斯基
我的核心看法是美学的要点是一致的。在3D中，我们重点创造手工模型世界，我认为让这些世界可信的办法是让他们相似，是把所有的元素设置在一个规则之下让他们保持一致。一致性覆盖了一个影片的方方面面，对白，设计，音效，音乐，动作等等。同时他们生成了一个反馈环，使我们一再确认我们看到的是真实的。人类的眼睛需要这种美学调和。
有趣的事是，动画可以随你所想的创造一个真实场景。只要规则在让这些元素保持一致，它对动画的控制力几乎是强制的以及虚拟的，就好像是一个谎言重复很多次之后变成了现实。如果有东西在这个一致性的动画世界跳出来，如果他打破了这个规则，可信度就消退了。我们可以把原因看的非常简单，简单的动画风格可以和一部拥有世界级演员精心制作的电影一样吸引人。甚至有些动画技术做的很差，但是差的很一致，它一样可以保持一致并且让人潜意识觉得可信。这也就解释了为什么黑白的动作影片和彩色的的动作影片一样效果斐然。
美学和谐来自法则。有些可能被技术限制加强，另外一些可能被风格，能力，预算，甚至决心影响。一致性不会形成于遵循明确的想法，比如吸引人的形状或者确切颜色的合并，而是保持法则的一致。在3D中，一些法则几乎大家普遍的坚持，比如不要让运动的物体插入彼此，不管你用高细节物体还是低细节的。没必要去说哪一条法则是正确的，哪一条是错的，我觉得这样一个看法注定是要被人反驳的。迪士尼出了一堆书来告诉大家为什么他们的想法是唯一的可信的，现在他们在像南方公园这种动画出现之后全部都宣告失败,很少人能拒绝吸收材质。这也是为什么我觉得让人觉得可信的唯一办法是保持协调一致。
在一部影片里，这个世界的法则和限制只能被制作人真正的了解。所有的感受，声音，情绪，角色，颜色，形状等等，对他们来说是立刻明显的呈现。铺设一个美学规则渗透到你创造的世界中，往往是个好主意。对颜色声音感受胸有成竹的导演永远不会对一个决定想两次。每一件小事都显而易见，而且容易捕捉。
我的短片PSS采用了在美学上采用另一个特别的规则。他们都是以经济为中心的。3D动画的主要问题之一是花费太多时间去学习才能从建造到渲染的使用。还有很多事可视作弊端，大体上3D会限制艺术家更有艺术的去运用它，过程本身非常不鼓励个人制作影片。简单的改变需要成小时的时间，经常性的流程本身的死板会不允许你再做任何更改。
因此我的目标就是缩短这个流程。我全部渲染流程都使用preview renders,这是效率更高的网络截屏，我们可以直接在屏幕上看到效果，而且只花费几秒时间。
第二步显而易见的决定是用简单的模型去构造世界，让他更快的制作，改变，赋予动画。你知道在3D软件里构建角色时候使用smooth是非常简便的，只用按一个键，但是我不需要去按。大体来说，对于好看图片和模型的筛选都是被避免的，它经常成为基础材质不是很好的一个标志。筛选就好像是给个女人化妆，他们可以让她非常好看，但是你对一定对没化妆的她更感兴趣。
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第三，我用了扁平材质，没有灯光和影子在全片。这个决定不全基于经济，我可以使用基础照明，但是这个片子大体上都是口头对话，要比灯光主要，所以基础照明也不再那么必要。
关于这影片还有一些小的想法。其中之一比较明显的美学处理是用了与渲染会造成图片毛边或锯齿。每个在场景里的物体的像素都有固有色。为了固有的美，许多软件和羽化用来抗锯齿或者柔化图片。我放点例子来解释怎么生成了这些障碍，又怎么来处理他们来保持美学一致。
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首先我用了大家都常用的模糊羽化。问题是它毁了硬边缘审美，因此不和谐。这个规则大体上很好解决，除了一个远程遥控老鼠倒带那个场景，于是我找了michael haneke的funny games做参考。在电影里，倒带的角色频繁的进出摄像机的焦点和闪烁，这是个非常有特色的镜头，我需要放进老鼠的行为里，这是个参考，我并没有只是盗用倒带的情节设备。
问题出在我想用焦点模糊，这和我无模糊的规则是相悖的。解决办法是，我用了很多层，叠在一起，让他们动起来像模糊一样，这样可以让像素保持锐利。
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另外一个规则是在影片里运用褪色。自然褪色是像素透明度的变化，但是硬边缘审美需要每个像素都是固态和清晰的。有一大堆的情况我需要使用褪色，但是我不想改变我的规则，所以我找了个办法，让图像以像素的方法消失，就好像是透明度变化，效果如下：
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最后一个例子是我打算一拍二。我们看了太多及其流畅的3D动画。这是3D技术最初最大的优点，你可以自由的做一拍1流畅动画，不同于传统动画每帧都要独立画。只要是静止或者运动缓慢的摄影机，眼睛会自然接受一拍二。如果摄影机运动太多，会让动画看起来起伏和不平常。在最后，我需要一个镜头用动态镜头，所以我打破了规则用了一拍一。
这只是在坚持3D世界一致连贯中遇到的一小部分障碍。每个新的项目都会遇到新的问题。这些问题迫使我脱离框架去思考，并经常以不同寻常的方法去使用软件。（原句是often to use sofrware in ways it wasn't built to be used.）最后的结果并不一定都很好，但是一定是一致的，虽然他看上去不那么真实，但它感觉是真实的。
风格注解
全神贯注于创意的形式或多或少是见徒劳的事。一个真正有创意头脑的人不会在旧的形式中运作，而是去做点不同的事。另外那些在形式上有些想法的人，通常从事旧有的传统的形式种类。
------库布里克
风格通常被理解成是影片制作者的无意识美学外表。他们倾向于确认的世界因为他们看上去更单纯和真实，或者是因为通过他们的知识和经验他们可以如实的得到它。制作者通常无意识于他们的风格，是因为他们所作的对于他们来说是显然的和自然的。用一个确认的颜色系或者摄影机角度是简单的，因为这是他们的唯一办法。
风格是一个人想法的副产品，并不是要素，是计划之外的，而不是计划之内。风格总是曲解成一种对外观进行表面改变以创造个人身份的方式。这些作品的美学选择与内容有些许或并无关系，但是在看起来特别与流行上却是做得炉火纯青。这种想法可能更应该叫做“表面风格”。
对表面风格迷恋的媒体是音乐视频，广告和时尚。他们固有的目标比起探索视觉本身，更重要的是出跳，提供身份，仅仅有很少一部分不是这样。做这些作品的人往往迷恋于工业本身以及对被敲竹杠或作品风格被否富有敌意。当然，创意存在于许多媒介，我们都希望创造出新的，不同的有趣的东西，但是仅仅在外表加强是实现不了的，还是要从基础做起。
关于简单的注解
一切应该尽可能的简单，而不是肤浅。
------爱因斯坦
美学规则决定了一个尽可能更少的世界。环境越基础越简单，当我们想改变它时就会变得越有意思。举个例子，如果一个电影每时每刻都使用光谱里每个颜色，就失去了随着时间推移使用颜色的创造力。
简单在只适用于它听从的一系列美学规则，而并不不适用于细节和错综复杂的事物。依照这个，米开朗基罗的大卫拥有非常简单的美学，纯白的大理石，运用逼真，大胆的外形和放大的比例。虽然组委会可能会赞成越多颜色越好或者拼接不同的大理石更优这样的观点，它仍旧坚持了它的简单质朴。简洁美学的想法产生了雅致的特性。我们遵循的规则越多，雅致的特性就会越多的被折衷。
一个简短的关于使用简洁美学规则的注解：如果我们的作品没有强力的完成度支撑，它可能会被仿造和复制。总是有些讨论是关于什么才构成剽窃，尤其是在当今的商业动画范畴，无论如何我不觉得这个讨论是主观的。剽窃是在一个美学规则从一件作品复制到另外一件时候发生的。美学规则会被定义所以也会被比较。
美学规则决定了PSS是简单的，这些特点可以被列出来：明确的像素，等角透视混合正常透视，故意使用元素打破安全区域，没有材质贴图，完全使用人造声音，动画是一拍二。当然，你用了什么规则和你要避免什么规则对你来说一样重要。这些主要是：没有运动模糊，没有焦点模糊，没有光线跟踪或者复杂的光影，没有柔化，没有手持摄影机运动，没有装饰，没有发光，没有衰减，没有淡入淡出，擦除，或者变形。
结论
这是一个关于我制作动画和构建模型世界测试的基本介绍。动画的应用是足够广阔的，像特效，游戏,同时对于细节的忽略和讲究也足够具体。
3D动画技术每年在制作速度，新工具和技巧上都有新的开发和添加，但是仅仅有少数影片使用了这些新的功能，并无限期使用。关于这些发明有一个影响，我们把它叫做"迅速扩大的审美图书馆"，这是每一个动画制作者和数字艺术家内在掌握的。每年通过3D制作的一切都在缓慢精炼，人们内部的图书馆都在更新导致突然间一切在开始前就已经过时，甚至被程式化。业余观众也又一个内在图书馆，只是更新的时间比较长。曾经让人感动的那些真实的3D动画，现在却很少能产生任何影响，或者有些看上去就是错的。小的审美差异可能仅仅被一个观众从一个人那里看到，但是我们从经验中可以知道，在一些年之后，另外的更多人会注意它。然后紧接着的10-15年，它会变得随处可见以及愉悦大众。当然我们现在可以制止那些烂的审美，可以用新的效果和技术迷惑观众，但是事实是，电影史是一个审美老学究。它非常懂得选择把什么留下，把什么遗忘。
对审美的理解给予了影片制作者从概括和细节观察一个影片以及理解他的能力。这让他们能在直接知道什么可行什么不可行的基础上建造一个可信的世界，而不是仅仅感觉东西好像是错的。这给了他们明确指出错误和不可行的能力。最后，审美的知识是创意的基本途径。当我们专注于检查我们审美选择的时候，就是我们指引我们自己寻找新方式和新想法的时候。那些心中没有完善审美构造世界的人,只能在默认的选择，已有的共识，或平庸中往复。
事实上，在3D软件中有太多可能去创造一个独创的世界，我们没有借口不去试，不去再创造另外的。想到这点的时候，我觉得我应该忘掉所有的正确与错误想法，美丽与丑陋的界限，而仅仅专注于一致连贯的信念。
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BASIC ANIMATION AESTHETICS
David OReilly
For the purposes of talking about animation, aesthetics are simply any of the elements thatmake up the world of a film, the building blocks of images and sounds.The importance of animation aesthetics is such a subtle yet vitally important one. It mightseem superficial to discuss these things, especially because cinema is so much more todo with content and story than a pure aesthetic experience, but nonetheless the visualnature of animation calls for debate on the subject. There is a continuous raft of animation,both commercial and independent, which looks the same, and I don’t believe it has to beso. The more we think about the subject the more playful and interesting computeranimation becomes, the medium feels to me like a recently opened Pandora’s box which isstill being examined, understood and tamed.
Equally, we can often explain why a story works or doesn’t work, but the way pixels mix on the screen is just beyond our verbal grasp. Despite this we know that some things can just feel wrong in an image, even if we can’t explain why. An animation can seem simultaneously real and unreal. Bad aesthetics can make a film say things it’s not supposed to, look unprofessional and disengaging. Attention to aesthetics gains an audience’s trust, makes them forget they are watching a film and by extension feel any emotion you can think of. My goal is thus to explain why certain things work and others don’t.
3d animation is at a stage where many people have access to the tools but very few have any meaningful guidelines on how to use them. The problem is that there is simply too much power and very little control, essentially you get too much for free. Other forms of animation have benefited from their inherent limitations, but largely these do not exist with 3d.
This essay will mainly centre around my latest short film, Please Say Something, which won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 2009 Berlinale. Though the award is irrelevant to this discussion, it nonetheless convinced me that my way of thinking about animation aesthetics and all the hidden theory behind it worked. Moreover, I never had to explain these elements of the film, either explicitly in the film itself or in promotional material surrounding it. As such this essay is not a guide to the film but more an analysis of my approach.
My central idea in constructing the world of the film was to prove that something totally artificial and unreal could still communicate emotion and hold cinematic truth. The film makes no effort to cover up the fact that it is a computer animation, it holds an array of artefacts which distance it from reality, which tie it closer to the software it came from. This idea is in direct opposition to all current trends in animation, which take the route of desperately trying to look real, usually by realistic lighting and rendering, or by forcing a hand-made or naive appearance. At the time of writing, this trend shows no apparent signs of ceasing.
AESTHETIC COHERENCE
‘A phenomenon is created truthfully in a work of art through the attempt to rebuild the entire living structure of its inner connections.’ – Andrei Tarkovsky
My central belief is that the key to aesthetics is coherence. In 3d we essentially create artificial models of worlds, I contend that what makes these worlds believable is simply how coherent they are; how all the elements tie together under a set of rules which govern them consistently. This coherence spreads to all areas of a film; dialogue, design, sound, music, movement etc. Together they create a feedback-loop which reaffirms that what we are looking at is true. The human eye wants this aesthetic harmony.
The interesting thing is that the sense of reality in animation can be whatever you want it to be. The rules governing an animated world can be totally arbitrary and artificial as long asthey are kept consistent, just as a lie repeated often enough becomes truth. If somethingin a world seems too out of place, if it breaks or overextends these rules, believabilityevaporates.[1] For this reason that we can look at a very simple, basic animation style andfind it just as absorbing as if it was filmed world-class actors in an elaborate set. Even ifanimation is technically bad, but consistently bad, it will be coherent and thus potentiallybelievable. It also explains why a live action film can be just as effective in black and whiteas well as in colour.
Aesthetic harmony comes from laws. Some may be imposed by technical limitations, others by style, ability, budget or even arbitrarily. Coherence does not come by following specific ideas like ‘appealing’ shapes or certain colour combinations, but just by keeping one’s laws consistent. In 3d some laws are almost universally adhered to, such as not allowing objects intersect each other, while others are variable, like using high-detail models or low-detail ones. It’s futile to say one rule is wrong and another right, I feel such a claim it’s destined to be disproved. The Disney studio published several books on why their methods were the only way to create believability, yet it all falls flat when applied to something like South Park, which few could deny is just as absorbing material. This is why I feel the only way of understanding believability is through the idea of coherence.
In a film, the exact rules and limitations of its world can only ever truly be known to the filmmaker. All feelings, sounds, moods, characters, colours, shapes and so on should be immediately obvious to him or her. It’s always a good idea to lay down the aesthetic rules which permeate the world you are creating. The director who internalizes his world to a great degree and immerses him or her self in the colour and sounds and feelings of it will never have to think twice about decisions later on. Each little thing will seem obvious and will find its place neatly.
My short Please Say Something employed a very specific set of rules in its aesthetics. They are all centred around the idea of economy. One of the main problems with 3d animation is that it takes so long to learn and then to use, from constructing a world to rendering it. There are many knock on effects of this, mainly it prevents people from attempting to use it and employ it artistically, the process is very discouraging for the individual to go ahead and make their film. Simple changes can take hours to do, and very often the process is so rigid it doesn’t allow any changes at all.
My goal therefore was to shorten this production pipeline to a bare minimum. I removed the entire process of software rendering by using preview renders, which are essentially snapshots of what you see on the screen, they take a split second to be generated.
The second most obvious decision was to use simple geometry (or models) to describe the world, this made it much faster to create, change and animate. It must be understood that it’s actually extremely easy to make an object or character in 3d smooth, it literally takes the click of a button, but it’s one I didn’t deem necessary to push. In general I always feel that any filter that appears to easily add a lot of beauty to an image or 3d model should be avoided, it’s usually a sign that the base material isn’t that good in the first place. Filters are like makeup on a woman, they can make her look really beautiful, but you’re really more interested in what she’s like without it.
Thirdly I used flat shading, there are no light sources or realistic shadows in the entire film. This decision was not entirely based on economy, as I could’ve used basic shading, but the drama of the film is essentially told through verbal dialogue rather than lighting, so it simply wasn’t necessary.
There were many other small decisions in the film. One of the most obvious aesthetic results of using preview-renders was that the image appears aliased or jagged. Every pixel has a solid colour which belongs to an object in the scene. While this is intrinsically beautiful, most software and filters are made for working with anti-aliased, or smooth images. I will explain some examples of how this created some hurdles and how I found ways of working around them to retain the film’s aesthetic coherence.
Firstly I handicapped myself from using the blur filter, which is one of the most commonly employed effects of them all. The problem with it is that it destroys the aliased aesthetic and therefore affect coherence. This rule was generally easy to uphold, except for one scene; I made a reference to the film Funny Games by Michael Haneke, in which the Mouse character rewinds the film itself with a remote control. In Funny Games, the character who rewinds the film frequently comes into focus and winks at the camera, it’s a very distinctive shot and I needed to include the Mouse doing it to get across that it was a reference, I wasn’t just stealing the rewind plot-device.
The problem was I needed to use a focal blur, which was against my rule of no blurs. The alternative I came up with was to use multiples of the scene which, when layered over each other, act like a blur, but crucially allow the pixels to stay aliased.
Another rule was using no fades in the film.[2] The nature of the fade is that it changes the opacity of the pixels, but the aliased aesthetic calls for every pixel to be solid and pure. There are a few instances where I wanted a fade but didn’t want to change my rule, so I found a way of fading something out pixel by pixel in a way that reads like an opacity change, the effect looks like this:
A last example was that I decided to animate everything on 2ʼs, or every second frame. We are used to seeing extremely smooth 3d animation (on 1ʻs, or movement in every frame). This was one of the main advantages of the technology in the beginning, that you would get all these in-between frames for free, whereas in classical animation every frame would have to be drawn individually. The eye will happily accept movement on 2ʻs but only if there is a static or slowly moving camera, if the camera is moving to much it makes the animation look choppy and unusual. In the end of the film I had one shot where I needed a moving camera, so I briefly had to break the rule and animate on every frame.
These are just a few examples of the hurdles one encounters in keeping a 3d world consistent and coherent. There are new ones in every project I encounter and they always force one to think outside the box and very often to use software in ways it wasn’t built to be used. The end result may not always be beautiful, but it will be consistent, and although it may not look realistic, it can still feel realistic.
A NOTE ON STYLE
‘A preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.’ – Stanley Kubrick
Style can simply be understood as a filmmaker’s unconscious aesthetic preferences. Their leaning towards certain kinds of worlds because they seem more authentic or pure, or because through their knowledge and experience they can recreate them faithfully. Filmmakers are usually not aware of their style because to them what they are doing is natural and obvious. To use a certain colour scheme or camera angle is simply because it’s the only way to do it.
Style is a by-product of following one’s ideals, not an ingredient, it’s something which comes out of a project, not goes into it. Style is often misinterpreted as a way to create an identity by superficially changing the look of one’s work. The aesthetic choices in these works have little or nothing to do with content and everything to do with looking different or current. This kind of thinking may be better defined as surface style.
Media which have an obsession with surface style are music videos, advertising and fashion. Their inherent aim is to stand out, to promote an identity, rather than pursue a vision, with only a small number of exceptions. The individuals making these works are often obsessed with their own industry and are viciously aware of being ripped-off or having their style bitten, as it were. Of course, originality is possible in any medium, and we all wish to create something new, something different and interesting, but this cannot be achieved by simply enforcing a look, it has to work from the ground up.
A NOTE ON SIMPLICITY
‘Everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.’ – Albert Einstein
The aesthetic rules defining a world should be as few as possible (but no fewer). The more elemental and simple an environment, the more exciting and visually rewarding it is when we introduce changes to it. For example if a film uses every colour of the spectrum all the time, it loses the power to use it creatively over time.
Simplicity in this light does not necessarily refer to visual detail or complexity, only the amount of aesthetic rules it allows. As such, Michelangelo’s David would have very simple aesthetics: pure white marble, use of exact, bold shapes and large scale. Although a committee might have agreed some more colours would be nice, or perhaps a mix of different marbles, it sticks to its simplicity. The idea of aesthetic simplicity produces the quality of elegance. The more rules we allow the more this elegance is compromised.
A short note on using few aesthetic rules: if the work is not bolstered by strong execution it may become copied or imitated. There is always discussion about what constitutes a rip off, particularly in the world of commercial animation, however I don’t believe it’s a subjective thing. A rip off occurs when the aesthetic rules of a work are copied by another. Aesthetic rules can be defined and therefore compared.
The aesthetic rules defining Please Say Something are specific and can be listed, these are: aliased pixels, use of isometric (flat) perspective mixed with normal perspective, elements which intentionally break the safe area, no texture maps (all colour was applied by painting the geometry directly), the use of completely synthetic voices and animation on 2ʼs, or every second frame. Naturally what rules you make are just as important as what you avoid using, these were primarily: no motion blur, no focal blur, no ray tracing or complex shading, no mesh-smooth, no handheld camera, no vignettes, no glow, no fades, no crossfades, wipes or transitions.
CONCLUSION
This was a basic introduction to my way of creating animation and my model for examining it. It’s broad enough to apply to any form of animation, extending to things like special effects and video games, but specific enough to isolate and describe details.
The technology of 3d animation is developing at a blinding speed, new tools and techniques are being added every year, and it is only a few films which survive this development and manage to appear undated. There is an effect relating to all this invention, lets call it the rapidly expanding aesthetic library, which every animator and digital artist possesses internally. Each year what passes for 3d realism gets slowly refined, people’s internal library gets updated and suddenly everything before starts looking dated and even stylized. An audience of nonprofessionals has the same internal library, it’s just updated over longer periods of time. 3d animation that once would stun an audience with its realism now barely has any effect, or looks wrong and out of place. A small aesthetic discrepancy may only be seen by one person in an audience, but we know from experience that in a few years others will notice it, and in ten-fifteen years audiences will find it blindingly obvious and laugh at it. Of course one can pass off bad aesthetics in the present, one can dazzle audiences with new effects and technology, but the fact is that cinematic history is an aesthetic pedant. It’s very selective about what it keeps and what it forgets.
An understanding of aesthetics gives the filmmaker the ability to observe a film both broadly and in detail and understand it. It allows him or her to make any kind of world believable by knowing exactly what works and doesn’t work, and rather than feeling things seem wrong, to be able to point them out specifically. Finally, knowledge of aesthetics is an essential key to originality. When we are forced to examine our aesthetic choices we lead ourselves to new ways of thinking and new ideas. Those who aren’t fully conscious of the aesthetic fabric of their worlds will revert to default decision making, essentially to the common doctrine, or mediocrity.
The fact is that there is so much possibility in 3d software to create original worlds there is simply no excuse to try and recreate other ones. To get there I feel we should forget everything about the idea of right or wrong, of beauty and ugliness, and focus on the idea of coherence.
[1] An analogy would be a storyteller using a wrong word in his delivery; when there is a break in the flow, our focus shifts from the story to the error.
[2] There is a single fade to black, which is where the story ends, but this is the exception to the rule.
