Although Japan is behind the USA, Canada, and Europe
in the changeover from traditional to digital animation, it is making up for
it in a big way. This year there will be more anime produced with computers
than ever before.
Most people refer to digital production as "CG"
and they often mix both 2D and 3D in
that term. This leads to great confusion. There are two distinct types of digital
animation production systems—2D, which replaces traditional
cel animation, and 3D. 2D is best referred
to as "computer assisted production" or "digital ink and paint" where
3D is mostly just "3D animation" or
"3D elements."
2D Systems
2D systems have advanced to the point where sometimes not
even experts can tell that they were used to produce certain pieces. With a
mixture of tools there is almost no traditional camera effect that cannot be
duplicated digitally and there are many more new effects possible with the digital
systems.
There is sometimes a lot of reticence on the part of directors and
animators on switching over to the use of digital systems. They have seen
the worst that digital can do and are afraid of their quality dropping. Many
of them think that "digital" automatically includes 3D and they don't like
that look. This reticence is one of the things that has saved anime from
disintegrating into a technological mess. Steadfastly refusing to use a tool
unless it can do what you want it to do (or more) has kept the artistic
integrity of anime. That being said, refusal to use tools that have been
proven to be able to consistently create images superior to the level that
one normally works at and are more cost effective is foolish.
Over the past couple years it has become more cost effective to produce
anime digitally. The big hurdle is the initial investment to build a
system capable of producing a TV series episode every 2 weeks—it can easily
cost $250,000, which is more than a couple TV episodes worth of budget.
Upgrades and maintenance must also be taken into account. After it has been
used to do a series it starts to pay itself back quickly. When a studio
loses their cel department expenses and camera and developing costs,
the returns really begin. The changeover takes some time, however, and for a
period both need to be operating at the same time.
The major 2D players in the anime industry are:
Animo (Cambridge Animation Systems, UK)
Animo is the worldwide leader in workstation-level computer assisted
animation software with over 1400 systems. In Japan it is used by companies
like Production I.G, Studio Deen, E&G
Film, J.C. Staff, AIC,
KSS, Asahi Pro, Noside, Xebec, Madhouse, Gainax and others to
produce work for feature films, OVAs, TV
series, game animation, multimedia projects and commercials. Some examples include
the openings from GHOST IN THE SHELL, TALES OF
DESTINY, and DAIUNDOKAI games, the TAIHO
SHICHAU ZO!, BUBBLEGUM CRISIS 2040, RECORD
OF LODOSS WAR, STEAM DETECTIVES, and RURONI
KENSHIN TV title sequences, the MONKEY MAGIC series and
scenes in many OVAs and TV series.
Feature films in production include BLOOD, and
LEGEND OF GEM WAR.
Available on Windows
NT and Silicon Graphics IRIX platforms,
Animo uses a mixture of bitmap and vector technology to provide both clean, fast,
animateable vector paint and the accuracy and essence of the original
drawings though bitmaps. It has very sophisticated compositing tools and
users can create almost anything they can think up. Animo's weak point is
its price, which is pretty expensive. (This is rumored to change in the next
few months though.)
Animo consists of:
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Scan: Scanning and processing of drawings. A large format,
autofeeding scanner can be used to capture batches of drawings. |
Ink & Paint: "Painting" of the drawings. The user can also
color the trace lines and add in effects like soft shadow lines. |
Director: Compositing (putting together the various scene elements).
The drawings can be composited with backgrounds, overlays, other drawings,
effects, and other elements, timed out, modified and animated in all sorts
of ways. |
Render: Allows the scenes to be rendered using all the machines
on the network. |
RETAS (Celsys, Japan)
The leader in installed systems in Japan, RETAS (Revolutionary
Engineering Total Animation System) is available on Windows, Macintosh and in
Japanese, English and Chinese. RETAS is primarily a bitmap
based system (although they have recently introduced a simplified vector system
somewhat like Animo's) and the interface is much like Photoshop's so it is easy
for users to work with. RETAS is a very good system for normal
television series production work and is inexpensive making it easy to deploy large
numbers of systems. Celsys has been good about getting out regular updates as well.
RETAS was used for the USA SPIDERMAN TV series, DR. SLUMP, some ESCAFLOWNE
episodes and most everything Toei Animation has made for the past couple
years.
RETAS consists of TraceMan, PaintMan, Core
RETAS and RenderDog. TraceMan is the scanning application
that allows its users to scan their images into the system. PaintMan is used to
color the images and Core RETAS is used to composite the
various elements and to add timing and effects.
Toonz
(Softimage) was used for some sequences in MONONOKE
HIME and for Studio Ghibli's new film TONARI NO YAMADA-KUN.
It is also being used at Beyond C for the production of STEAM
BOY.
3D Systems
3D systems are becoming more accessible and able to produce
a wide variety of images. The days of plastic looking, unrealistically moving
images are gone and, properly used, 3D animation software can
be excellent production tools. The biggest problem right now is the integration of
2D and 3D elements. There are various
tools available that make 3D images look like images produced
on cels but they're not quite there yet and even when they get there we still have
to deal with the movement differences. Full 3D mainstream shows
have been made in the USA, but none have been produced so far
in Japan. Many producers and directors feel that the Japanese audiences will not like
a complete 3D look and the only examples available were done in
the USA and don't give a good idea of what a Japanese produced
show would look like. Still, there are other producers who think that the time is
right and there are plans to create such shows.
The most common 3D system in use in the Japanese
animation industry is Lightwave 3D (NewTek,
USA). (Also the most common system for production in
Hollywood.) With a wealth of features and tools aimed at the effects market,
Lightwave is relatively easy to use and quite reasonably priced.
Other systems in somewhat common use are:
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