Expresii 寫意
  • Home
  • Showcase
    • Moxi Paint Engine
    • Yibi Brush Engine
    • A New Way to Paint
    • youji Rendering Engine
  • Download
    • Get / Buy Expresii >
      • Update Log
    • Sample Artwork Files
    • Third-Party
  • Support
    • Documentation >
      • End User License Agreement
      • Privacy Policy
    • Video Tutorials
    • User Forum
    • FAQ
    • Feedback
    • Help Translate
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Media Resources
    • Privacy
  • Blog
  • 主頁
  • 示範
  • 網誌
  • 下載
  • 關於我們
    • 聯絡我們

Discussion on supporting Animation Production and more

30/7/2021

Comments

 
Earlier this year in April, our Dr. Nelson  Chu was invited to give  a talk at the   ACAS Inaugural conference.   As you may know, Expresii has been used in the production of a few animated shorts and the ink-painting-styled feature animation Red Squirrel Mai   (although the production of Mai  may be halted).  Here we'd like to elaborate more on the questions raised during the conference for Nelson:

Q: From your lecture, we have seen the many possibilities of traditional ink painting in digital art. I think it's a combination of traditional art and computer skills, as well as a deep understanding of animation. How do you manage the relationship between them?  

A: Hiring multi-talented people can help bridge the gaps. I believe they have a higher chance solving problems that have not been solved before. I have been lucky to have some tech-savvy and self-motivated artists to work with. For instance, my friend   Shuen Leung, who has been using Expresii since its early versions, can produce nice work without me giving much instruction.   Whenever I have some new functionality added to the program, she would just explore  it and see what she can come up with it.   Our (then) director   Angela Wong, soon recognized Shuen's abilities and invited her to join the production team. Having Shuen in the team had been a privilege.   She's also a kung fu practitioner, who can inform us on the kung fu moves that would appear in the Mai movie.  

In my role, I simply try my best to fulfill the program feature requests  from the directors.   They are the actual ones managing different people in the production team. I can't speak for them, but from what I've observed, putting people in the right roles would definitely help make things smooth.

Q: How can experts in different fields work well together?

A: Mutual respect and good communication are important. Try understand others' point of view and/or the constraints they have.  For example, many of us have opinions on how ink-painting-styled animation should be like. We may offer our views and in fact, there has been some heated discussions. Ultimately, it  would be the film director to decide. For the production to go on, we let those in the managing positions do their jobs.  As a decision maker, one has to consider all the opinions and make appropriate choices.  It surely is not easy.  
​
Picture
Q: Is there  an inherent contradiction  between the serendipity of ink painting and the standardization resulting from computer algorithm or automation?

A: I actually don't see a contradiction here.  What you do depends on the project at hand. As an artist in general, I think serendipity is great and that's mainly why I started building my own tool for brush painting.  But for animation production,  we hire many animators to work on the same film. We need standardization  (e.g. style guide) so that the resultant animation looks coherent. Another reason for  standardization  is that we want to be able to control the amount of flickering between frames due to stroke differences. Some say, "if it's repeatable, it's not art". But here you actually  want the strokes to be repeatable with desired parameters! ^_^  Imagine, when you're half way done with your frames, your art director comes to you and asks, “Can you make the tentacles of the octopus a bit thicker?” If your  strokes are auto-generated instead of hand-painted, you can simply change the   parameters and have the computer re-render it!

Q: How do you see the future of ink-painting-styled animation (水墨動畫) ?

A:   Previously, only large studios can afford to do research  work.  They develop new algorithms for, say, simulating animal fur to support their story telling.  Nowadays, more individuals are learning programming, and one can come up with new algorithms specially designed for ink-painting-styled animation so that they don't need to rely on existing software, which may not be suitable for the effects they are after. That said, if some party is determined to invest on new ink-painting-styled animation, they still need to be patient, as developing and putting tailor-made new solution into a workable pipeline usually require a lot of experimentation.  The good news is that Angela Wong has prototyped a workable solution that is   already    used in the animated short Find Find  (as discussed in my talk). We just need to further develop it and put it to the test more. Let us know if you're interested to join this journey.

Q: How can artists or creatives get more involved in computer programming or on the technological side?

A:   They can learn programming online for free. Just do a search on creative coding  and you will find a bunch of tutorials and samples. I think that's exactly how Angela Wong learned programming. I believe you will be easily inspired to use code to do your next project!

Q: A really interesting point was bought up about how technology might be infiltrating art and calligraphy. On that note, what are your opinions on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for storyboarding  and animation? Do you think it will enhance our experiences  or just make us obsolete?

A:   Current state-of-the-art AI  needs a large number of samples as input for it to be able to learn some pattern in the samples and apply that same pattern to perform certain tasks.  That means it can not be creative all by itself yet.  Computers are very good at optimization. If you have well-defined goal or cost function, computer programs can find the optimal configuration that minimizes that cost.   

I think the general public's  view towards AI may be skewed by movies or fictions, thinking that AI can already think almost like a human.  No, we're still quite far from that. And, speaking of AI, beware there're some  opportunists trying to fool you with  fake AI!   


​Afterword

When Daisy Du of ACAS first contacted me in 2019, I'm a bit surprised that there is an academic association dedicated to Chinese animation studies.  I'm glad to see such an enthusiasm towards ink-painting-styled animation from humanity scholars.   I hope more resources can be given to accelerate modern development of CGI ink-painting-styled animation.

Here, I'd like to show you a 2018 tweet by a Japanese CG artist commenting on the lost tech of ink painting animation (水墨画によるアニメーション): "When would a hero using Expresii to make animation appear?"
Picture
Japanese CG artist 宍戸幸次郎: Expresiiでア二メ作る猛者はいつ出るのか (何時有猛者用Expresii 做水墨動畫?)

Really, you just need the right people  in the right roles. Will you be the next hero(s) or be one that help bring up   such hero(s)?   千里馬常有,但伯樂 不常有。在殘酷的社會環境,人才往往給埋沒掉。但願多點人在能力範圍内,可讓千里馬得到發揮。
Comments

    Expresii 寫意

    Previous Posts
    以前的文章

    November 2022
    October 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    July 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    Categories 分類

    All
    3rd Party Tool
    Animated
    Artists
    Calligraphy
    Demo
    Hardware
    Mac
    New Feature
    Publicity
    Purchase
    Surface
    Tech

    RSS Feed

Picture
© Expresii.com 2023. All Rights Reserved.