which phase of movie making was earliest to adopt the use of digital techniques?

Just because one owns a drill, it does not make a screwdriver obsolete! Each has an important role to play, together with their unique pros and cons. Computer animation is not meant as a replacement for traditional hand-drawn characters, but rather viewed as another tool in an animator’s box of tricks.

Traditional animation remains a prominent form of animation to this day and continues to grow with new animators joining the industry each year. Not only can and does traditional and computer animation coexist, but often a combination of both is needed. However, thanks to a short animated film produced by Brian Jennings and Bill Kroyer, entitled Technological Threat, this fear was reduced as it was clearly illustrated not only how computer animation integrates with traditional animation, but how there is a place for both. With the introduction of computer animation, people were afraid that computers would take their jobs. The new technology meant that, much like with the use of robots in manufacturing, machines could do more of the work.

It was during the 1980s, however, that the newer technologies became more widely used allowing the animation industry to evolve and change the manner in which traditional animation was created. However, whereas the length of time it takes to make an animated movie has remained relatively the same, it is the quality of the end result which has significantly improved as a result of this technology. The advent of computer and graphic processing hardware has fundamentally changed this process. Yet long before the invention of computers, animators made use of hand drawings to create their animated characters which brought with it the tedious task of keeping track of each and every physical drawing making up the animation sequence. And for certain animated sequences requiring an extra edge, there is always the opportunity to develop custom-made proprietary software to add that extra element to the final product.īut be it video games, movies or television - all of them carry the tell-tale signs of modern animation techniques facilitated by the use of technology. In addition, high-end 3D animation software enables most of what one would see in a conventional animated movie such as modelling, rendering, animation, and lightning.

More recently, technology tools facilitating computer animation include for example the digital pen, tablet and digital sculpting tools.

Which phase of movie making was earliest to adopt the use of digital techniques?