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Expert: Suzzanne Rebello
What is Stop Motion Animation?
Have you ever drawn pictures in the corners of old books? Drawing pictures with slight differences from one page to the next then flipping through them with your thumb makes the images animate.
This is the key concept of animation - incremental changes to drawings or objects, creating movement or “life”. Stop motion animation utilises this incremental change process in its own special way.
Traditionally, a 35mm film camera was started and stopped, one frame at a time. While the camera was stopped an animator would adjust the figure or object the camera was pointing at. The camera would film another frame - this would continue until all the animation was filmed.
Also known as stop-action or frame-by-frame, stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop motion animation using clay is described as clay animation. Stop motion animation has a long history in film. Earlier most Effects Shot were generated using this technique. In the 1970s and ‘80s, Industrial Light & Magic often used stop motion model animation for films such as the original Star Wars trilogy: the chess sequence in Star Wars, the Tauntauns and AT-AT walkers in The Empire Strikes Back, and various Imperial machines in Return of the Jedi are all stop motion animation. ILM also often used model animation for some of the Indiana Jones films — the ghosts in Raiders of the Lost Ark and many of the shots of the runaway mining-cart sequence in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are all stop-motion. Stop motion was also used for some shots of the final sequence of the first Terminator movie. Additionally, recent movies such as Chicken Run and Coraline also use the stop motion animation method, where clay heads and rubber puppet bodies are used. Stop motion animation has now become a popular method of animation in the industry.
Story continues below 
What is REAL-TIME 3D and how is it used in the Middle East?
Real-time 3D is the art of implementing 3D projects or objects in a 3D software and display them afterwards on a screen as immediately as possible depending on the performance of the machine.
The rendering is said to be “real time” because the computer makes the rendering without delay time, at each movement or modification of the 3D model.
Contrary to the image rendering for the 3D ”classical” animation or the “real time” realistic movie, all the rendering is calculated while the user is manipulating the object or is travelling into the project, thus the calculation of the images is hyper fast!
It gives users the opportunity to manipulate and interact directly with a model or a project said to be multimedia such as manipulating and changing the colours of a mobile phone, travelling in a virtual visit, configuring the accessories of an automobile and simulating emergency cases.
Real-time 3D is also present in the video games industry but that’s the only similarity because beyond the rendering principle, it’s a very different field that requires other skills and functions besides the manipulation and display of data.
In the Middle East, Real-time 3D (3DRT) is primarily used for broadcast and events.
In broadcast, 3DRT is used to create complex 3D virtual sets, integrating studio graphics with live camera feed from various locations, locking graphics to the screen or have them tracked with the camera, news room, weather, tickers for polls. In events, Real-Time 3D is used for breathtaking interactive presentations. This is also because of the flexibility of changing and reordering content as opposed to a linear timeline. In addition, due to their scalability, the graphics can be projected on extremely large video walls and uneven surfaces to create the ‘360 degree circular’. They are used in combinations with various gadgets like laser pointers and can create some very interesting effects. Software like VizRT and Ventuz are widely used and offer efficient training and services in the region. http://www.ventuz.com/; http://www.vizrt.com/
- Suzzanne Rebello
Please send your queries to vijaya.cherian@itp.com
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FEATURED COMMENT
"the ghosts in Raiders of the Lost Ark and...are all stop-motion." No the "ghosts" were not filmed using stop motion.