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            <h3 class="title">The Antics computer animation system</h3>
            <h4 class="author">Alan Kitching</h4>
            <h4 class="date">September 1975</h4>
            <h5 class="publication">Interactive Systems Conference</h5>
            <h4 xmlns="">Abstract</h4>
            <p xmlns="">Antics is a Fortran software package designed specifically to meet 
the needs of animators and graphic designers, with the following 
features:</p>
            <ol xmlns="" style="list-style-type:lower-alpha">
               <li>as input it accepts freehand design drawings plus instructions 
for the animation required</li>
               <li>with suitable hardware, the output is full colour movie film, 
of quality comparable to conventional hand-painted techniques</li>
               <li>the system offers almost all the flexibility of traditional cel 
animation, including character animation, moving backgrounds, mattes 
and complex optical effects</li>
               <li>conceptually, the system closely parallels conventional techniques, 
with design drawings, line tests, layouts, spacing guides, backgrounds, 
character construction skeletons, etc, and instructions charted in 
a form resembling a cue sheet</li>
               <li>the system requires no computer experience or programming knowledge 
to use it</li>
               <li>overall, the system achieves something like 80% reduction in labour 
and 50% reduction in. cost compared with hand technique making it 
possible for a single artist to produce a film that otherwise would 
require a whole team of artists.</li>
            </ol>
            <p xmlns="">The system was designed in 1973 by Alan Kitching at 
Grove Park Studio, and is currently being implemented at the 
Atlas Computer Laboratory under the auspices of the 
Royal College of Art. </p>
            <p xmlns="">The appeal of animation as a medium lies in the fact that the 
artist has very great freedom to create whatever images the imagination 
desires.
This freedom, in fact, is the main reason why animators are prepared to 
undertake the enormous labour involved. So unless the computer can get 
at least close to matching this freedom, the majority of film animators 
are not going to be whole-heartedly interested. Most computer graphics 
systems to date are not designed from the professional animator's point 
of view - they fail to meet some of the artist's most basic image-making 
requirements, and for this reason computer graphics has so far made 
little impact in the animation industry, in spite of its success 
in many other fields. Antics is an example of what I call a <em>graphic 
animation system</em> - a system designed specifically for animators.</p>
            <p xmlns="">To clarify this distinction, let us put Antics in its context by 
describing quickly the overall state of computer animation techniques.
Roughly, we can divide computer animation into 3 categories: exploration, 
simulation, and graphic animation. All films have something of all three
 qualities, so these are not isolated categories; however, computer 
animation systems generally place major emphasis on one category.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig1.png" width="309" height="468" alt="Figure 1: a full-colour sequence showing a few Antics capabilities&#xA; that are tedious to produce by hand. From a surrealistic environment &#xA;where rows of cubes drift across the screen in perspective, &#xA;there emerges a large rotating cube, each face with an animating &#xA;image: a clock-face with&#xA;hands turning, a human face that turns from side to side, &#xA;a spinning pattern of stripes, and a question-mark that transforms &#xA;to an exclamation-mark and back again. This large cube comes to rest &#xA;in a landscape; the cube's lid opens and out comes an animating &#xA;geometric pattern;&#xA;this, and also the cube itself, then transform into the title lettering &#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 1: a full-colour sequence showing a few Antics capabilities
 that are tedious to produce by hand. From a surrealistic environment 
where rows of cubes drift across the screen in perspective, 
there emerges a large rotating cube, each face with an animating 
image: a clock-face with
hands turning, a human face that turns from side to side, 
a spinning pattern of stripes, and a question-mark that transforms 
to an exclamation-mark and back again. This large cube comes to rest 
in a landscape; the cube's lid opens and out comes an animating 
geometric pattern;
this, and also the cube itself, then transform into the title lettering 
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig1.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">The first, exploration, refers to the artistic exploration of 
filmmakers like John Whitney and Lillian Schwartz. Abstract work 
of this kind aims to explore the new artistic possibilities offered 
by the computer. Usually this involves exploiting the computer's 
mathematical precision in terms of geometrical patterns and textures. 
Because this kind of work is particularly suited to the computer, 
it's not surprising that most computer films to reach cinema screens 
have been of this kind; unfortunate, too, because many people have got 
the false assumption that computers can only produce abstract 
mathematical patterns. Artistic exploration is always a valid 
activity, but most film-makers are concerned with using animation 
as a means of communicating ideas and themes, and this involves 
exploiting and embellishing existing languages of visual design, 
not in inventing new ones. consequently, most animators regard 
abstract exploration as a highly-specialised branch of the medium; 
a future-oriented one, perhaps, with only occasional usefulness in 
present-day film-making.</p>
            <p xmlns="">
               <em>Simulation</em> is the bread-and-butter work of 
computer animation: a proven and valuable tool that allows scientists 
and engineers to study complex processes in revealing new ways. 
Most of the familiar computer graphics systems come under this heading; 
they are well-known to computer specialists, but because they are 
designed for scientific work rather than artistic work, these are of 
little interest to animators. The films produced are often nothing 
more than a convenient way of printing out the results of some 
enormous calculation; sometimes they are used for educational purposes, 
but even here that fact that every simulation has to have a 
special program written for it often precludes the possibility of 
employing professional graphics techniques for presentation. 
Only fortuitously do these films have great visual impact.
The exception is systems that simulate the appearance of solid 
objects moving in perspective space. One such system is available as 
a commercial service to animators - SynthaVision in New York. 
This will produce realistic-looking full-colour animation of apparently 
solid objects - quickly and at competitive cost. The main drawback 
is that it is a 3D simulation system, and will therefore not accept 
2-dimensicnal drawings. Everything has to be built up out of simple 
solid shapes spheres, cones, cubes, etc - with the result that it's 
tedious to work with, and everything produced tends to have a 
similar Toy Town quality. It would be more accurate to regard 
SynthaVision as computerised puppet animation.</p>
            <p xmlns="">This leaves the third category, <em>graphic animation</em> - here we 
deal with systems whose main aim is to provide a useful tool 
for designers and animators. This area is the most neglected, 
since the animation industry is not large enough to fund research, 
and people in other professions don't feel it's any of their business. 
Consequently, we find the only three systems currently achieving 
genuinely useful results have all originated in obscure corners, 
far removed from the world of big organisations. 
(Simple interactive systems like Ron Baecker's Genesys at MIT have 
too crude a picture quality to be of use to most film-makers.) </p>
            <p xmlns="">First and best known is Scanimate - operating in three studios in 
the USA, and one in London. As you may know, this is not strictly a 
computer in the ordinary sense, but an analogue video-manipulation 
device. It accepts artwork images fed in through a TV camera, and by 
manipulating knobs on a control panel this image can be made to distort, 
squeeze, bend, twist or whatever in a vast number of different ways. 
Because it is a video system, Scanimate can handle sophisticated 
full-colour images with instant real-time playback - something that 
digital computers cannot achieve at present. When the animator is 
satisfied with the playback, the sequence is finally transferred to 
videotape. The main disadvantage is that its animation capabilities 
are strictly limited - only five different colours can be used; it 
can't to full figure animation (except crudely), or moving backgrounds, 
or many other things that cel animation can do. A more sophisticated 
machine, called Caesar, has been built, but is not yet generally 
available. Scanimate has been very successful in the field of instant 
TV graphics, but it is otherwise too limited to be regarded as an 
<em>all-purpose</em> system.</p>
            <p xmlns="">Second is the system devised by the National Research Council of 
Canada, with the assistance of the internationally-known animator, 
Peter Foldes.
Using an extremely small (16k) computer they have made a system 
more-or-less tailored to Peter Foldes' style of animation - he uses 
line drawings, with animation largely consisting of smooth 
transformations from one drawing to another. Using the NRC computer, 
he has made a film called La Faim (Hunger), which was the Canadian 
entry at the Cannes international festival. It is a savagely powerful 
film, and deserves special place as a milestone in computer 
animation - La Faim certainly can't be criticised as lacking 
passionate vision, nor of being inhumanly mechanical.</p>
            <p xmlns="">In designing Antics we have incorporated the animation principles 
of both Scanimate and of the NRC system; having more powerful 
equipment than NRC, however, we have been able to go some steps 
further. Our major limitations are that being a digital computer 
system Antics cannot operate in real-time like Scanimate, and there 
are also limitations of image complexity that I shall describe later. 
The design philosophy of Antics is best seen in relation to 
conventional animation. Conventional work embraces a wide 
spectrum from the very simplest techniques like cut-out 
animation, where whole films can be made quickly and 
cheaply, to the most beautifully executed masterpieces of the 
animation craftsman who enjoys the labour and devotion of 
frame-by-frame drawings. In between these extremes is a 
large area of film-making where traditional assembly-line 
techniques are used.
Here there is a sharp distinction between the creative design work, 
and the work of producing the result. The distinction can be as sharp 
as it is between the architect who designs a house and the builder 
who builds it. Like the architect with his drawn plans and written 
specifications, the initial creative work of animation has 
two kinds of components; (a) drawings such as design drawings, 
character 
construction drawings, layouts, spacing guides and key drawings (b) 
specifications in the form of bar sheets or dope sheets. The rest of 
the work is purely mechanical. The specifications describe how the 
design drawings are to be combined, what in-betweening is required;
they describe how they are to be coloured and photographed, and 
they describe what standard operations (like pan or zoom) are to 
be used. conventionally, this mechanical work is done by animation 
assistants, in-betweeners, tracers, painters and camera operators.</p>
            <p xmlns="">Essentially, Antics carries out all the mechanical work on the 
computer, while leaving the initial creative work as near as possible 
the same as in conventional animation. We begin, therefore, with 
drawings, which are fed into the computer using a digitising tablet 
such as the D-Mac pencil follower. This is like a large drawing table;
you stick your drawing down and trace round it with a special kind of 
magnetic pen. The D-Mac senses the movements of the pen and 
automatically records the drawing. All drawings are fed in in the 
same way, whatever use we may wish to make of them. Besides using 
them as design images to be animated on the screen, they may be used 
as character construction skeletons; as grids to define how another 
image is to be distorted; as spacing guides to control the movement 
of another image; as backgrounds; as key drawings; or as graphs to 
control any other kind of change.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig2.png" width="589" height="406" alt="Figure 2:  digitising table&#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 2:  digitising table
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig2.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">Once we have fed in the drawings, there now remains the 
specifications.
These we chart out in a form resembling a cue sheet. 
Conventional animation charting deals with two things: 
a small vocabulary of key words like frame, field, pan, 
zoom, spin, fade, etc., plus some vital numbers - frame numbers, 
field sizes, start and end calibrations for a pan; in addition, 
drawings are numbered and assigned to numbered cel levels. 
Essentially, the Antics specifications ar2 much the same, only 
the chart format is different.</p>
            <p xmlns="">There are forty key words in the Antics system, each referring 
to one kind of animation operation. Some of them refer to basic 
displacement operations, mostly identical to camera movements: 
PAN, TILT, 200B, SPIN, HOLD, BANISH. Others perform distortions 
similar to Scanimate, or the effects of techniques like 
wobble-glass: WAVE, SHAKE, WOBBLE, EXPAND, GROW, WIG-WAG, BENDY, 
SPACE, SHIFT. Other operations are complete animation systems in 
themselves: CHN~GE will carry out smooth transformations from any 
image into any other, and on its own is able to produce animation 
like Peter Foldes' La Faim. SKELE'['ON will carry out full-figure 
animation; it will take a few simple matchstick skeleton drawings as 
key-frames; it will in-between these; it will then fit a character 
of any complexity on the skeletons frame-by-frame to produce smooth 
character animation. Furthermore, skeletons used to animate one 
character can be stored and used again to animate another character. 
SKELE~)N combined with CHANGE will allow the character to change from 
side view to front view (or whatever) at the same time as following 
the skeleton animation, so we can achieve a fully solid-looking effect 
with characters able to turn right round. </p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig3a.png" width="471" height="150" alt="Figure 3a:  SKELETON drawings like these here can he used to &#xA;animate full-colour figures. The skeletons define the position of the &#xA;figure on key frames; &#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 3a:  SKELETON drawings like these here can he used to 
animate full-colour figures. The skeletons define the position of the 
figure on key frames; 
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig3a.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig3b.png" width="462" height="127" alt="Figure 3b:  a single fully-detailed character drawing is &#xA;digitised, and the program fits this to the skeleton positions on &#xA;each new frame of film &#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 3b:  a single fully-detailed character drawing is 
digitised, and the program fits this to the skeleton positions on 
each new frame of film 
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig3b.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">SKELETON can also use grid drawings to produce freely selective 
distortion effects, or to achieve apparent solid-effects such as a 
rotating globe of the world. FLIP and FLAP perform perspective 
rotations similar to the conventional flipover; TUMBLE and TURN 
perform perspective manoeuvres similar to a rollover. MASK is 
used to mask a drawing invisibly;
SUPER allows complex matte effects to be achieved; MIRROR works 
like a mirror, and can be used to create kaleidoscopic effects; 
CYCLE is used to repeat sections of animation; PATH is used to make an 
image follow a freely-drawn movement curve; LEVELS is used to play 
about with the order of cel levels to achieve effects like having lots 
of images rotating round each other; FREAK introduces controlled random 
distortions into an image; CURLY will turn an image into an abstract 
geometrical pattern and play with it; TWIST will twist an image like a 
Christmas decoration and rotate it in apparent solid perspective.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig4a.png" width="334" height="262" alt="Figure 4a:  Using the GRID operation: like skeleton; &#xA;half-a-dozen grid drawings can be used to define key positions for the &#xA;distortion of a single design drawing, such as this drawing of the &#xA;human heart. &#xA;&#xA;&#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 4a:  Using the GRID operation: like skeleton; 
half-a-dozen grid drawings can be used to define key positions for the 
distortion of a single design drawing, such as this drawing of the 
human heart. 


</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig4a.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig4b.png" width="151" height="350" alt="Figure 4b:  The key grids are automatically in-betweened and the drawing is &#xA;distorted to fit&#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 4b:  The key grids are automatically in-betweened and the drawing is 
distorted to fit
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig4b.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig5.png" width="408" height="342" alt="Figure 5:  an example of the TWIST operation: a flat diagram &#xA;of the DNA molecular structure is twisted into a rotating spiral"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 5:  an example of the TWIST operation: a flat diagram 
of the DNA molecular structure is twisted into a rotating spiral</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig5.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">There is no particular limit to how many of these things you can have 
happening all at once. You can have up to 130 different picture elements 
on the screen at once, all doing different things. Even on their own, 
most of these operations can be used in a variety of different ways, 
and even the simple ones have a flexibility that is difficult to 
compare with the conventional equivalent. For example, on an 
animation camera you are lucky to get a zoom ratio better than 20:1; 
the Antics ZOOM will give a ratio of 10,000:1. FLIPS can be combined and 
controlled to give the effects of a rotating solid cube.
TUMBLE can be used to take an image, curl it up into a solid-looking 
cylinder with perhaps different colours on inside and outside, and 
maybe perforated with holes - and then set the whole thing turning, 
finally to return it to its original flat state. Even the humble Pan 
can be used to take a complex image of a molecular structure and 
make it appear to rotate in 3-dimensions.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig6.png" width="474" height="179" alt="Figure 6: the operation TUMBLE is used to create the effect of a &#xA;rotating solid perforated cylinder "/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 6: the operation TUMBLE is used to create the effect of a 
rotating solid perforated cylinder </h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig6.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">Incidentally, it is also
possible to do 3D simulations directly. Unlike SynthaVision, Antics 
normally works with ordinary 2-dimensional drawings - this is important 
because artists usually think in terms of flat drawings, and if they 
want spatial effects, they know how to distort the flat image to create 
the illusion of perspective. However, Antics offers both worlds, 
because it is also possible to feed in a plan drawing and an elevation 
drawing of a solid object; if the two drawings are matched 
point-for-point, Antics will produce a 3D front-view perspective 
simulation.
With suitable ingenuity, almost anything can be achieved.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig7.png" width="102" height="469" alt="Figure 7: an example of the CHANGE operation: inbetweening from &#xA;Groucho Marx to Elvis Presley"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 7: an example of the CHANGE operation: inbetweening from 
Groucho Marx to Elvis Presley</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig7.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig8.png" width="393" height="265" alt="Figure 8: the illusion of a solid molecular model-rotating can &#xA;be produced simply using the TILT operation controlled by sine waves "/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 8: the illusion of a solid molecular model-rotating can 
be produced simply using the TILT operation controlled by sine waves </h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig8.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">However, this is only half of it. We command an operation to be 
performed by simply typing the numbers needed to describe it: 
for example, the start and end size of a zoom might be specified as 
25 per cent and 150 per cent respectively. However, apart from the 30 
operations listed above, there are a further group of 10 operations 
which are not applied directly to pictures, but only to numbers used 
in specifications; these 10 operations are called CONTROLS and are 
similar to the concept of voltage control in music synthesizers 
like the Moog. The SINE control generates a sine-wave of specified 
period and amplitude: for example, varying between 25 and 150 
with a period of 50 frames. If we apply this control to the start 
size of the zoom, then the image will continually zoom back and 
forth between these two sizes. Controls can be applied to almost 
every aspect of every operation - even CHANGE in-betweening can be 
controlled in this way, for example. Other controls are: LINEAR 
which produces a linear change from one value to another; WEDGE does a 
change from one value to another and back again with holds in between;
WANDER takes a freely-drawn curve as a. time-graph of the desired 
quantity, and is particularly useful for lip sync animation: RANDOM 
produces controlled random fluctuations for animating things like 
flames; TWEENY in-between things in a curiously spasmodic manner 
that has many unexpected uses; CURVE controls things in a parabolic 
fashion, like falling objects; TAG hitches an image onto some part of 
another image; TAPER produces various cushioning effects; 
PHASES allows things to pass smoothly from one state to another, 
then another, then another, and so on in indefinite controlled 
succession. You can take it still further. You can use a control to 
control another control. Instead of having the period or a SINE 
control fixed at 50 frames, you could have this period varying as well...</p>
            <p xmlns="">In short there is no end to the possible variety and flexibility 
with which things can be made to happen. Once we have prepared a chart 
of the animation required, we type in the specifications following 
a fixed format, and then give the command to run the Antics animation 
program. For a typical 30-second sequence of average complexity this 
will take about five minutes on the Atlas Lab's ICL 1906A computer.
The result of this is a line-test, stored on magnetic tape, which we 
can view immediately on a TV screen. If we want to change anything, of 
course, this is simply done by correcting the specification and 
running the program again. If, like Peter Foldes, we wish line drawings 
as a final result, then the work is now complete, and may be plotted 
direct onto film using suitable hardware. However, if we want full 
colour results, we take our line test tape back to the 1906A 
computer and run a different Antics program - one that does the 
work of the conventional paint/trace department. This program takes 
the line test images, colouring in all the areas level by level. 
It also distinguishes between opaque colours and transparent colours, 
and if required can make a shape on one cel level merge invisibly 
(ELIDE) with a shape on another level; this allows shapes to penetrate 
and pass through each other.
The program outputs each frame as a scanned image, TV image, in the 
form of red, green and blue colour separations.  Again, these are stored 
on magnetic tape, ready to be plotted onto film.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig9a.png" width="456" height="337" alt="Figure 9a:  Antics animation is carried out with drawings in&#xA;line form (as the above drawing of the Atlas Laboratory);&#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 9a:  Antics animation is carried out with drawings in
line form (as the above drawing of the Atlas Laboratory);
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig9a.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig9b.png" width="448" height="320" alt="Figure 9b:  when the 'line-test' animation is satisfactorily completed,&#xA;a second program automatically 'paints' the&#xA;line-test drawings to produce the full-colour result&#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 9b:  when the 'line-test' animation is satisfactorily completed,
a second program automatically 'paints' the
line-test drawings to produce the full-colour result
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig9b.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">The programs are written in Fortran and can therefore be run on 
almost any computer, medium size and upwards. The programs are data 
driven, so the animator does not need to learn a programming language; 
instead, we simply organise our data following a fixed structure
laid out in the documentation. To computer specialists, the distinction 
here often seems quite small; to the layman, however, the difference 
is enormous.
Most animators, for whatever reason, would refuse point blank to 
sit down and learn a computer language. Yet we have had artists 
with no computer experience quite happily picking up the Antics 
manual and actually completing a film in their first day.</p>
            <p xmlns="">The computing side of the Antics system is quite straightforward; 
the crucial part of the process is the hardware problem of transferring 
the results to film. The simplest answer to this is the one being used 
most successfully by SynthaVision - the 3D simulation system 
I mentioned earlier. They use a device made by 
Information Displays Inc.
of New York: it consists simply of a precision black-and-white TV 
display, a movie camera with colour film, and a rotating red-green-blue 
filter disc; these are controlled automatically by a mini-computer from 
information on magnetic tape. The whole 
unit - tape deck, minicomputer, TV display, colour wheel and camera - 
costs about £20,000 (cheap by computer standards!) and gives 
thoroughly excellent results very economically.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig10.png" width="460" height="227" alt="Figure 10: Antics 'painting' works on the raster-scan principle, &#xA;with 512 vertical scan lines across the screen. A single colour area &#xA;may consist of one or a group of several outlines taken together; &#xA;when an outline crosses itself - or when one is inside another the &#xA;shading switches consecutively on/off, giving rise to &#xA;a 'chequerboarding' effect "/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 10: Antics 'painting' works on the raster-scan principle, 
with 512 vertical scan lines across the screen. A single colour area 
may consist of one or a group of several outlines taken together; 
when an outline crosses itself - or when one is inside another the 
shading switches consecutively on/off, giving rise to 
a 'chequerboarding' effect </h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig10.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig11.png" width="395" height="314" alt="Figure 11:superimposing of transparent colour areas: a still &#xA;from the tit e sequence for BBC-tv's programme 'The Burke Special'"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 11:superimposing of transparent colour areas: a still 
from the tit e sequence for BBC-tv's programme 'The Burke Special'</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig11.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">At the Atlas Laboratory, where we have implemented the Antics 
system on an ICL 1906A computer, we have had to use a more elaborate 
method.
Up till May 1975, all our results were plotted on an obsolete 
Datagraphix SD4020 microfilm recorder. This machine was never 
designed to cope with this kind of work, so we have had terrible 
problems coaxing it to produce good results; especially since we 
had to plot the red-green-blue separations on 3 different 
black-and-white films, and combine them in the processing 
laboratory by an expensive optical process. 
The arrival of a new Information International FR80 plotter 
overcomes the faults of the SD4020, though compared with the simple 
TV display device, it is rather like using a sledgehammer to 
crack a nut.</p>
            <p xmlns="">There is also a different kind of film-plotting machine being 
built at the Computer-Aided Design Centre in Cambridge. This converts 
the Antics scanned images into standard video format before recording 
on film. This will have all the advantages of the FR80, but will be 
much cheaper; it also opens up the possibility of working directly 
onto videotape, thus giving us real-time playback, like Scanimate.
This brings us to consider some of the other possibilities for future 
Antics capabilities.</p>
            <p xmlns="">At present, we use key-frame matchstick skeletons to achieve 
full-figure character animation. However, we are currently investigating 
an even simpler possibility - the use of Benesh notation. This is the 
music-like notation that choreographers use to script dance movements, 
and my colleague, Colin Emmett, is currently writing a program to 
convert Benesh notation into Antics skeletons, so the notation could be 
used to create Antics figure animation. </p>
            <p xmlns="">The Atlas Lab has an optical scanning device, which could be used 
like a digital TV camera so that drawings - and ultimately even 
photographs - could be fed in directly. We have written a program 
for this, but not yet implemented it.</p>
            <p xmlns="">The animation program itself could be operated interactively on 
the Atlas Lab's PDPl5 computer, allowing movements to be controlled 
directly by touch, in the manner of Scanimate, though only in 
line test form.</p>
            <p xmlns="">Finally, there is one Antics facility that I haven't even mentioned 
yet. Besides drawing pictures, Antics also has a program that draws 
optical sound tracks. This in itself is quite a sophisticated thing. 
It operates in a manner almost identical to electronic synthesisers 
like the Moog or the VCS3, but with several important advantages. 
A synthesiser consists of a number of electronic gadgets that generate 
sounds such as sine waves, square waves, white noise, and such. 
In addition to these sources of sound, synthesisers also have various 
devices to modify sounds - filters, reverberation units, ring-modulators 
and envelope shapers. Complex inter-connections of selected gadgets 
can be discovered that will produce a vast variety of sounds - 
effects like wind, rain, storms, explosions, guns, squeaks, bells, 
drums, and fair imitations of most musical instruments, as well as 
musical sounds unlike any natural instrument. </p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig12.png" width="453" height="248" alt="Figure 12: Antics equipment as used at the Atlas Computer &#xA;Laboratory: drawings are digitised on the D-Mac and fed, into the &#xA;ICL 1906A computer on paper tape; instructions are typed in on a &#xA;teletype&#xA;terminal, or on punched cards; the computer produces results on &#xA;magnetic tape; this may be viewed on the VDU screen of the PDP-15 &#xA;computer or plotted onto film on the SD4020 microfilm recorder &#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 12: Antics equipment as used at the Atlas Computer 
Laboratory: drawings are digitised on the D-Mac and fed, into the 
ICL 1906A computer on paper tape; instructions are typed in on a 
teletype
terminal, or on punched cards; the computer produces results on 
magnetic tape; this may be viewed on the VDU screen of the PDP-15 
computer or plotted onto film on the SD4020 microfilm recorder 
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig12.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">In synthesiser
terminology, a specific arrangement of devices (corresponding to a 
specific kind of sound) is known as a patch. The Antics sound track 
program works in the same way. An Antics <em>patch</em> consists of a 
specified arrangement of sources and treatments: the same devices are 
used in Antics as in a conventional synthesiser, so that it is possible 
to use a synthesiser to design a patch and then transfer it to Antics 
and get the same sound. Antics patches can be stored on punched cards 
and used over again; another advantage is this: on synthesisers the 
frequency of a note is set by turning a dial and it is not usually 
possible to set a second note to be exactly locked to a harmonic of 
another; in Antics patches this is possible, because frequencies can 
be specified as precise numbers, or as precise ratios of other 
frequencies. This allows complex sets of overtones and harmonics to 
be used. In the Antics program, you can have up to twenty different 
patches all producing different sounds simultaneously,' so this is 
equivalent to having twenty synthesisers at your command.
To generate music, the Antics program will accept a musical score; 
 this may have up to twenty tracks, each with its own melody and its 
own patch. Notes are written simply as A, B, C, CS for C sharp, and so 
on, plus the number of beats duration of the note, and a digit to 
identify which octave the note is in. Consequently, with a selection of 
patches giving sounds of different instruments, and a track of music for 
each patch, it's possible to create an entire band.</p>
            <p xmlns="">The Antics sound track program will also accept hand-drawn shapes 
and use them either as wave-forms, or an envelope for other sounds. 
In effect, this is an automated version of Norman McLaren's hand drawn 
sound tracks. The shapes produced on the sound track are often quite 
striking - our first musical test was Maxwell's Silver Hammer rendered 
in square waves; the resulting sound track included shapes that looked 
like little hammers. Of course, it's also possible to use the sound 
track shapes as picture - with different tracks in different 
colours - but this is something we've not yet had time to explore. 
The timing of sound tracks is measured in frames, which underlines the 
fact that the program is essentially intended as an accompaniment 
to the animation program, giving the animator the facilities of an 
electronic music studio, but able to produce sound tracks tightly 
synchronised to his  animation. This brings us back to our starting 
point - the basic  purpose of it all.</p>
            <p xmlns="" class="figure">
               <img src="/acl/pngs/fig13.png" width="18" height="423" alt="Figure 13: a small fragment of Antics sound track:  &#xA;a rendering of 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' in square waves &#xA;"/>
            </p>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">Figure 13: a small fragment of Antics sound track:  
a rendering of 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' in square waves 
</h5>
            <h5 xmlns="" class="heading">
               <a target="new" href="/acl/pngs/fig13.png">
Full Size Image
</a>
            </h5>
            <p xmlns="">One of the commonest questions that arises with Antics is who 
will have access to use it. Surprisingly enough, the answer is that 
anyone who is a student (or staff member) of a university or polytechnic 
in Britain can apply for free use of it, as can people in government 
establishments. Consequently, it is far from being a luxury enjoyed 
only by the big media companies, and we'd certainly like to encourage 
any student with a creative experimental project to take advantage 
of this fact. This illustrates the point of it all - to allow one 
person, entirely on his own, to conceive and produce a film that 
otherwise would require a team of assistants to make.</p>
            <p xmlns="">In an existential sense, anyone engaged on a mechanical task has 
become,
for the time being, a machine. As a society we are beginning to move 
away from situations where one individual performs mechanical 
tasks for the benefit of another. Animation has always been severely 
handicapped by the amount of mechanical labour involved. It would be 
difficult to estimate how many films have been abandoned at the 
ideas stage simply because of the labour and cost that would have 
been needed to make them it's also difficult to imagine what the 
animation industry would be like if everyone in it was directing 
their own films, rather than most people working on someone else's film. 
This indicates something of the untapped potential that exists for 
animation; if computer animation can release this potential it seems 
quite likely it would have a revolutionary impact on the whole area of 
visual communications. </p>
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