New Levels of Animation

I recently read an article called Computer Animation Takes Films To Higher Level about how Disney and Pixar have reached new levels of animation. This is an old article. The director of Toy Story and A Bug's Life, John Lasseter, was talking about technology improvements shortly before the release of A Bug's Life. It talks about how Toy Story was so technically innovating and that the story was simply amazing but that A Bug's Life has made leaps and bounds in technology improvements since Toy Story, which came out three years prior to A Bug's Life. I thought that it was interesting how Lasseter explained that in A Bug's Life, they needed to show the transparency in the environment. It wasn't until a A Bug's Life that this technology was available. Why wasn't available before? Because the computers and the software wasn't powerful enough.

This was an informative article but I wanted more. As an animator I wanted more. I want to know how much has really changed since 1998. Like what more is there? How is there not more that John Lassenter said about A Bug's Life? A project that you work on is a pride and joy for you. It's hard to shut up about it. How dare you not include more of what Lassenter said about the amazingness of A Bug's Life. Tell me why I should care more about the technology advances and why they are so freaking cool. Don't you realize author that there will be future generations of animators that will care about this?

I didn't realize how much I take the transparency tools for granted. In a few years there will be greater tools that will make animation better and easier and they will be wonderful. But in nearly 18 years all the tools that have just come out will be taken for granted. It's incredibly weird, but why do we care? This is a basic tools we're talking about. Transparency is a tool that I've never not had. The new stuff coming out, the new Autodesk updates, the new Adobe updates, the new tools that are being added will shape the way students learn animation and the tools they "grow up with" will be taken for granted and they will find so absurd that I could have learned animation without those tools. What a strange thought isn't it? The inevitability of it and the uncertainty of it. But the truth of it.