MarsVaughanBrinkman

Interactive Media Student Blog

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Sophia The Robot

Hanson Robotics’ most advanced human-like robot, Sophia, personifies our dreams for the future of AI. As a unique combination of science, engineering, and artistry, Sophia is simultaneously a human-crafted science fiction character depicting the future of AI and robotics, and a platform for advanced robotics and AI research.

The character of Sophia captures the imagination of global audiences. She is the world’s first robot citizen and the first robot Innovation Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme. Sophia is now a household name, with appearances on the Tonight Show and Good Morning Britain, in addition to speaking at hundreds of conferences around the world.

Sophia is also a framework for cutting edge robotics and AI research, particularly for understanding human-robot interactions and their potential service and entertainment applications. For example, she has been used for research as part of the Loving AI project, which seeks to understand how robots can adapt to users’ needs through intra and interpersonal development.

I’m not really a fan of Sophia. The uncanny valley effect is especially prevalent in this machine, and the choice behind basing her face on the proposed real face of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti seems odd. After looking into the topic, it is clear that the makers of Sophia hype it more than they should, and the choice to make a partially AI controlled MACHINE a citizen of the planet is ridiculous. Most normal citizens aren’t brought back into a lab for software updates.   

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The ASIMO

The ASIMO is a bipedal robot developed by the Honda company in the early 2000′s. While its name stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, it was named after Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer and professor whom coined the term “robotics”. The capacities of the ASIMO are many, such as its ability to recognise moving objects, gestures, faces and its surrounding environment. Currently the ASIMO is an attraction in a Disney park, having travelled around the globe for several years attending public events and technology fairs.

I have mixed feelings about the ASIMO. While it does somewhat resemble a human (in the bare minimum), its simple outer design looks more child-friendly or appealing than, say, the Sophia robot. If we ever reach a point where there’s a mass-market robot for the average consumer, I imagine them closer resembling the ASIMO than any other.  

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Boston Dynamics

Founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Technology Institute, Boston Dynamics is a robotics company that specialises in creating robots. According to the company, their main mission is to create the “most advanced robots on Earth”; with a focus on agility, mobility, speed and dexterity.

Their most notable creation is the BigDog (see the above image), a quadruped machine originally designed to carry military gear alongside ground soldiers over difficult terrain. This was scrapped however, largely due to the noise the BigDog made. New uses for the robot are being still being tested.

More recent projects have yielded with creations like the Atlas (also see above), an anthropoid machine that can run, go up stairs and leap over approaching obstacles.     

In my own opinion, I quite like the Boston Dynamic robots. While other companies may attempt to create something for the sheer novelty of it, Boston Dynamics actually make things that could be of use; and when these plans are rejected, they work to make it suitable for any number of other uses. I mainly respect their decision to not make their robots actually appear like something organic or real. 

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Ikuo Oishi

Ikuo Oishi (given name Toraji) was a Japanese animator that earned the title of “Japanese Disney”, for his contribution to many noteworthy early Japanese animations. These include Spring comes to Ponsuke (see image above) and Ugoki-e Kori no Tatehiki (1933). While Oishi died during the Pacific conflict during WW2, many of the animators he mentored did well following the wars end.

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Seitaro Kitayama

Seitaro Kitayama was an early Japanese animation director that worked in the early 20th century. Kitayama is considered one of the fathers of “anime”, the most prominent modern style of Japanese animation, through his work on and producing animated works like Urashima Taro (1918) or Battle of a Monkey and a Crab (1917).

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Hand Drawn Traditional Animation vs Computer Animation

With the major modern animation studios nowadays relying on digital computer animation, there has been backlash. The hand done animated films from Disney or Studio Ghibli are usually regarded as top tier animations, but the rise in popularity of studios like Pixar or Blue Sky led to most of these traditional companies adopting modern technology in order to not be left behind. There are a great many advantages in using computers to produce animations; such as how it takes less time than hand done animation and is thus more cost effective. While computer animation can give a whole new feel from a visual perspective, I feel there is a lack of raw creativity or perhaps authenticity present in digital animation. With hand made animation, the viewer can appreciate the fact that people spent time and effort attempting to make something enjoyable. I’m not the biggest fan of animation as a whole, but even I know the team that worked on BTAS definitely produced each episode to the best of their artistic and creative ability.                     

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J. Stuart Blackton’s Early Chalkboard Animation, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)

This early animation was created through a combination of stick puppetry and stop-motion animation, and shows Blackton’s hands sketching characters that “come to life” and act out comically. Though it lacks much animation, it is considered to be a large inspiration for the creation of American animated films that came out soon after.               

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Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is the process of animators tracing over live-action footage frame by frame, in order to create realistic movement for characters. The original technique (developed by the well-known Fleischer Brothers) involved footage being projected onto a glass panel that the animators preceded to trace over. While the technique is now replicated via digital computers, it is still known as rotoscoping. As seen in the images above, one of the earlier noteworthy uses of it was creating a set of animated characters that replicated the dancing of the jazz musician Cab Calloway. An example of a more recent film that utilised the technique is A Scanner Darkly, a 2006 movie adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s science fiction novel of the same name.                 

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The Twelve Principles of Animation

The twelve principles of animation are generally considered the basis for animation work as a whole and are prevalent in various fields, mainly character animation. The principles were first pinned by veteran Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their 1981 book on their work in the company from the 1930′s onwards, The Illusion of Life.           

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Artist Analysis: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is an animator, author, manga artist and filmmaker. The co-founder of the beloved animation company Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki has gained a reputation for his animated movies; which have earned critical acclaim and been heavily prevalent in the Japanese film box offices. 

While I’m not really a fan of the anime style, I have developed a respect for Miyazaki’s works. Even though Porco Rosso (1994) is the only film of his I’ve watched, I enjoyed it greatly. His love for the older days of aviation is clear and his plane designs are striking and filled with personality, rare for such objects.       

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Artist Analysis: Marty Cooper

Marty Cooper is a storyboard artist and cartoonist, who has gained notoriety through his “Aug(De)mented Reality” series. This series shows Cooper going to locations he deems interesting and creating stop-motion animations via his phone and plastic cels used in older animations, with most of these showing different characters interacting with common real world objects. 

I quite like Cooper’s work; I consider it quite unique and features some interesting character designs. It’s clear he doesn’t spend much time in the locations he uses, so it’s even more impressive considering his skill at bringing characters to life.  

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Review of early Japanese animation, Norakuro gocho (1934)

I have a mixed viewpoint on this animation. I like the use of perspective, especially in the chase scene shown in the image above. It adds a great sense of depth which can rarely be seen in the works of the larger studios of the time.  The animation is somewhat stiff and jumpy in certain areas, mainly with the earlier moments with moving characters. Things like this can definitely be chocked up to the smaller team of people working on the animation however, and the animation quality does tend to appear smoother as it continues.            

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Winsor McCay and Gertie the Dinosaur

Winsor McCay was an early American cartoonist and animator, most commonly known for the 1914 animation Gertie the Dinosaur and the Little Nemo comic strip seen in the New York Herald newspaper. His work has influenced many latter illustrators and cartoonists and was considered the best until the work of Fleischer Studios in the 1920′s. 

I have mixed feelings regarding Gertie the Dinosaur. It is clear that the animation was impressive at the time, but having seen the work of animation studios that produced work just after McCay such as Fleischer or Disney, it falls short. It is obvious that few people worked on the animation. My main observation that led to this conclusion is how the scenery doesn’t really change throughout the animation, with only minimal adjustments like the rippling water of the lake. Along with this, the animation of Gertie itself is often stiff and repetitive, the biggest example of this being during the scene where it dances.                      

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Cel Animation Robot Project Evaluation

Having not finished the project in the allocated time period, I must now evaluate the project. 

Things I enjoyed

The only real parts of the project I enjoyed happened prior to the actual attempt at making the animation. I didn’t mind creating the design sheets, as the project allowed me to come up with some designs I quite liked, with inspiration from different facets of Japanese history, culture and also the retro-futuristic designs of old media. Some of the research I did was enjoyable as well, such as watching the old wartime Superman cartoons that I drew inspiration from (namely The Mechanical Monsters).

Things I didn’t enjoy

There were certainly more things I didn’t enjoy in this project. The whole handmade animation process is time-consuming, tedious and monotonous; I really disliked it. My negative outlook on the project as a whole definitely didn’t help, as I made various mistakes (specifically doing a set of character pieces in the wrong position), relied too heavily on the tools of others and procrastinated way too much. I do believe if I had chosen a different type of hand animation instead of cel animation however, such as the stop-motion paper animation style, I probably would have ended with a better resulting piece and not utter trash.

Conclusion

While there were moments of the project I did enjoy, they were quite small in the scheme of things. I feel this project shows I’m not really the type who can withstand the repetition of hand made animation, but it does make me wonder if computer animation is something I can do.        

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Olympic Robot Project Evaluation

Having mostly finished the project (with the two design sheets needing finishing), I can now review the project.

Things I enjoyed

The main factor I enjoyed was probably the designing stage. With both of the recent robot projects, I did some research into appropriate styles and settled on a retro-futuristic style. With any of my projects, I create or try to create something unlike anything my peers may conceive; from what I have seen, it seems this has been successful. 3D Modelling is something I find quite interesting and I wouldn’t mind doing more work with it for future work, although I definitely should try and do more practice with it for better results (see below).

Things I didn’t enjoy

The main issue I had with the project was the outcome of the actual model. I used a pre-made humanoid model template for the basis and simply built over and around it, without looking into how I could change the pose of the template. This left me with a robot standing still with the arms outstretched, whereas a more dynamic pose would have helped sell the result as what it was intended. 

Conclusion

Overall, I relatively enjoyed this project compared to others. As stated before, 3D Modelling is something I wouldn’t mind expanding and improving upon, given I put more time into it to improve my skills at it.     

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Timeless Fuji

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Making more pieces for Cel Animation Project