Am I the only one asking the right question? This video is not a just-for-fun video. It is a cry from the animators of this world that they want better tools. We, as tool builders, programmers, need to listen to this. There is a problem here that can be addressed. There is a market here that can be capitalized.We are all a bunch of hackers here. What is it that is preventing us from creating tools that make creating animations even easier?
What is it that is preventing us from creating tools that make creating animations even easier?
Probably the fact that this is a hard problem. Seriously, hundreds if not thousands of people are working on creating tools for animators, for 3D software companies, movie and game studios. If it was easy, it would have been solved by now.
Not really true. They are still building tools that were like other older tools ( but with more complexity ). As far as I can tell nobody ( nobody I know) is thinking "How can I make this easy ? " Most of the tools these days are build around the same thought process. I will build a tool like Intellij but will add 2 extra features like cloud sync and another thing. But that is not what we need to do. That wont "change the game". Everytime we look at something and plan to disrupt it, we cant disrupt it by adding one more feature to a product that already exists. You need to think ground up. This also relates to people not thinking big. Its a hard problem. I understand that it is. But, someone has to go after the hard problems. I am looking for that someone.
If we look at Brett Victors inspirational videos the one thing I can take away is "Change the game". If we play the same game as before things wont change much. So, creating animations is a hard problem to solve. But, can someone change the game ? For centuries, extracting aluminium out of its alloy was a hard problem, or extracting mica. Once it was done, it changed the game.
Speaking as someone with 17 years' professional animation experience, I've seen a lot of people try to come up with newer, better, easier ways to do animation. I've tried most of them, because my workflow revolves around doing things in the fastest, easiest way possible.
What am I currently using? 3D Studio Max. (and Motionbuilder, and some high-end mocap technology, and a lot of outsourcing.)
Seriously, it's a hard problem. I'm not saying "don't try", but it's a hard problem.
It's by for the most interesting development for animation that I've seen for years. In about an hour I was able to produce 15 sec of reasonable good animation the first time I used it.
Their process is more akin to Photoshop than anything else as it's a destructive process rather than procedural.
