An avar or animation variable (or hinge) is a variable controlling the position of part of an
animated object, such as a character. The character "Woody" in the
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
•
Pixar
Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...
film ''
Toy Story
''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...
'' (1995) uses 712 avars (212 on his face alone).
How We Do it - Index
/ref> Successive sets of avars control all movement of the character from frame to frame. In development, they are used to define the junctions of a stick model. Later, they are incorporated into a full wire frame model
In 3D computer graphics, a wire-frame model (also spelled wireframe model) is a visual representation of a three-dimensional (3D) physical object. It is based on a polygon mesh or a volumetric mesh, created by specifying each edge of the p ...
or a model built of polygons. Finally, surfaces are added, requiring a lengthy process of rendering to produce the final scene.
There are several ways of generating the avar values. Motion capture
Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution motion (physics), movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in Military science, military, entertainment, sports ...
uses a real person acting out the part, tracked by a video camera
A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos, as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film. Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...
. ''Toy Story
''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...
'' uses no motion capture, manual control by a skilled animator can produce effects not easily carried out by a human actor.
See also
* Animation
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
* Animation database
* Computer generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a specific-technology or application of computer graphics for creating or improving images in art, printed media, simulators, videos and video games. These images are either static (i.e. still images) or d ...
* Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating Film, moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation refers to moving images. Virtu ...
* Pixar
Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...
External links
Pixar and Disney's Toy Story
References
Computer animation
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