Editing Animator (section)

==Evolution of animator's roles==

As a result of the ongoing transition from [[traditional animation|traditional]] 2D to 3D [[computer animation]], the animator's traditional task of redrawing and repainting the same character 24 times a second (for each second of finished animation) has now been superseded by the modern task of developing dozens (or hundreds) of movements of different parts of a character in a virtual scene.

Because of the transition to computer animation, many additional support positions have become essential, with the result that the animator has become but one component of a very long and highly specialized production pipeline. In the 21st century, visual development artists design a character as a 2D drawing or painting, then hand it off to [[3D modeling|modelers]] who build the character as a collection of digital polygons. [[Texture artist]]s "paint" the character with colorful or complex textures, and [[technical director]]s set up [[Skeletal animation|rigging]] so that the character can be easily moved and posed. For each scene, layout artists set up virtual cameras and rough [[Blocking (stage)|blocking]]. Finally, when a character's bugs have been worked out and its scenes have been blocked, it is handed off to an animator (that is, a person with that actual job title) who can start developing the exact movements of the character's virtual limbs, muscles, and facial expressions in each specific scene.

At that point, the role of the modern computer animator overlaps in some respects with that of his or her predecessors in traditional animation: namely, trying to create scenes already storyboarded in rough form by a team of story artists, and synchronizing lip or mouth movements to dialogue already prepared by a screenwriter and recorded by vocal talent.  Despite those constraints, the animator is still capable of exercising significant artistic skill and discretion in developing the character's movements to accomplish the objective of each scene. There is an obvious analogy here between the art of animation and the art of acting, in that actors also must do the best they can with the lines they are given; it is often encapsulated by the common industry saying that animators are "actors with pencils".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gaut |first1=Berys |author-link1=Berys Gaut |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ATh0CRxhGGQC&pg=PA139 |title=A Philosophy of Cinematic Art |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521822442 |location=Cambridge |pages=138–139 |access-date=2014-06-09}}</ref> In 2015, [[Chris Buck]] noted in an interview that animators have become "actors with [[Computer mouse|mice]]."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Virtue|first1=Robert|title=Acclaimed Disney director shares his creative vision for Newcastle|url=http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/04/29/4226204.htm|access-date=2 May 2015|work=1233 ABC Newcastle|publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation|date=29 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150505093919/http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2015/04/29/4226204.htm | archive-date=5 May 2015 | url-status=dead}}</ref> Some studios bring in acting coaches on feature films to help animators work through such issues. Once each scene is complete and has been perfected through the "[[sweat box]]" feedback process, the resulting data can be dispatched to a [[render farm]], where computers handle the tedious task of actually [[Rendering (computer graphics)|rendering]] all the frames. Each finished film clip is then checked for quality and rushed to a film editor, who assembles the clips together to create the film.

While early computer animation was heavily criticized for rendering human characters that looked plastic or even worse, eerie (see [[uncanny valley]]), contemporary software can now render strikingly realistic clothing, hair, and skin.  The solid shading of traditional animation has been replaced by very sophisticated virtual lighting in computer animation, and computer animation can take advantage of many camera techniques used in live-action filmmaking (i.e., simulating real-world "camera shake" through [[motion capture]] of a cameraman's movements). As a result, some studios now hire nearly as many lighting artists as animators for animated films, while costume designers, hairstylists, choreographers, and cinematographers have occasionally been called upon as consultants to computer-animated projects.