Okay I know this isn't strictly what this thread is about, but I need an excuse to geek out for a little bit.
So if you know me you've seen my pathetic attempts at animation. What I really love is learning about the history of animation, particularly the technology behind it.
A few years ago I went to the Walt Disney Family Museum. Most of it was about the man himself, but there was also lots of cool tidbits about the "golden age" of animation. There was this tower-like contraption in the gift shop, about 15 feet tall, with several "frames" set inside it. The animators would place individual layers of a scene on these frames, which could be moved independently of one another, and camera at the top of the structure would film these moving layers. All just to make scenes where the camera seems to be "flying" through the environment, with trees and buildings and stuff coming forward and moving to the side! I'll try to find a picture of it if I can.
The Great Mosue Detective is often credited as the first animated film to incorporate CG (in the clock tower scene with all the giant gears and stuff). But not the sort of CG you would expect today where the comptuer renders the whole scene, textures and all. What they did was to design the inside of the clock as a wireframe model, then plan out how the camera would move through it. Then they gave the computer a robot arm and a pencil, and had it draw each frame on an animation cell! Then the actual animator guys added in the colors and mice and stuff!
I...I don't know, I just find this stuff pretty neat. The creative energy people put into just figuring out how to bring characters and stories to life, not just who or what these characters and stories are going to be...it's fuckin'...neat!
...alright, you've been very patient reading that nonsense. Have a few tap-dancing cubes.