Automatic Inbetweens?

Wednesday, October 15, 2003
By: Ryan Ball

Burbank-based Tim Pyle Animation claims to have created a new method of using CG technology to automatically animate traditional 2D characters. The company’s founder and namesake, a former Jimmy Neutron and SpongeBob Squarepants animator, says the system for creating automatic inbetween frames can cut production time and costs, potentially keeping more 2D animation work in the U.S.

Traditionally, lead animators draw key character poses and inbetweeners fill in the gaps by drawing each intervening frame by hand. The labor-intensive process is one of the main reasons animation goes overseas to countries like Japan, Korea and Canada, where labor is cheaper and government subsidies help cover costs.

Automated animation is not a new idea. A number of companies have been developing similar systems for CG animation. Last year’s much-panned animated holiday special The Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa, from J. Rose Prods. and Wolf Tracer Studios, employed automated animation cycles.

Prior to working for Nickelodeon on such shows as Max Steel and Invader Zim, Tim Pyle served as an animator on Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. Recently, he helped the SCI FI Channel’s miniseries event Children of Dune win a 2003 Emmy for Best Visual Effects. His latest work can be seen in the upcoming Warner Bros. big-screen feature Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

To showcase the new technology, the company has begun production on Space Bees, a 75-minute animated feature that combines the automated 2D animation system with cel-shaded CG environments. The budget is said to be "dramatically under $1 million."

Pyle is currently looking for investors to help expand his company. ‘We're at the dawn of a new era in animation," he says. "Overseas companies may try to lure animation from the United States, but there’s one thing they’ll never be able to duplicate: our innovation."

For more information on Tim Pyle, Space Bees or the technology associated with it, see the Space Bees web site at www.spacebees.com.

Reader Comments

• Anonymous :

  Wednesday, October 15, 2003

  This sounds interesting. It may be good for inbetweening si%ple character forms, but what azout sophisticated character designs, and facial features?
  What about inbetweening teeth and ey5s, thatzare opening and closing~ or doing dialogue? That's the real trick.

• animator : animcot@comcast.net

  Thursday, June 15, 2006

  Very interesting, but...how can I use it?
  Is it possible to get it?
  Is it a program I could download into my computer?
  And - how much would it cost?

• kw : fx animator : freelance

  Saturday, December 02, 2006

  There are products (Anime Studio, Toon Boom Solo) that do limited 2D tweening but still rely on animator guidance instead of software algorithms. If SPACE BEES is the same quality as BELIEVE IN SANTA (which brought howls of derision from Disney animators I know), then the software has a long way to go. Incidently, the spacebees website was not responding to queries .

• Anonymous :

  Wednesday, December 31, 1969

  Is labour really that m%ch cheaper in Canada??