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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Scanimate Analog Motion Graphics
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epsilon Senior Member  Joined: 30/07/2020 Location: BelgiumPosts: 255 |
It's not Microcontrollers and PC projects but I think it fits here: The Scanimate Analog Motion Graphics Machine: https://youtu.be/0wxc3mKqKTk That should have been an hour long instead of five minutes. I always wondered how animations like the Star Wars scroller were made pre-CGI. Now I know. What an amazing machine. Epsilon CMM2 projects |
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CircuitGizmos Guru  Joined: 08/09/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 1421 |
The scroller was a physical item that was moved and filmed. "According to Dennis Muren, who worked on the first six films, crawls on the original trilogy films were accomplished by filming physical models laid out on the floor. The models were approximately 60 cm (2') wide and 1.80 m (6') long. The crawl effect was accomplished by the camera moving longitudinally along the model. It was difficult and time-consuming to achieve a smooth scrolling effect" This machine did the graphics when Han and Luke were shooting tie fighters in the Falcon. Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite |
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| epsilon Senior Member Joined: 30/07/2020 Location: BelgiumPosts: 255 |
Very interesting! I stand corrected. Epsilon CMM2 projects |
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CaptainBoing Guru Joined: 07/09/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1985 |
Great vid - thanks for posting "This stuff is made to be fixed" - an ethos behind all my designs and projects. So much I have built that replicates functionality I could buy off the shelf. The one difference is it can be fixed *when* it packs up. Edited 2021-08-01 17:34 by CaptainBoing |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 5711 |
What a brilliant video! Unfortunately the Scanimate is a bit like the preserved mill engines. Beautiful, working and doomed unless people will get enthusiastic enough to keep them running. Who's going to write a MicroScanimate for the CMM2? :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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RetroJoe Senior Member Joined: 06/08/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 290 |
Fascinating - like an analog synth for video! I never heard of the Scanimate device before. Thanks for sharing, and for revealing what gave those 1970s-era animations their distinctive "Logan's Run" aesthetic. Enjoy Every Sandwich / Joe P. |
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vegipete Guru Joined: 29/01/2013 Location: CanadaPosts: 1082 |
I take exception to that remark. I seriously doubt future reparability was a design consideration. Standard construction techniques of the day were simply on a soldering iron scale, so soldering iron repairs now are easy. "Analog stuff is hands on real. Digital is just some unknown weirdness inside the computer." (Paraphrase) That just depends on whose skill set you are talking about. A modern CGI artist would be completely baffled by that gargantuan antique Scanimate system. I watched a video recently of two chaps challenging each other to recreate the Terminator 2 effect in which the liquid metal T1000 'oozes' his way through the prison bars. Neither knew how the original effect was created 30 years ago, but each managed to create a remarkable copy in just a few hours, by doing 'mysterious things' in a computer. Learn your tools well and you can perform amazing feats. Learn a wide range of things and you can appreciate the feats of others. Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs. |
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| RetroJoe Senior Member Joined: 06/08/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 290 |
Analog versus digital - will the religious debate never cease? I think the part that gets ignored in this debate is that analog devices typically do not adhere to Moore's Law, and therefore doing things digitally will always be more cost-effective. Closely related, even within the digital domain, is that software will always be cheaper than hardware, and increasingly, we are seeing a shift toward "SDx" - Software Defined Everything. But, what manufacturers gain in efficiency, consumers lose in transparency and repairability. I believe the "Right to Repair" will be an increasingly important component of consumer and patent law in the coming years. Last thought: analog aficionados appreciate the organic, natural output of analog & mechanical machines, even the "undesirable" artifacts like tape hiss, wow-and-flutter, Imperfectly tuned instruments, chromatic aberrations, etc. These are now considered part and parcel of artistic expression, and it's interesting that a large amount of digital processing power is being consumed these days to create artificial simulations of these analog artifacts e.g. camera shake in a FPS video game, or CRT scanlines and fringing in an 8-bit emulator. Enjoy Every Sandwich / Joe P. |
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| epsilon Senior Member Joined: 30/07/2020 Location: BelgiumPosts: 255 |
Audio Amps, Scanimates, record players, and my first car (a Citroen 2CV)... because they're analog, no two of them are exactly the same. They're also sensitive to external factors such as temperature, humidity etc. These things give the machine 'personality'. I think it's easier for people to develop a certain attachment to a machine with a personality than to a device that can be perfectly cloned. Epsilon CMM2 projects |
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