Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux

に が投稿

for computer animation (1996)

This work is created with short music of the ballet, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. The ballet itself was choreographed by George Balanchine. He\'d found this music which actually had not been performed though P. I. Tchaikovsky composed for Swan Lake, one of his three greatest ballets, and he has choreographed it as an independent piece from the story. This work faithfully expresses movements of the dance and the music on the piece which has those details, and it has more originality in addition to the techniques of the computer graphics.

Concept

Ballet is the most part of mine because I\'ve been taking the lesson of classical ballet since childhood. When started studying computer animation and then got to know a software Kinemation, I decided to create an animation of ballet.

Technical Development

The following equipment and software were used for the realization of this work.

  • Computer-1 : SGI Indigo-2 Extreme CPU : R4400/200MHz Memory : 128Mb Software : Advanced Visualizer, Kinemation
  • Computer-2 : SGI Indy CPU : R4400/175MHz Memory : 128Mb Software : Advanced Visualizer, Video Composer
  • Computer-3 : SGI Indigo-2 XZ with Galileo Video CPU : R4400/250MHz Memory : 128Mb Software : Image Server (of Advanced Visualizer), Video Composer
  • other equipment including; Sony CRVdisc (Laser Videodisc Recorder:LVR-3000AN) Sony Betacam/SP (Video Tape Recorder:PVW-2800) Sony DAT (Digital Audio Recorder:PCM-7050) Sony DAT (Digital Audio Recorder:PCM-7030) Sony Digital Audio Editor (RM-D7300) and others

Please attention, when this work was started to create, for only three months I've started learning the basics of computer animation.

Making Documentation

modeling

I used Model in Advanced Visualizer for this creation. All parts of the dancer's body were started to make from the sphere of a polygon. They were scaled, rotated, and translated, and then each part was calculated by Boolean. And Property in Advanced Visualizer was used for assigning the colors of each part, here all values of colors, dress, toe shoes, hair, skin, and so on, and shadows, lights, etc. were created.

animation

Kinemation was employed for the realization of all the movements of the character. I created a skeleton, assigned the body object, and then started the animation. The aim of this animation was the highest quality as possible as an actual movement. In general, it's very useful for animation control the object has some handles. However, this function has no knowledge of the actual right movement of dance, and sometimes even ignores the computer executes impossible movements. For example, the computer doesn't know the dancer must concentrate her attention on doing in order from the hip to the thigh, the knee, the ankle, and the toe when stretching a leg. Therefore, I made no handles on the body but controlled only each joint of it. Of course, modeling and this animation in Kinemation used very much time. Thus, the animation, needed much time, was given camera working on the Preview of Advanced Visualizer, then rendered to image files.

music creating

I created this music originally played back by the MIDI orchestra because of my two desire. One is the more liting tune than playing back by an orchestra, and the other is the correct time for emphasizing this work is the computer animation even if it has high quality and reality in view.

editing

Video Composer was employed for editing images. Especially, the last scene in the work, the dancer increasing, would give most of you a very strong impression. It has the techniques of this software. The effect was gotten by repeatedly adding the same animation moved the own position. At last, ten dancers were created. There is another importance. It's shifting some of the ten same animations before and after one frame from the original time with the music. It creates a time lag so naturally, that it seems there are ten dancers and they are dancing together. Without the lag, you shouldn't be able to find them. By the way, shifting two frames makes no time lag but real delay.

recording

After editing, the animation were recorded to CRV, then also did to Betacam with the music clocked. In these ways, this work is complete with any purpose on all processes. And here is a realization of the harmony of the antithetical area between imagination and reality.

Citation

[1]
M. Hashida, “Variation from ‘Tchaikovsky pas de Deux,’” in SIGGRAPH ’98: ACM SIGGRAPH 98 Conference abstracts and applications, Orlando, Florida, United States: ACM Press, 1998, p. 332. doi: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/280953.289346.

Performanced at

  1. Oct. 19-20, 1996, 2nd InterCollege Computer Music Festival (Premiere) IPSJ Special Interest Group on MUSic and computer (SIGMUS) at Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo
  2. Nov. 20, 1996, Try-Out Concert VI Sonology Department of Kunitachi College of Music at Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo
  3. Dec. 13-16, 1997, JAPAN/U.S.A. InterCollege Computer Music Festival IPSJ-SIGMUS at NTT Inter-Commuication Center and Keio University, Tokyo
  4. Jul. 1998, SIGGRAPH\'98 Television at Orland, Florida (U.S.A.)