Posted By
Mike Lata
January 28, 2012 at 11:02am
The upcoming animated film, "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," will not be a CGI-based film like the ones currently dominating the genre. It will be an old-school animation full of claymation and stop-motion effects. However, it also uses a new technology called 3D printing.
According to Fox News, "Sony Pictures' upcoming "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" still uses molding clay and traditional stop-motion animation to bring its wide-eyed characters to life, but creator Aardman Animations happily embraced a strange new technology to make those figures speak: 3D printers."
We covered 3D printing here on 3DTV before. However, the technology is quite different from stereo 3D. It generally is used by industries not related to cinema or film making. This is the first time I personally have ever heard of the two industries, Hollywood and 3D printing, colliding. Although it is worth noting the upcoming film won't have any stereo 3D effects.
The way 3D printers are used is truly breathtaking. They allow you to create actual 3D objects by using various materials to build up layers on top of one another. Think of them as mini assembly lines capable of mass production.
You insert the right materials for them to start production, enter the print of the object digitally, and it will start producing objects for you. Obviously it is a bit more complicated than this. Specific objects have to be programmed into the printers, from a computer, to tell the printer what to do. However, this is the gist of it.
The animated film's production studio has been using 3D printers to mass produce and build the mouths off various characters that will appear on-screen.
"We built about 8,000 mouths,” key animator Ian Whitlock was quoted saying.
If you miss claymation and animation that isn't fully digital, you should have a blast with "The Pirates! Band of Misfits." Fox News reports that it will be released on March 30.