An example of the inclusive approach to virtual characters is Scooby. © Warner Bros. No other uses are permitted without the prior written consent of owner. Use of the material in violation of the foregoing may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.

This article contains excerpts from the third editon of The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects by Issac V. Kerlow.

During the last year we have seen groundbreaking developments in the creation of entirely computer-generated virtual characters for movies. These recent examples give us a hint of what is likely to come in this area during the next few years. Making all-CG virtual characters poses multiple technical and creative challenges, and we will examine some of them here. But first, let’s define what virtual characters are and take a look at what has already been done.

What is a Virtual Character?
I like to define virtual characters in movies as characters that were not recorded by photographic means and that do not exist in reality, but that look and feel real. The performance of these characters is created mostly with 3D computer animation and compositing tools. There are two major schools of thought regarding what is a virtual character for movies. The more inclusive approach considers any believable CG character, cartoon or realistic, as a virtual character. An example of this would be a character such as Scooby from the 2002 live-action movie Scooby-Doo. This character was stylized as a cartoon and looked clearly different from the human live actors, but its performance made sense with the physical rules of the movie’s reality as it interacted with the human actors. The other point of view regarding what makes a virtual character limits the definition to those characters whose look and performance rival the look and performance of human actors in live-action movies. The Gollum character in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), for example, looked, moved and behaved in a way that was very similar — identical at times — to the human characters in the movie. This later point of view would not consider the stylized CG characters in animated movies as virtual characters, since they are clearly not real and respond to criteria and rules different from those of CG characters in live-action movies. One could argue that in spite of the fact that Shrek or Mike and Sulley (from Monsters, Inc.) are all incredibly convincing characters, audiences can tell that these characters are clearly animated and therefore “not real.” Which of these two points regarding virtual characters of view do you agree with?

Gollum in Two Towers looks like a live-action character. © 2002 New Line Prods. All rights reserved.

The Prehistory of Virtual Characters
Virtual characters in movies as we know them today started in 1981 with the virtual character Cindy created by Information International Inc. for the science fiction film Looker. This was probably the earliest realistic model of the full human figure. The rendering was simple, and the animation was so limited that the model only rotated in a turntable style and had no animated joints. The 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes featured a jointed, texture-mapped and transparent character reminiscent of a medieval knight. This unusual character was constructed of flat stained glass panels and his animation was somewhat limited. During that same year the sexy female robot from The Brilliance TV commercial set a standard of realism and performance that future feature films aspired to match. This virtual character, created by Abel and Associates using rotoscoping and keyframe animation, had convincing realistic motion as well as a seductive, and believable, personality. Motion capture became a significant technique in the creation of virtual characters in the short animation test, Don’t Touch Me, created in 1989 by the Kleiser-Walczak Construction Co.

The Early Examples
Some argue that only human-like CG characters qualify to be called virtual characters because of their potential depth of emotion. But I would argue that the performance of some CG-animated creatures is so convincing that they can also be included in our survey. The first example of a full-fledged, computer-generated, virtual character in a live-action film was Industrial Light & Magic’s gorgeous water creature in 1989’s The Abyss. One of the most striking moments in this film takes place when the creature emulates the facial expressions of the human actor, who also touches the virtual creature with her hand.