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A CHILDREN’S story about a steam train was one of the films presented
at Imagina, a conference on computer images held in Monte Carlo earlier
this month. The story, which is called Locomotion, exploits a technique
called ‘stretch and squash’, which allows inanimate objects to be brought
to life.

‘We wanted to give the characters of the locomotives their own distinct
personalities without adding faces, arms or legs,’ explained Steve Goldberg,
the producer, of Pacific Data Images. His technique uses so-called hierarchical
solid deformation – a set of mathematical functions which operate so that
if one part of the image, such as the train’s chimney, is contorted, then
the rest of the image changes in harmony with it.

Despite such developments the computer will remain subordinate to the
needs of the animator, as Bill Kroyer, of Kroyer Films, explained: ‘The
computer will be another artist sitting beside our human artists. The designers
and animators will always remain dominant.’