Caramel Frappe said:
I see where you're getting at. But that still would count as animation because they had to input their movements into a digital character, in a digital world with other sorts of graphics. People can say that's not animation, but without these actors getting into character with those funny suits we wouldn't have a movie as great as Rise of the Apes, or Shrek (the first 2.. the others were okay.)
Shrek didn't use performance capture, and
Rise of the Planet of the Apes took place in a largely real background. Are you saying it should be called animation?
And you also have to consider how much computers are used in films in general, live action or not. For example, I'll present you a <url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT491ctM8KkYouTube>YouTube video for the film
Zodiac. A lot of the shot is animated/CGI. So where do you draw the line, and when does the line honestly become pointless to even think about drawing?
As long as people (when I say that, the animators) place forth a creation, with a virtual character and designing him/her/it to be doing anything the actors do.. it's still animation because they have to animate that with the background which they created through a computer.
But they don't animate the characters. The animations are done for them, and the only thing they need to put the effort into is making the model. Which, if you think about it, is like applying makeup for a live-action film. Not really much different, just that it's done via computer. (I'm simplifying this because it would take too much time/effort to explain, but that's the gist of it.)