Steffen Walter wrote:

> There is yet another major possibility: things are much easier if our
> characters are sitting in vehicles (as starships, cars, ...) because you will
> only need minor movements of the character itself, while animating the vehicle
> is easy and effective.

This is exactly what sixties puppet animation producer Gerry Anderson
did.  He created the popular children's shows "Supercar", "Fireball XL5"
, "Thunderbirds" and others.  Budget and other constraints forced him to
use puppet animation.  He could not solve the problem of realistic human
movement, especially walking, with puppets, so he made his shows
vehicle-centric.  It worked well and his shows were and are very popular
in spite of the lack of realism.  It is a matter of using technical
constraints to define a style and producing something in that style that
is good on its own terms.  The fact that photorealistic humans are not
very feasible now is no reason to avoid using humans.  Like Anderson,
just find a creative way to make the limits work for you.

Jerry Anning
cle### [at] dholcom

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