Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 July 6

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July 6

Drawing for an animated film

I'm assuming that when they generated the artwork for something like The Simpsons Movie, they did so with scores and scores of artists and each one did their own segment, rather than starting at the beginning and working towards the end -- if multiple people are contributing, there's no reason to go in chronological order as long as the storyline is worked out. But that means that each character is drawn by scores of people -- how is the inconsistency dealt with? (For something like Pixar's Cars, this wouldn't be so much of a problem because the characters are not well established and there is limited if any familiarity with the prototype picture of any one character.) Or is my premise incorrect, because the advent of computers make it so that a single artist's rendition can be manipulated? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:02, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Its alot more complicated than that. But here can be a start 2D computer graphics. A great majority of animation is done digitally now, even the stuff that looks like the older hand drawn stuff. This has a little info about the animation of the Simpsons movie in particular, 100 animators worked on it. And this seems interesting too [1]. Heiro 01:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Large scale animation projects (basically any film or TV show) have always been drawn by teams of people. The animators are very skilled and all work together to make sure that there are no inconsistencies. When a character is drawn in a way which doesn't fit with the large-scale project, it's called off-model (not a great article). Staecker (talk) 01:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

In traditional hand-drawn animation Key frames would be drawn either by a single artist, or by a small group of senior artists. The in-between frames would be drawn by the lower-ranking artists. (Possibly outsourced overseas.) That way consistency is maintained by the highly skilled senior artists, but much of the tedium is taken up by people lower on the pay scale.

Of course, as mentioned above, this is all done with computers now. So they can re-use character models like you would in a 3d animation like Pixar's work. It's entirely possible to make reusable vector-based 2d character models with bones and separate animations. They typically have to make a couple different models of each character for the different angles he's seen from, but in shows like The Simpsons for the majority of time the characters are only seen from one or two angles, so they can reuse the models. APL (talk) 03:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia article The Simpsons Matt Groening has maintained artistic control of his creation since its debut in 1989. He was disatisfied with the first appearance of the characters blamed on poor cooperation with the animators working from his sketches. I expect the animators now work by editing Vector graphics definitions of the characters rather than relying on freehand drawing skill. Traditional cel-based animation technique is replaced by less labour-intensive Inbetweening using automatic computer interpolation of steps along a specified image movement trajectory. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Why are there no county signs in New York City?

When I went to New York state for the first time in my life, I remember I saw those green signs that would let me know that I just drove into another county (Entering Nassau County, Entering Niagara Falls County, etc.) just like in my home state of Florida (Entering Pinellas County, Entering Hillsborough County, etc.). I noticed that in New York City, there were no county signs. Why is it that when I drove from one borough to another borough in New York City, there were no signs that would let me know that I just entered into another county as well? For example, there were signs that let me know that I entered into Manhattan, but there were no county signs that let me know that I also entered into New York County. There were signs that let me know that I entered into Staten Island, but there were no county signs that let me know that I also entered into Richmond County. There were signs that let me know that I entered into Brooklyn, but there were no county signs that let me know that I also entered into Kings County. The same thing applies to Queens and The Bronx although the name of the 2 boroughs is the same their county names. Anyway, does this have something to do with how the City and boroughs work that they don’t put any county signs in the city? If so, how? Willminator (talk) 03:11, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

A few reasons:

Manhattan and New York County are coextensive, as are Staten Island and Richmond County and so forth. So really it would be redundant to give two names for the same place on a sign, especially when the official county names are less well-known than the popular names.

Geographically, it is pretty apparent when one is entering or leaving one of the boroughs, especially Manhattan and Staten Island, which are of course islands. Contrast with counties in upstate New York or Long Island, where without signs it would be much more difficult to determine what county one is in while traveling on highways.

Since New York City consolidation in 1898, the New York City counties have become steadily less important. There are still ceremonial borough presidents, and district attorneys are elected by borough and maintain separate offices, but otherwise the trend is toward city unification. The New York City Board of Estimate was abolished in 1990 following the case of Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, and the Board of Education of the City of New York, formerly made up of appointees by borough president, was abolished in 2002 in favor of mayoral control. Neutrality^talk 05:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I've lived in a few states now and have observed that counties are treated very differently depending on which state you're in. Here in my current home state of Vermont, counties are known by the local residents but the signage doesn't indicate when you pass from one county to the next. There are sometimes small signs that indicate where you cross over from one town to the next but, again, the same is not true for counties. The signs that indicate the town lines are basically just street signs with the name of one town on each end of the same narrow sign. The signs are posted parallel to the road, so unless you're looking for them, you'd likely miss them.

In Tennessee counties take on a certain importance. They even put the county name on your license plate based on where your car is registered. Whole counties will even gain a reputation. An example of which is Shelby County which includes Memphis. Shelby has a reputation for being not only more expensive to live in versus the surrounding area but it's also known to have more crime. Dismas|^(talk) 06:39, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

In most states, those signs appear only on state or interstate highways, and they are placed there by state highway departments. In New York State, the state highway department probably has a different set of rules for New York City because of its anomalous structure. Marco polo (talk) 12:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

So, from all the answers given so far, it all has to do with the low level of recognition, lack of importance (borough first, county second?), lack of normal county powers, and co-extensive boundaries for the counties, also the trend of city unification that did not exist before, and perhaps to avoid confusion, that the state highway department don’t put any county signs in New York City. Willminator (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure, though I'm guessing that one of the main reasons for those signs is so that people (including the police) know which county's police force has responsibility at a given point on a highway. (In New England, since police forces are normally handled by towns rather than counties, it is town lines that are signposted.) In New York City, the county lines are irrelevant, since the NYPD has policing responsibility for the whole city. Marco polo (talk) 18:45, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably irrelavent, but we have borough boundary signs in Greater London with a single police force for all 32 of them. Here's the one for my borough. They're useful if you want to complain about a hole in the road. Alansplodge (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

_{Hmm, interesting, but New York City and London are 2 different cities in 2 different countries Willminator (talk) 01:50, 7 July 2011 (UTC)}

One of the big reasons for signage is the recognition of a "civic identity", that is some place is identified as a "place" by the people who live there. People in Brooklyn clearly feel that Brooklyn is a "place" which needs identifying. For people who live in Brooklyn, "Kings County" isn't really a "place" for them, so there's no need to identify it. That's the same reason why towns are identified clearly in New England, while most New England states don't bother signing county boundaries; while in the American South, where Counties are more culturally prominent as "places", they are clearly marked. --Jayron32 20:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing those county signs are placed by the state highway department, whose activities might be limited in municipalities like NYC. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Another theory - In my experience, counties are referred to more often in less metropolitan areas. Living on the PA/NJ border, I hear more of 'I live in Carbon County' in PA than 'I live in Union County' in Jersey. Where there are more cities, it seems those are the more likely points of reference. Foofish (talk) 07:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I lived in NYC for some years, and it took me a while to realize that the boroughs were also counties. Generally, the borough distinction is far more important than the county distinction. The difference, however, was made clear when I was summoned for jury duty in Kings County (Brooklyn). In other parts of the US, especially in the west, counties are much more important than they generally are in the northeast. In Washington, for example, Pierce County is probably at least as powerful and important as its main city, Tacoma. Throughout the state there continues to be a lot of contention over cities annexing unincorporated county lands. The counties remain more important in most parts of the state, at least away from the largest cities, like Seattle, which tends to dominant King County. A couple ways the counties remain important for residents include jury duty and voting. Although I live in the northern suburbs of Seattle, I am technically just north of the King-Snohomish county line. Thus when called for jury duty I must go to Everett, not Seattle. And as a voter I have a say in Snohomish County affairs, not King County, let alone Seattle, despite being otherwise much more strongly linked to Seattle than Everett. I suspect it is issues like these--a large city extending its sphere of influence beyond its county, for example--that play a role in counties remaining important, or trying to at least, in the western US and other areas outside the northeast megalopolis. In some parts of the northeast--Connecticut especially, but also Massachusetts to some degree, counties are nearly irrelevant. In New York state, counties are almost meaningless within New York City, but quite meaningful in the rest of the state--away from the megalapolis. A final example, the 4th of July was a few days ago, and here in southernmost Snohomish County, City of Edmonds, is it illegal to sell fireworks. However, there is a small enclave of unincorporated Snohomish County surrounded the City of Edmonds--about 0.25 square mile or so--and a couple of miles from my house. Not being in Edmonds, there is much less regulation of the sale of fireworks. So, naturally, before the 4th of July a great many firework roadside stands pop up in this unincorporated area. The City of Edmonds keeps trying to annex this tiny unincorporated area, but the local residents are largely against it. Pfly (talk) 10:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)