Animating Past Worlds

Abstract

Creating ‘past worlds’ is more than just creative flair or technical wizardry, it is the distillation of grounded heritage interpretation and reflection as applied to the creative (re)visualization of ancient peoples and landscapes. Be it the digital dinosaurs of Jurassic Park or the fake placement of lifelike digital actors seamlessly inserted within media, virtual heritage is increasingly caught between the praxis of the visual enchantment of feature film and television visual effects (VFX), the increasing visual and phenomenological immersive worlds of 3D, virtual games and the hyper-reality of deep fake VFX. This chapter will provide the basics of animation, while at the same time introducing the reader to the concepts of virtual archaeology and digital cultural heritage from a digital visualization perspective.