Greetings and Welcome to LGR Thing!
Anyone remember Animorphs? I’d imagine most people do to some degree, seeing as over 35 million copies of the books by K.A. Applegate have been printed since 1996. And even if you’ve never read them, chances are you’ve seen at least one of the iconic Animorphs covers, especially if you grew up in the 90s. Each of the 54 books in the original print run of Animorphs features a depiction of a kid transforming into something, usually an animal or a fictional creature.
I dunno about you, but I’ve always been captivated by this kinda surreal imagery, so Animorphs covers have stuck in my brain ever since. Now, thanks to the magic of ill-advised purchases after a couple drinks, I now have the hardware and software to make my own morphs! Oh this is awesome!
Introducing Elastic Reality: A Program from the Past
This so-called “Macintosh Special Effects System” was created by ASDG Incorporated, expanding on their prior program from 1992 called Morph Plus for the Commodore Amiga. But yeah, it was Elastic Reality in particular that was used in the creation of the classic Animorphs covers and I am absolutely psyched to show you how it works! Before we do that though, I gotta mention David B. Mattingly, the artist responsible for the majority of Animorphs illustrations.
David B. Mattingly: A Career of Artistic Excellence
His career began in the late ‘70s at WaltDisney Studios, working as a matte painter for movies like The Black Hole, Tron, and Dick Tracy. By 1996 though, Mattingly was taking illustration gigs for everything from commercials to magazines and books. That’s where publisher Scholastic comes in. They’d already published the first Animorphs books that summer but weren’t 100% pleased with the covers. According to Mr. Mattingly, The first three Animorphs books were done by another artist, but Scholastic wasn't happy with that artwork.
A Plea for Change: How Scholastic Found Mattingly
They knew that they wanted someone to do morphing, so Scholastic art director Dave Tomasinocalled me up and he said, “We need to find someone who can make these covers stand out.” With Elastic Reality on the table, it was clear that this was going to be a game-changer for the world of children’s book illustration. Little did they know that this software would go on to create some truly unforgettable artwork, including those iconic Animorphs covers.
Elastic Reality: Unlocking the Secrets
Now, thanks to the magic of ill-advised purchases after a couple drinks, I now have the hardware and software to make my own morphs! Oh this is awesome! With Elastic Reality, you can unlock the secrets behind these amazing illustrations. From transforming humans into animals, to creating fantastical creatures, the possibilities are endless. And with this software, anyone can create their own surreal artwork, just like the Animorphs covers.
The Evolution of Morphing: A Legacy Lives On
This so-called “Macintosh Special Effects System” was created by ASDG Incorporated, expanding on their prior program from 1992 called Morph Plus for the Commodore Amiga. But yeah, it was Elastic Reality in particular that was used in the creation of the classic Animorphs covers and I am absolutely psyched to show you how it works! With Elastic Reality, the art world is opened up to new possibilities, allowing artists to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
The Art of Morphing: A New Era Begins
Before we do that though, I gotta mention David B. Mattingly, the artist responsible for the majority of Animorphs illustrations. His career began in the late ‘70s at WaltDisney Studios, working as a matte painter for movies like The Black Hole, Tron, and Dick Tracy. By 1996 though, Mattingly was taking illustration gigs for everything from commercials to magazines and books. That’s where publisher Scholastic comes in.
A New Era of Artistic Expression
That’s where publisher Scholastic comes in. They’d already published the first Animorphs books that summer but weren’t 100% pleased with the covers. According to Mr. Mattingly, The first three Animorphs books were done by another artist, but Scholastic wasn't happy with that artwork. With Elastic Reality on the table, it was clear that this was going to be a game-changer for the world of children’s book illustration.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings and welcome to an LGR thing!Anyone remember Animorphs?I’d imagine most people do to some degree,seeing as over 35 million copies of the booksby K.A. Applegate have been printed since 1996.And even if you’ve never read them, chancesare you’ve seen at least one of the iconicAnimorphs covers, especially if you grew upin the 90s.Each of the 54 books in the original printrun of Animorphs features a depiction of akid transforming into something, usually ananimal or a fictional creature.And I dunno about you, but I’ve always beencaptivated by this kinda surreal imagery,so Animorphs covers have stuck in my brainever since.Now, thanks to the magic of ill-advised purchasesafter a couple drinks, I now have the hardwareand the software to make my own morphs!Oh this is awesome.Introducing Elastic Reality, a program thatsold for $995 when it first launched for theApple Macintosh in 1994.This so-called “Macintosh Special EffectsSystem” was created by ASDG Incorporated,expanding on their prior program from 1992called Morph Plus for the Commodore Amiga.But yeah, it was Elastic Reality in particularthat was used in the creation of the classicAnimorphs covers and I am absolutely psychedto show you how it works!Before we do that though, I gotta mentionDavid B. Mattingly, the artist responsiblefor the majority of Animorphs illustrations.His career began in the late ‘70s at WaltDisney Studios, working as a matte painterfor movies like The Black Hole, Tron, andDick Tracy.By 1996 though, Mattingly was taking illustration gigsfor everything from commercials to magazines and books.That’s where publisher Scholastic comesin.They’d already published the first Animorphsbooks that summerbut weren’t 100% pleased with the covers.According to Mr. Mattingly, The first threeAnimorphs books were done by another artist,but Scholastic wasn't happy with that artwork.They knew that they wanted someone to do morphing,so Scholastic art director Dave Tomasinocalled me up and he said, \"We heard that you knew how to do morphing.”I just had bought a copy of this very primitivemorphing program, the only one available atthe time called Elastic Reality.After getting the spec on the Animorphs books,I went home... and came in with some samples.I said, \"How about this?\" and they werelike, \"Yeah, that's it!\"Right, so, let’s get Elastic Reality unboxedand see if we can accomplish anything evenclose to Mr. Mattingly’s work.Removing the outer sleeve reveals a beefycardboard boxwhich itself holds a pile of beefy contents.First up is a 27-minute VHS tape coveringthe software, definitely have to check that out in a bit.Then we’ve got the program on two 3.5”disketteswith GS-89-120 written on eachof the labels.Hehe, so yeah my copy of Elastic Reality was actuallyproperty of the US federal government at one point.I grabbed it along with some other productivitysoftware in a surplus auction, so if you seeany government labels that’s why.I didn’t break into the Pentagon or whatever.Anyway, it also comes with a quick referencecard outlining the most notable menus, commands,and other such info referenced quickly ona card.And there are two substantial tomes of spiral-bounddocumentation: a getting started guide anda full-length manual.Each of which pertain to the Macintosh versiononly, even if the basic setup, creation processof morphs, and overall workflow also applyto the later versionsfor Windows PCs and SGI workstations.Finally, without further ado, “IT’S MORPHIN’TIME!”Starting up Elastic Reality doesn’t looklike much, with only a blank timeline anda bunch of dropdown menus that can’t beutilized yet.There are a handful of demonstration morphsto check out, pretty handy when referencinghow to pull off certain effects, but thisonly does so much in regards to teaching youhow to make your own.The manual provides several tutorials in textform, but screw that, let’s take a quickpeek at that VHS tape it came with and baskin that beautiful mid-90s production value.It begins with a lengthy sizzle reel showing off what thesoftware can domorphing cars and faces and objects and all sorts of neat stuff.Then we’re greeted by a man with a Macintoshwho simply cannot contain his excitement!-The objective of this tutorial is to demonstratesome of the basics of Elastic Reality.-In it, we’ll perform some warps on a humanface using only two squares.-You’ll be astonished at the variety ofeffects that can be created with just-two shapes and a little imagination.Please follow along step by step.Yeah all right so I’m not gonna play the whole 27 minutetape obviously, regardless of how... captivatingthis tutorial may be.In fact the best part is the intro, whichI can’t play because it got hit with a copyrightmatch on YouTube.So if you wanna see the whole thing checkthe video description below for an archiveI uploaded elsewhere. Anyway, yeah!The basic process of creating a morph involvesimporting two images, with the starting imagebeing placed into the A Roll and the finalimage dropping into the B Roll.The images can be of anything you like, solong as they’re QuickDraw compatible usingsomething like the PICT file format.At this point, you can double click the FXRoll to open the edit window, presenting youwith your A Roll and B Roll images.On the left is a toolbar consisting of 10tools, with several familiar options if you’vemessed with vector-based image editors.The idea here is to outline and designateparts of the image you want to morph, accomplishedby placing closed and open shapes consistingof bezier curves.As an example, I’ll just quickly outlinethis photo of a Suzuki using the pen tool,outlining the general shape of it and layingdown control points.Then moving onto the B Roll, I’m gonna dothe same with a photo of my Lumix GH5, thistime using the freehand tool to outline moreof its angles.Once those are in place, you can use the reshapetool to grab, move around, and adjust thecurvature from each control point as needed.Now when we go back to that A/B comparison,we can see the outline for each image.All we have to do here is join them togetherby selecting both of them and choosing “Join”from the Shape menu.And that’s all you need to do to make abasic morph!Opening the Morph menu provides options forrendering, previewing, and output, but wecan go straight into the rendering and seewhat happens.By default it’ll produce a morph file thatcan be played back in QuickTime, with ElasticReality interpolating the keyframes betweenyour two images based on the shapes you’vejoined and a crapload of math.And congratulations, it’s a morph!Okay so it’s not quite Animorphs material,but that’s the gist of it.How it turns out really comes down to howmuch time you’re willing to invest in eachstage of the process.Obviously, you need images that are decently-suitedto morphing into each other, with things likea solid background, clearly-defined edges,and a plan to join specific portions of the images together.It gets ridiculously more involved than myquick example earlier of course, with controlover individual frames, motion paths, vectorcorrespondence points, and on and on.You’re not limited to placing closed shapeseither, which is useful for ensuring specificshapes morph into one another in the finalrender.Like here I made my own face warp into theIBM PC from the LGR logo, with my glassesmorphing into the monitor, my nose warpinginto the top of the case, and my mouth turninginto the floppy drives.Hehe, the final result is a bit pointier thanit could be, but with enough time it’s quitepossible to come up with something better.However, you’ll never get results as well-definedas David Mattingly’s Animorphs covers, atleast not using this software alone.And that’s because he didn’t rely exclusivelyon Elastic Reality.Recalling his experiences with the software,Mattingly said, It could produce problemswith the image.So about 50 percent of my images were paintedso I could make up for all the shortcomingsof the program. And that makes sense.Even when you nail the shapes and keyframesand render morph stages as high quality aspossible, you still don’t get results worthyof an Animorphs book.Instead, Elastic Reality was a valuable stepin the overall creative process, performinga lot of the grunt work by figuring out howto morph two distinct shapes and generatingimages to use as a basis for the final illustrations.And the uses for Elastic Reality didn’tstop with Animorphs either!Throughout the ‘90s it was the de factostandard in image and video morphing, beingutilized in hundreds of TV shows and moviesfrom Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, to The Mask,to Batman Forever.Two of the engineers behind Elastic Realityeven won an Oscar at the 69th Academy Awardsfor their contributions to its development,with credit going to Avid Technology who boughtout Elastic Reality in 1995.Oddly enough though, the program was discontinuedas a standalone product in 1997, despite theOscars and widespread usage in Hollywood.The tech remained in use regardless, beingrolled into products from Avid and Softimage,and legacy hardware sometimes being kept aroundjust to run Elastic Reality.So yeah, I’m super impressed by ElasticReality’s capabilities and how easy it isto use, even in its earliest iterations.It takes very little time to produce half-decentresults using two unrelated images, and I’mpositive that morphs more suited to an Animorphscover are attainable with enough time and skill.Neither of which I possess at the moment,but whatever man, my morphs are still betterlooking than the new reprint covers, you seenthat crap?The heck kinda slapdash Photoshop job is that?I say bring back Elastic Reality for Animorphscover creation, cuz even if the resultingmorphs need a talented illustrator finishthe job, it’d still be an improvement onthose new covers.Yeesh.Oh hi you’re still here, awesome!I’ve got new videos on all kinds of techtopics each week here on LGR, so stick aroundand watch more if you’d like to stick aroundand watch more.And as always, thank you very much for watching!\n"
