A Way to Imitate Disney's C.A.P.S system?

[NicoToonZ]

Hi there. As an animation student in (self-taught) training, I'm curious to figure out how to imitate the C.A.P.S. look in TVPaint. This includes colors on the lines, shadows, highlights, and tone mattes on characters.





I'm not sure if this is even the right place to put this in. If it isn't where it needs to be, let me know.

[D.T. Nethery]

Hi, NicoToonZ -

I worked at Disney Feature Animation during the CAPS days 1989 - 2004 . TVPaint can do everything that CAPS could do, including colors on the lines, shadows, highlights, and tone mattes on characters. Although I should point out that during that time at Disney (1989 - 2004) shadows, highlights , and tone mattes were hand-drawn efx layers , not CG elements generated by CAPS.

[NicoToonZ]

I understand it completely. It's great to hear what TVPaint can do. I'm really thankful and honored that I can talk to legendary animators like you and the team at TVPaint about the software. And I want to say, thank you very much for taking your time to answer my question.

[D.T. Nethery]

I understand it completely. It's great to hear what TVPaint can do. I'm really thankful and honored that I can talk to legendary animators like you and the team at TVPaint about the software. And I want to say, thank you very much for taking your time to answer my question.

You're welcome . Glad you're here , this is a friendly place to get help with learning TVPaint.

(I don't know about the "legendary" part applied to me ... I was just one of many artists working there and I wouldn't describe myself as one of the legends, although I will say I was privileged to touch the hem of the garment of some of the "legends" , like Dale Baer, Glen Keane ,and Eric Goldberg to name just a few. But it certainly was a great place to work, surrounded by so many great talents , and I have fond memories of that time ... having blotted out the frustrations and difficulties that I know we had , but all seems to have faded away with the passing years . As Ollie Johnston once observed: "Your scenes are forever" , by which I believe he meant: don't get frustrated by the long hours and the difficult challenges involved, just focus on doing excellent work and that is what will remain after all the petty concerns of the present day have been forgotten)

[o0Ampy0o]

If this is an example of the C.A.P.S. user interface.........what an eyesore!!!

Visually, it is in-house software engineering at its practical worst.........with just a little time devoted to aesthetics it could have been improved exponentially.

[D.T. Nethery]

If this is an example of the C.A.P.S. user interface.........what an eyesore!!!

Visually, it is in-house software engineering at its practical worst.........with just a little time devoted to aesthetics it could have been improved exponentially.

Yes, those guys at Pixar who programmed CAPS were amateurs. I wonder whatever happened to those geeks ?

(seriously, were there any software interfaces c.1989 that don't look ugly and primitive today?)

Here's another shot of the interface to shock and horrify you -

CAPS_Interface_2.jpg (74.02 KiB) Viewed 25597 times

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[NicoToonZ]

Couldn't Disney make it open-source/someone recreating the CAPS system so that everyone can use it even after they closed off the system?

[D.T. Nethery]

Couldn't Disney make it open-source/someone recreating the CAPS system so that everyone can use it even after they closed off the system?

But why would they do that and what use would it be ? Anything CAPS could do can be done in current applications like TVPaint , Toon Boom Harmony , or OpenToonz. You're talking about a software that was written in the late 1980's and was last used for production in 2003. (even then in the last waning days of Disney Animation as I knew it -- that is , as a studio doing primarily hand drawn animation -- there were plans underway to replace the aging CAPS system with a new program called CHIP . We were testing CHIP at the time they shut us down.)

[Cyndanera]

Couldn't Disney make it open-source/someone recreating the CAPS system so that everyone can use it even after they closed off the system?

But why would they do that and what use would it be ? Anything CAPS could do can be done in current applications like TVPaint , Toon Boom Harmony , or OpenToonz. You're talking about a software that was written in the late 1980's and was last used for production in 2003. (even then in the last waning days of Disney Animation as I knew it -- that is , as a studio doing primarily hand drawn animation -- there were plans underway to replace the aging CAPS system with a new program called CHIP . We were testing CHIP at the time they shut us down.)

what did CHIPs look like?

[slowtiger]

The whole discussion can be closed by just one simple fact: CAPS was not a 64bit application, I bet it was only 16bit. No need to resurrect a relict like that.

[D.T. Nethery]

Couldn't Disney make it open-source/someone recreating the CAPS system so that everyone can use it even after they closed off the system?

But why would they do that and what use would it be ? Anything CAPS could do can be done in current applications like TVPaint , Toon Boom Harmony , or OpenToonz. You're talking about a software that was written in the late 1980's and was last used for production in 2003. (even then in the last waning days of Disney Animation as I knew it -- that is , as a studio doing primarily hand drawn animation -- there were plans underway to replace the aging CAPS system with a new program called CHIP . We were testing CHIP at the time they shut us down.)

what did CHIPs look like?

I don't know of any screenshots which show the interface CHIP.

The whole discussion can be closed by just one simple fact: CAPS was not a 64bit application, I bet it was only 16bit. No need to resurrect a relict like that.

Indeed, yes. Even Disney , who owned CAPS and had the only still functioning CAPS workstations (for maintenance of data from the movies that had used CAPS) chose to use Toonboom Harmony in their last forays into hand drawn animation (The Princess and the Frog , Winnie The Pooh, and a handful of hand drawn shorts such as How to Hook Up Your Home Theater and The Ballad of Nessie).
Off-the-shelf software programs of today, such as Harmony ,TVPaint, and OpenToonz , can do everything that CAPS did (and more).