Malaysia is moving forward in its animation industry, aiming to produce animation with global standard, and at the same time hoping to set its own standard in the eyes of the world. Unfortunately, while becoming very anxious to be globally recognised, many young animators couldn't really see that high quality animation, simply means it carries a profound local content and a story that has a ‘soul’.With or without remarkable special effects, animation alone can be very appreciable if it contains enough elements to enrich the whole production. In this case, colours and textures play a very significant role in enhancing overall animation production. A careful selection of colours and textures certainly could signify the content of the story.As a country that is rich with its abundance of natural resources, Malaysia surely could serve as an impulsive database of colours and textures. Its wide range of wildlife and natural beauty could be offered as a feast for audience's eyes from all over the world.When those colours and textures of nature are carefully selected, blended to the story, composed and later used in any of Malaysian animation production, definitely, the production will be uniquely ‘Malaysian’. The difficult task is not solely to create a magnificent realistic environment, but most importantly to reflect the Malaysian identity, mood and atmospheric of the Malaysian lifestyle into the visual of animation.Malaysia as a country that has a diverse community that comprises 3 major races: Malay, Chinese and Indian, obviously have a lot more interesting elements to offer. Each of this ethnic society carries their own unique identity- their lifestyle, rituals and their own interpretation of colours.If blindly captured from nature, there is an ongoing list of those colours and textures elements that can signify Malaysian identity, but the issue that needs to be addressed here is how much, how little or how critical it is to deliver the right message.
Juhanita Jiman, Azhar Mohamed, "Radiant Colours and Textures: The Importance of Natural Resources and Their Influences to Malaysian Animation" in Proc. IS&T CGIV 2002 First European Conf. on Colour in Graphics, Imaging, and Vision, 2002, pp 332 - 337, https://doi.org/10.2352/CGIV.2002.1.1.art00070