The changing landscape of animation

[JWR]

Over the weekend I got to watch 2 animated movies that both used newer computer graphic animation, Beowulf and Appleseed Ex-Machina.
Both of these films used motion capture technology to create the movement on screen , scanning actual actors movements as well as facial expressions to give them a more lifelike 3d effect.

Due to the cost and time savings I can see these tools being used more and more in the animation we enjoy watching. There are no sketches used and the only production art involved concept paintings , storyboards and character data sheets with color guides. So as more animation is done like this , there will be less production artwork we can collect.

Another item I have seen more and more of is the internationalization of the production of animes. As most are CG , even though the concept production is from Japan most of the production sketching , in betweening and color work are being subleted to Korean studios. Look at the credits of your favorite newer show and you will find a lot of Korean surnames listed. On Saturday mornings a show like Eon Kid made by Manga entertainment or Futurama by Rough Draft were all produced in Korea.

To me so long as the quality is there I don't really care who made it but some purists it might keep them from collecting.

[Penguinton]

I just finished watching Beowulf too. And honestly I hope they don't make any more animated movies that way...at least until they can get them to look right. They all looked like lifeless dolls to me and I don't see the point in making an animated movie if all your going to do is scan and try to improve the image. Which is near impossible to do since the human eye is used to seeing the real world and can pretty much instantly tell that something is amiss.

It is sad that there will be less production work to collect but if the animation quality improves I won't complain...too much.

Yeah I started to notice that too. I thought it was a bit odd. But Koreans can draw just as good as the Japanese so it shouldn't be too much of an issue in the quality. I might need a new deputy service to buy stuff from Koreans though.

[Krafty]

One of the main reasons I don't bother watching contemporary anime any more is because it's gone too 3D/CGI. I don't like the look or feel of it and it seems like an overly complicated yet lazy way to make movies.

Like Pengu says, we can identify when something doesn't look completely natural/realisitc so why do production companies still insist to churn out this below-par content when the technology still isn't working how they'd intend? It really annoys me when the PR people say "it looks so realistic" when it blatantly doesn't. Maybe through this hobby, we have better eyesight and education in the appearance of animation that it's easy to pick out flaws?
With the 3D animation I find myself paying too much attention to the technical side of the piece I'm watching. I rarely do that with cel animation and therefore relax and enjoy it more. That's because I know from the outset that cels are just meant to be representative whereas 3D attempts to mimic reality when it's just not capable.

*Meh*, I just like the traditional anime artform- black outlined characters, filled with flat colour. With cel animation you can identify & differentiate the artistic styles between series better than you can with CGI. I find that with CGI anime, it all looks similar and that's probably due to the lighting and focus effects that are splashed over every frame.

As for the Korean studios handling much of the practical work that goes into making animation, I thought that had been a standard practice for over a decade. I know that many western cartoons are made in Korea, at least they WERE some years ago- series like The Simpsons and Batman for example.
When you see the titles at the end of a 'Japanese' anime many of the names might be Japanese [20-40] but then a couple of studios might be mentioned at the end, Korean ones which account for half (or more of) the workforce.

[Ms. Poe]

You mean to tell me Final Fantasy:Advent Children wasn't good ? Honestly...That is the only CG animated movie I think is the best. I am *REALLY* excited, however, for the new Resident Evil:Degeneration CG movie, using the original characters....OMG...LEON.....Hawwwt sexxxxxxx. I would much rather see CG movies made with the original characters from the anime/game. But, truthfully, I think CG movies will only work with Video Games. That's the way you are used to seeing those characters....In the CG cutscenes....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yh6EGGJ35DY

[sensei]

It is possible that "serious" animation will turn increasingly 3D/CGI. Ratatouille was really very well done, visuals, plot, and voice acting, and in general Pixar's work has managed to adapt the stereotypically "flat" animation character to a third dimension without making the characters doll-like in the way Penguinton disparages. (I didn't see Beowulf, mainly because I prefer the movie in my head when I read the poem, especially in the original Old English -- "Com on wanre niht /scriðan sceadugenga...." -- golly, it don't get no better than that.)

But I think there will continue to be an audience for the "storybook" animation style, just as naturalistic graphic novels haven't abolished 2D "cartoon" approaches. It is interesting, though, to see how much of the annotations on CGI sketches were done in English, sometimes through rubber stamps, sometimes through Engrishy Romanji comments. I can well imagine that these were added because English was more of a lingua franca among internationally based animation studios (particularly in Korea) than Japanese is.

"The shadowganger came shrithing in the voided night!" Remembering that part of the Beowulf poem just made my whole afternoon.

[Cloud]

though to see how much of the annotations on CGI sketches were done in English sometimes through rubber stamps sometimes through Engrishy Romanji comments interests me too.

[JWR]

I will say that Beowulf reminded me a bit of Final Fantasy "The Spirits Within" with a lot of the animation (IE: not as lifelike as we would like) but in watching the extra's where the show the actual actors preforming on "set" , the fact they could shoot the whole opening scene on the viking boat in under an hour without need of costumes or expensive realistic props seems to be a definative cost savings. That and it took 15 minutes to clear that set and then assemble the next one again adds to the appeal.

I will say that Appleseed Ex-Machina I found to be much better than the previous Appleseed movie put out in 2004. The animation worked much better as well as the attention to detail for the background scenes. Of course having John Woo involved to help plot out the action sequences also made it great to watch.

[RoboFlonne]

I do like 3d... But I prefer 2d...

If you want to do a 3d Computer generated anime.... why not just make it a live action movie? and add in CG special effects?

[Caroline]

i work in the animation industry and have had this conversation with many, some well known, animation artists who generally frown upon motion capture. this topic comes up a lot here and it is a big controversy. mo-cap has a long way to go before it paves any paths for the future of animation filmaking. there are some examples of mo-cap proving as an excellent tool for character animation (ie. golum, the lord of the rings), and then there are poorer examples like "happy feet" and the "barbie" direct-to-videos, which are, in my opinion, an insult to the talent of human animators. i am speaking purely as a reflection of the animation and character movement, not of the storytelling or production design of the films themselves. also, it is not necessarily cheaper. i can appreciate using the computer as a tool (as i use it everyday), but i think some films have crossed the line and abused that idea with mo-cap. there are techniques of traditional animation (such as stretch, squash, anticipation, etc.) that are simply not possible with mo-cap. these are techniques that i doubt will ever be discarded, for any reason especially money, so long as there are passionate artists and studios that appreciate the animation medium.

in the world of 2d, i can only speak for television animation since that is my work experience, but most traditional animation is now done overseas. a lot of these studios are korean, but some are also in japan, india, argentina, the phillipines, etc. this is where it becomes a numbers game because it is usually cheaper and faster for studios to outsource the work. this is nothing new, it has been going on for years. and as long as it proves to be cost effective, thing are likely to remain this way.

[MeganD.]

This is a huge topic that covers so many different aspects of computer art it's hard to know where to start!

I work in this industry as well and animate at an vfx studio in the L.A. area. The work I do utilizes both mo-cap and traditional animation.

First, it's important to note that even mo-cap and 3d animation have many many different aspects to them. Mo-cap is a very general term simply because there are dozens of ways to capture data from an actor, some much better than others. 3D animation is also a non-descript term which means very little to those working in the industry beyond the fact there are moving elements in the film that are generated by a 3D program. This could be 3D modeling of characters, modeling of hard body objects, rigging of said characters and objects, matte painting, composition, roto, paint, lighting, textures, animation of characters, animation of natural elements, animation of cloth, etc. And each of these things are usually isolated 3D art forms done by totally different artists. In fact, it's not atypical for over 50 artists to touch a shot by the time a film like Beowulf is finished. Needless to say, cg is very rarely used in an attempt to save money.

Mo-cap is a constantly changing arena and much of the advancements have to do with what hasn't worked in the past. The algorithms and capture mechanisms used are getting more and more sophisticated and the interpretation of the information is becoming an art in and of itself. For instance, there is absolutely no such thing as perfect data coming from mo-cap. In fact, most of the time it's just a huge mess. That data has to be refined by artists who isolate the movements and make it usable for animation. (Yup, all high end mo-cap is eventually hand animated) This can take months and months and is one of hundreds of steps it takes to get the characters on screen...

Animation can be very very different in terms of style depending on the type of project you are talking about. Pixar's work is very much along the lines of the old school American style of animation first pioneered by the Nine Old Men at Disney. It's sophisticated yes, but the Pixar character animators (along with those at Disney, Dreamworks, ILM, Rythm and Hues [Narnia, Golden Compass, Alvin and the Chipmunks], Blue Sky [Robots, Horton Hears a Who] etc) live and die by the 12 principles of animation. At these studios, the level of work is so high, unless we're talking limitations of the character's rig, the fact the work is done with a computer has nothing to do with the style of animation.

With regards to the "dead look" often talked about with photorealistic 3D characters, this is a HUGE debate among the artists in the industry and believe me, they are very very aware of it. It actually has a name. It's called the Uncanny Valley and is an interesting concept that basically says, the closer a character comes to looking real, the more apt we as human beings are to reject or become repulsed by flaws in their movement or look. In other words, more cartoony characters are easier to animate while human looking characters exceptionally difficult. We are all experts at human movement and expressions because we've been studying them since the day we were born. This means an animator of a photorealistic character has NO ROOM to mess up. Nothing can be wrong or we as an audience reject the character out right. Thing is, animators are human too, and no matter how skilled, they don't always make the right photorealistic decisions.

If you like, you can read more about the Uncanny Valley here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley

Ok, so this response has gotten ridiculously long and there's still SO much more to say! So, I'll stop before it gets too obnoxious and just say it's a really interesting time to be an animator. There are so many new and exciting ways to approach the art form, but almost all of these techniques, mo-cap and 3D animation included, are built directly upon those developed by traditional artists of the past.

[miz ducky]

This thread is fascinating. I'm so glad that we have such experts on this board.

I never thought of 3d or the latest technologies as a cheap way of producing animation, so from that perspective, I think that the anime that we watch (and collect from) won't disappear for a long time.

I believe that the 6-episode Karas, took up the budget that would normally be used for a regular 26-episode series.

[RoboFlonne]

My favorite completely 3d generated character would be yoda...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRd9PGmAQUE

Beats even Cloud/Sephy in Final Fantasy: Advent children...
All the emotions/movements match perfect!

[Caroline]

it is good to see other animation people on the board. i wonder how many of us have crossed paths in 'real life', its such a small world, this industry.

in my opinion, the best modern example of 3d and the use of computers as a tool would have to be tekkon kinkreet. all the bg elements were handpainted traditionally, with the bgs created using SI3D and rendered in mental ray.

[Cloud]

Thanks for telling me. Thanks for the recommendation, Caroline.