George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
Frozen:
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Older Disney Animation Quality
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GameGuru59
Banned
To me, 3D animation serves a different purpose from 2D. In 3D, it feels to me as though an artist can better explore "the world" or the characters because the space is fully rendered (or as rendered as it needs to be). 2D is better for expressing the characters themselves within the scene. 3D often feels formulaic because of the rendering algorithms used to generate the scenes. Basically, most 3D films have a similar "look" to me. While 2D is much easier to diffentiate because you have different layers built into the process. Different people do the drawing, animating, painting, inking, and backgrounds for any given scene. Though this is also true for the construction of a 3D environment, the whole area is actually rendered in a similar way. 2D is rendered by many different people, and that work shines through much better in 2D to me. Its a shame Disney has dropped 2D (even though the last films they made with it made millions).
Making Winnie the Pooh at all was stupid as fuck, frankly.
Making Winnie the Pooh at all was stupid as fuck, frankly.
Aaron Strife
Banned
One thing that harms CG is that almost every CG film looks the same. Compare Disney and Dreamworks in 1998 and now.
These were their two films in 1998:
Radically different art styles. Now:
There's still an stylistic difference when you look at the character design, but it's not as pronounced as it used to be and the environments are always going to be gorgeous and perfect which ends up being sterile. Furthermore while the two major studios both have a "house style" that informs much of their design, lately it's stayed roughly the same from movie to movie. Mulan and PoE were completely unique in their art direction. If you stuck Mulan next to Moses it would look weird. I don't think Hiccup would stand out among the Frozen cast.
These were their two films in 1998:
Radically different art styles. Now:
There's still an stylistic difference when you look at the character design, but it's not as pronounced as it used to be and the environments are always going to be gorgeous and perfect which ends up being sterile. Furthermore while the two major studios both have a "house style" that informs much of their design, lately it's stayed roughly the same from movie to movie. Mulan and PoE were completely unique in their art direction. If you stuck Mulan next to Moses it would look weird. I don't think Hiccup would stand out among the Frozen cast.
The impression I get from the Winnie the Pooh movie is that Disney never intended for it to be a big hit at the box office, but rather rake in millions over the years as parents buy yet another Pooh video for their kids. I'm glad they made it, it's a great film and worthy successor of the original.GameGuru59 said:
SonicMegaDrive
Member
3D characters just look like porcelain dolls to me. The 2D drawings look more life-like and less like they were manufactured on an assembly line.
wanderingprostheyltite
Member
I rewatched Sleeping Beauty the other night and was astounded by the quality of animation, the naturalness to characters' movements, expressions etc. It was so convincing I suspected rotoscoping, and lo and behold, Disney dabbled in this for a few of their early classics. Some might call it cheating and not really counting but I think it looks incredible, and yes I wish we still had more 2d animated films from them 
This thread got kinda rough. You won't find too many people more in love with traditionally animated Disney than me, but making insane statements about Frozen or Tangled lacking personality or not being expressive just makes you seem unhinged.
I can pretty much guarantee you that if someone took a scene from one of those two movies, traced it out in the style of those sketched animatics upthread and told people it was a pre-production animatic for a 2D version of the film, people here would be singing its praises.
I can pretty much guarantee you that if someone took a scene from one of those two movies, traced it out in the style of those sketched animatics upthread and told people it was a pre-production animatic for a 2D version of the film, people here would be singing its praises.
GameGuru59
Banned
I rewatched Sleeping Beauty the other night and was astounded by the quality of animation, the naturalness to characters' movements, expressions etc. It was so convincing I suspected rotoscoping, and lo and behold, Disney dabbled in this for a few of their early classics. Some might call it cheating and not really counting but I think it looks incredible, and yes I wish we still had more 2d animated films from them
Sleeping Beauty was the last Disney film that was rendered fully "by hand," too. After that, they got the Xerox process which allowed them to zoom in and out of shots, and scan line drawings directly into film without inking. However, this sacrificed the colored lines that inking allowed- until computers came along. It also made their movies look much more "sketchy" (again, until computers came along). This is why all Disney movies post Sleeping Beauty and pre Beauty and the Beast have a certain look that hugely differentiates them from the renaissance era films.
Aaron Strife
Banned
I think Tangled and Frozen are both good, very well-made films (with some minor issues but I can say that for almost every Disney movie) and I admit that my preference for hand-drawn animation is purely a preference. I can't speak for anyone else, I just hope you didn't get the wrong idea from my last post.
I actually find the pencil drawings more charming than the finished pieces - Beauty and the Beast's work print version is extremely interesting to watch for this reason.
Not at all. I can totally understand people preferring the look and feel of traditional animation, and I get how the pixel-perfection of CGI can look cold and lifeless to some in comparison.
I do miss Disney's 2D work, and I hope it comes back to us sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I can still enjoy the incredibly artistry and creativity in films like Wreck-It Ralph, Tangled and Frozen.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
I can only like things if their number of things is higher than the other thing's number of things.
Cuban Legend
Member
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Great Film.
Thread needs some Makoto Shinkai, the 2D/3D hybrid animation god:
The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004):
5 Centimeters Per Second (2007):
Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011):
Garden of Words (2014):
CoconutTank
Member
Haven't seen Tangled yet but this looks really neat.Pretty cool to see how Tangled would look in 2D.
I can watch these gifs all day.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
I never understand the praise concept/sketch board stuff gets.
Yeah sure they're magical, etc. but that's the point. You're pitching them. And said magical stuff have a tendency not to translate well once they actually start working.
It's the same reason when a certain Mario fanart gets posted with people saying "why can't Mario be like this?!" I'm eager to point out a lot of shit in that fanart that ignores a lot of gameplay elements.
That just showed how same-facey female Disney characters are.
I did once. It was fun.
My favorite Bluth film (and animation in general) is Nimh.
Yeah sure they're magical, etc. but that's the point. You're pitching them. And said magical stuff have a tendency not to translate well once they actually start working.
It's the same reason when a certain Mario fanart gets posted with people saying "why can't Mario be like this?!" I'm eager to point out a lot of shit in that fanart that ignores a lot of gameplay elements.
Agreed. There needs to be way more CGI love in this thread.
That just showed how same-facey female Disney characters are.
One of these days I'll make a Don Bluth thread
But today is not that day.
I did once. It was fun.
My favorite Bluth film (and animation in general) is Nimh.
CoconutTank
Member
Apparently I haven't seen Treasure Planet yet either! But thanks for the correction.The second one is actually from Treasure Planet.
MrCunningham
Member
Oh, by older, I thought this was going to be about "classic" Disney animation.
Vintage Disney still has some of the best looking animation, layouts and background paintings out of their entire catalog of animation. And a lot of it still has been unmatched. Though Disney's Tarzan does have some nice deigns in it.
Vintage Disney still has some of the best looking animation, layouts and background paintings out of their entire catalog of animation. And a lot of it still has been unmatched. Though Disney's Tarzan does have some nice deigns in it.
BKatastrophe
Member
The second one is actually from Treasure Planet.
Never has there been an animated movie that has gotten the reaction this has for me, and that reaction has been "Holy shit you can see the money they spent." I love the movie, but it also has to be the most expensive looking animated film I've seen. Now I don't know much about the ins and outs of animation, but when you have two completely separate teams dedicated to a single character (One for Silver and one for Silver's mechanical arm), you know there's money being spent.
Yeah, the sketchy look means xerox actually replicates the animators exact pencil lines while rejecting the smooth delicate look of traditional inking (apparently Disney himself missed this look). It gave films/shows a different aesthetic compared to inking, especially if the animators lines aren't really cleaned up. Not to mention also helped greatly reduce costs.
Wow you need to get your eyes checked.
I watched this movie two days ago and I thought it looked rubbish. Clearly Silver looks pretty good but the rest is awful, especially the rock guy looks like pure shit. The CGI looks shitty and bland too. In contrast Atlantis which came out a year earlier looks far more impressive.
One of these days I'll make a Don Bluth thread
But today is not that day.
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Bonus:
Legend of Korra:
Spirit:
Aladdin:
Prince of Egypt:
manzoman96
Member
One thing that harms CG is that almost every CG film looks the same. Compare Disney and Dreamworks in 1998 and now.
These were their two films in 1998:
Radically different art styles. Now:
There's still an stylistic difference when you look at the character design, but it's not as pronounced as it used to be and the environments are always going to be gorgeous and perfect which ends up being sterile. Furthermore while the two major studios both have a "house style" that informs much of their design, lately it's stayed roughly the same from movie to movie. Mulan and PoE were completely unique in their art direction. If you stuck Mulan next to Moses it would look weird. I don't think Hiccup would stand out among the Frozen cast.
yeah I gotta agree with this. All of the human characters look exactly the same to me aesthetically despite the different designs.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The interesting part for me is that much western animation and western-styled animation looks as "samey" as some believe CG does because I see the underlying construction habits and design biases shared by so much of it. The main stylistic difference between a whole lot of western animation does come from the backgrounds, and not the characters. There is a decent variety of stylization and color palette used in the world surrounding the characters. But the characters look as similar because that's how so many western animations have been trained - and conditioned to feel there is only one "correct" way to construct an animated character.
2D and 3D animaton is completely under the control of the creator. It's not the technology, it's the mindset and education behind its use.
2D and 3D animaton is completely under the control of the creator. It's not the technology, it's the mindset and education behind its use.
darkhunger
Member
CG movies and shows don't HAVE to be same-y looking. Some (Star Wars Clone War comes to mind) have unique styles for their human characters that make the art style unique. And just look at video games for the amount of stylistic variations that CGI can depict.
The thing is Disney has its "house style" which they tend to adhere to, for both 2D AND 3D. So while there are definitely variations in styles from movie to movie, the vast majority of 2D Disney movies still retain that same style (and many female characters have that same face too). The post above just chose to pick one of the more stylistically unique Disney movies in Mulan. Disney is just carrying some of their 2D practices to 3D.
The thing is Disney has its "house style" which they tend to adhere to, for both 2D AND 3D. So while there are definitely variations in styles from movie to movie, the vast majority of 2D Disney movies still retain that same style (and many female characters have that same face too). The post above just chose to pick one of the more stylistically unique Disney movies in Mulan. Disney is just carrying some of their 2D practices to 3D.
petran79
Banned
the 80s were a decade of transition and experimentation with new techniques. It was an interesting era, even though it didnt produce any memorable movie, till Little Mermaid came along
Eg in Oliver & Company this scene does not look like Disney at all. Even though it last a few seconds, it is one of the most realistic depictions I've seen in animation.
Also in the underrated 1986 movie, Basil The Great Mouse Detective, CGI was used in the Clock Tower scene. One of the most memorable scenes of any Disney movie.
Eg in Oliver & Company this scene does not look like Disney at all. Even though it last a few seconds, it is one of the most realistic depictions I've seen in animation.
Also in the underrated 1986 movie, Basil The Great Mouse Detective, CGI was used in the Clock Tower scene. One of the most memorable scenes of any Disney movie.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Not really? Go look up the "humanoid female" thread I made last year, someone made an apt comparison on how modern 3D disney males can look radically different, but 3D disney females have a too similar template.
SonicMegaDrive
Member
Well, Roger Rabbit was really what got the ball rolling over at Disney.
I'd argue that Don Bluth and co. put out some very memorable films before Disney got their poop together, though.
MrCunningham
Member
]
Also in the underrated 1986 movie, Basil The Great Mouse Detective, CGI was used in the Clock Tower scene. One of the most memorable scenes of any Disney movie.
You mentioned Oliver and Company, and this one also had quite a bit of early CGI in it too. Especially for the vehicles and traffic sequences:
Though it did come out two years after the great Mouse Detective. Disney was really experimenting with blending CGI and traditional animation together in the '80s.
BKatastrophe
Member
I think Atlantis looks good, too. I thought it was a really pretty looking movie. Saying it looks like shit is insanely harsh.
The characters in Tangled look good in motion, but they read weirdly in stills.
GameGuru59
Banned
Really, Disney's always been on the cutting edge of animation. You should look at the Pinocchio documentary (somewhere on Youtube) and how they rendered the cage and cart scenes in the movie by tracing the lines of live motion objects. The actually built a cart and cage, filmed it, and then traced over the lines to make the movie more realistic. This same process was later brought (as you mentioned) to movies like Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Company, where the cars were apparently rendered in wireframe, animated by Pixar (which was part of ILM at the time), and traced over by the animators. I don't think the cars and gears in the clock are actually being rendered by the computer, but rather being traced over by the animators and being colored into the movie.
sol_bad
Member
This seems to primarily compare old anime movies and OVA's to new anime TV series.
Movies and OVA's have a bigger budget so of course they will look better than a TV series.
Goddamn, why is that animation can make me tear up in a way that live action never does?
Absolutely beautiful.
MisterGrey3000
Member
Huh...I also thought we were gonna talk about the Golden Age, but hey...Tarzan is pretty legit so lets talk about that.
Yeah OP, Glen Keane is a genius.
That tree skating scene in Tarzan is great, there is a real sense of physicality to Tarzan's presence thanks to the solidity of the drawings, the timing of the movements, the spacing of the movements, the arcs in the movement, and a mastery of other principles like "follow through".
As a novice-animator/animation buff it's pretty awe inspiring, and it's quite inspirational.
I don't know about that...
It's just dead in the high budget mainstream western film industry; which is disheartening...but it's certainly no where near being dead in the west.
It's perfectly alive and well at indie festivals, art schools, on the internet, on television, and in plenty of foreign countries.
Yeah OP, Glen Keane is a genius.
That tree skating scene in Tarzan is great, there is a real sense of physicality to Tarzan's presence thanks to the solidity of the drawings, the timing of the movements, the spacing of the movements, the arcs in the movement, and a mastery of other principles like "follow through".
As a novice-animator/animation buff it's pretty awe inspiring, and it's quite inspirational.
I don't know about that...
It's just dead in the high budget mainstream western film industry; which is disheartening...but it's certainly no where near being dead in the west.
It's perfectly alive and well at indie festivals, art schools, on the internet, on television, and in plenty of foreign countries.
Agreed. There needs to be way more CGI love in this thread.
Vanellope was ADORABLE
Best animated CGI character bar none
peanutbutterlatte
Member
"Older Disney"
C'mon OP whip out some Fantasia.
C'mon OP whip out some Fantasia.
eso76
Member
I thought this would be about their 60's stuff, which i think is Disney's all time high
I also like the older stuff, like Pinocchio and Bambi, but Disney was absolutely killing it with stuff like the sword in the stone
EDIT: whoops, no hotlinking. removed
(this sequence has amazing facial expressions and animation, the chemistry between Merlin and young Arthur is delicious, all thanks to their body language)
One hundred dalmatians, Jungle Book, Robin Hood etc.
And of course, Sleeping Beauty, which is absolutely gorgeous in every way.
My daughter loves these and i bought the entire catalog in BR and damn, Sleeping beauty in 1080p on my F8500 is overwhelming. The final battle gives me goosebumps
I also like the older stuff, like Pinocchio and Bambi, but Disney was absolutely killing it with stuff like the sword in the stone
EDIT: whoops, no hotlinking. removed
(this sequence has amazing facial expressions and animation, the chemistry between Merlin and young Arthur is delicious, all thanks to their body language)
One hundred dalmatians, Jungle Book, Robin Hood etc.
And of course, Sleeping Beauty, which is absolutely gorgeous in every way.
My daughter loves these and i bought the entire catalog in BR and damn, Sleeping beauty in 1080p on my F8500 is overwhelming. The final battle gives me goosebumps
Exterminieren
Banned
I've never really bought Disney's corporate line that there was no conceivable future for 2D. Both Princess and the Frog and Winnie-The-Pooh were kneecapped before they came out of the gate (Princess by the absence of the medium for years beforehand and the poor advertising, Winnie by the fact that the well had been poisoned by years of abysmally shit Winnie-The-Pooh TV animation). There's still profit to be made from a well-planned and marketed 2D feature- hell, Princess made its cash back and more, despite not being a smashing success.
Still, it's all academic now- Disney gutted their 2D animation department years ago. Fucking Lasseter.
Still, it's all academic now- Disney gutted their 2D animation department years ago. Fucking Lasseter.
SteveMeister
Hang out with Steve.
You've chosen a really, really bad example. If you look at all of the main characters of the HTTYD movies, you'll note there is a very wide variety of looks. Hiccup and Astrid don't look like anyone else in the movie. Stoic, Gobber, Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins all look very stylistically different. And they even aged the characters well between the two movies. I couldn't see Stoic or Gobber showing up in Frozen, for example.
Psychological Intellect
Banned
MisterGrey3000
Member
One thing that harms CG is that almost every CG film looks the same. Compare Disney and Dreamworks in 1998 and now.
These were their two films in 1998:
Radically different art styles.
...
Mulan and PoE were completely unique in their art direction. If you stuck Mulan next to Moses it would look weird. I don't think Hiccup would stand out among the Frozen cast.
Err, PoE wasn't the norm in the renaissance era. Dream Works themselves produced a Disney derivative called "The Road To El Dorado" that could easily be mistaken for something that the house of mouse put out.
Lets get something straight, a lot of big budget animated films from the renaissance-era copied DAS's "House Style" to a T and a lot of them were mistaken for Disney films by both critics and general consumers.
When you really put an objective eye over that era you'll quickly realize that there wasn't a lot of experimentation going on from a visual perspective. The line work, the color palettes, the movement/acting, the backgrounds, and the construction/forms of the character designs were all very "same-y" in many of those films.
If you don't believe me, just take a look at the "All Animation is Disney" page on Tv Tropes. There are plenty of examples of this phenomenon.
Hell, even the great Don Bluth (an animator who once managed to work with the universal principles and Disney's trademark techniques while still making unique looking films) was producing movies that were essentially Disney knock-offs.Thumbelina and Anastasia both incredibly guilty of being so Disney-esque that it hurts...it really hurts.
I really do think some people tend to over-romanticize the 2D era of animation...it really wasn't any different from the era we live in now.
There were trendy styles (just like today), and content creators made movies that looked similar to what was kicking ass at the box office; people like playing follow the leader (Artist often find inspiration through imitation), and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I think the Disney "House Style" is great despite my issue with the ultra thin uniformly even line work; seeing other people put their own twist on it is kind of exciting, regardless of whether that endeavor leads to a quality product.
I think the majority of you who romanticize 2D animation just really like the intrinsic aesthetic qualities present within in 2D art more than you like the intrinsic aesthetic qualities present within 3D art because from an animation/character acting perspective it all moves the same.
The rotoscoping definitely didn't look anywhere near as good as the freehand animation; even the animators didn't really want to use it for the human characters, they felt it robbed the caricatures of life (I wouldn't hesitate to agree with them)
I think Art Babbit even avoided rotoscoping the so called "Evil Queen" whenever he could, and I'm pretty sure the Queen's witch form was all freehand.
Disney (the man himself) had a thing for realism (not so much believability, but straight up realism), and back then nobody was really animating human-esque characters with joints; everybody had old school rubber hose-style noodle arms and legs to accompany their cartoony stylized forms.
Rotoscoping in Snow White essentially allowed a lot of the old master animators to practice moving a character with actual joints in their arms and legs while also animating semi-realistic human forms.
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