CG or traditional animation?

[CryptiK]

What would be your pick. I would pick traditional(Transformers,TF:A, Armada and RiD) over CG. The CG in BW was ok to me at the time but it seemed it got worse when I saw it in Energon and Cybertron. Yes CG would have come along way since then but we arent going to get a great looking CG cartoon as I believe it isnt at the good enough level. Traditional animation does have its downsides as seen in The Transformers the sizes and animation errors but it overall looks a lot better than CG. What are your thoughts?

[SilverDragon]

I can't actually decide. Traditional animation has been good in the past, particularly with Animated, but CG has also been used well, as in Beast Wars and Beast Machines. The two have only been really sub-par when they were combined in Energon.

As I see it, 2D drawn animation is good for simple designs, such as in G1 and Animated, and 3D is useful for complex designs which would be hell to draw repeatedly.

[GoktimusPrime]

I like both cel-animation and CG animation... what's more important to me is _good_ animation. You can have good and crap cel and CG animated cartoons.


he CG in BW was ok to me at the time but it seemed it got worse when I saw it in Energon and Cybertron.
The CG animation in Beast Wars was excellent for its time and Beast Wars even won an Emmy Award for best special effects in an animated television series in 1998!

Super Link (Energon) and Galaxy Force (Cybertron) are CGI and cel animation hybrids, with Super Link using cel shaded CGI. They're also animated by different animation studios from Beast Wars and Beast Machines. Beast Wars and Beast Machines were animated by a Canadian company called Mainframe Entertainment whereas Super Link and Galaxy Force were animated by Japanese animé studios. Super Link was animated by Studio Galapogas whose work I'm not familiar with, and Galaxy Force was animated by Studio Gonzo who are a pretty good animation studio and can use CG well with cel animation -- but I suspect that TakaraTOMY gave them a small budget, hence why their animation in Galaxy Force looks so cheap. Beast Wars had a limited (and dwindling budget) too, so I think that Mainframe did an amazing job considering.

Other examples of Studio Gonzo's animation include:
Vandread (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN9TD_Txy2k)
最終兵器彼女 (She, The Ultimate Weapon) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDSQwK9JL6g&feature=related)
G.I. Joe Sigma 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuP02veUgFU)
Romeo x Juliet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHYB9u8vt2c)


Yes CG would have come along way since then but we arent going to get a great looking CG cartoon as I believe it isnt at the good enough level.
I'd be thrilled to see a Transformers cartoon animated at the same standard as Clone Wars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23oH1Gie11I). :)

[Sam]

I like both ... I think both have their own strengths.

[i_amtrunks]

There is a good argument for and against both.

However if done right (like BW and even BM) If you can get the character modelling and motion animations looking good on the first go, then CGI is a cheaper option the longer a series is.

[5FDP]

I would have to vote for traditional animation. As someone said, over time CG can look very outdated and while most CG cartoons made today look fantastic, they will surely age over time as technology progresses.

Just look at some of the old Disney cartoons produced in the 50's. These are now over 60 years old and still look great.

[GoktimusPrime]

I think that depends on budget. A lot of cel animation can look dated too. Transformers The Movie blew my socks off when I first saw it in the cinema in 1986 - but you watch it now and it's dated. Pixar's films still look great when I watch them today. The budget is also spread more thinly with television series because they have more hours in total of animation to create (e.g. Beast Wars Season 1 = 650 minutes (≈11h)).

And the severity of how badly animation can look dated can also vary. Transformers The Movie and G1 Season 1 doesn't look as badly dated as some eps of Season 3 and all of Season 4. In fact, The Rebirth already looked dated in 1987! :p Seriously... I remember when I first watched that as a kid and I immediately noticed how incredibly crap the animation quality was.

I don't mind either cel or CG animation - so long as it's _good_ animation. :)

[Lord_Zed]

I vote either, as long as they put some effort into it, the problem with many previous TF toons (the Armada verse in particualr) is that everything looked churned out and massproduced with quantity over quality. I'd rather a new short lived TF series with good animation and good story than another 60 odd eps of repetetive garbage.

[Lint]

Transformers The Movie blew my socks off when I first saw it in the cinema in 1986 - but you watch it now and it's dated. Pixar's films still look great when I watch them today. The budget is also spread more thinly with television series because they have more hours in total of animation to create (e.g. Beast Wars Season 1 = 650 minutes (≈11h)).



Holy smokes you're joking right? Sure the animation errors are glaring (due to lower standards back then) but the overall animation quality is still top notch! Animated is the one thats gonna look dated once that style of animation goes out of fashion.

No i'm not wearing 86 goggles honest :p

[5FDP]

Holy smokes you're joking right? Sure the animation errors are glaring (due to lower standards back then) but the overall animation quality is still top notch! Animated is the one thats gonna look dated once that style of animation goes out of fashion.

No i'm not wearing 86 goggles honest :p

I'm in 100% agreement with you on this Lint. TF:TM stands up really well next to more recent animated features.

[Jhiaxus]

Really? Transformers the Movie has simplistic character designs, a REALLY spotty colour pallette which completely fails to be consistent, and the animation QUALITY fluctuates wildly between scenes.

The animation style itself is severely dated -- it looks like an old cartoon. But that's what popular culture works do... they age.

The main difference between a GOOD QUALITY cell animated show and a GOOD QUALITY CGI show will be this:

CGI will generally mean a better CHARACTER PERFORMANCE, as character performance is MORE EXPENSIVE in cell animation than it is in CGI because of the increased amount of art and framerate. With CGI good character animation is still expensive, but comparitively not so much.

Cell animation meanwhile will generally mean a MUCH LARGER cast. Which means we're talking about twenty to thirty characters vs. ten.

Depends what you prefer.

--Jhiaxus.

[1orion2many]

Anything as long as it doesn't look like TF animated again. I don't care how good the stories are when you want to vomit everytime you see the animation. My fave series is BW and I didn't mind BM as well so I may even lean towards CGI;):)

[CryptiK]

I really just dont want a repeat of Energon or Cybertron those where horrible

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah but that's because those animations were _cheap_... it's not so much a problem with using CGI or cel-shaded CGI, but seems to be more of a problem with budget. Macross Frontier (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Contortionist_Ravi_standing.jpg) is uses a combo of cel and CGI animation but has much nicer animation than Energon/Cybertron.

[AussieJason]

I still favour the traditional animation, but I'll live with CGI as long as the quality is good.

The problem I have with most CGI cartoons (generally speaking) is that simply not enough happens in each episode. Compared to traditional animation, the pacing is often way too slow for my liking.

In my opinion, the writing is often stronger when it isn't CGI. While disliked by many, I liked TF Animated; as it at least tried to have good storylines and characters.

The CGI produced shows seems to concentrate on the visual way too much. The creators almost expect the audience to be happy with what they are looking at, rather that expect much plot. Many (including myself) are critical of Michael Bay for this, but I think this problem has been occuring in many earlier TF incarnations.

[SMHFConvoy]

CG or hand drawn it doesn't matter to me. CG is good because it allows the characters to stay on model. Where as traditional you do have the problem of going off model but you can be much more flexible...

If the story is good e.g. beast wars and TFA it doesn't matter how the show is done because both methods of animation are still labour intensive. It still takes roughly six months to produce a half hour cartoon.

[Lord_Zed]

Holy smokes you're joking right? Sure the animation errors are glaring (due to lower standards back then) but the overall animation quality is still top notch! Animated is the one thats gonna look dated once that style of animation goes out of fashion.

No i'm not wearing 86 goggles honest :p

I'm kinda with Jhiaxus and Gok on this one.

On the one hand your right, the Transformers g1 movie is of a high standard compared to most cheapo toy movie cartoons, and could certainly compete with some of its recent cousins like those horrible Pokemon movies, but it's certainly not a great piece of animation. They don't emote much, the lip syncing is crap and there are all those errors (not to mention that wierd bit in the Prime vs Megs fight, where Megs just let's Prime throw him by the head?). Part of that is of course the nature of Transformers and the quick action spam toy cartoon production line.

So yeah a top quality B-grade animation, but in the A league I could hardly call it enduring quality animation, when Disneys 1937 Snow White would kick it's arse with ease.

[Jhiaxus]

Oh sure. IF you're comparing the animation quality to say, My Little Pony the movie... or Challenge of the Machine Men: Rock Lords... or even G.I. Joe the movie... then Transformers wins hands down.

--Jhiaxus.
(It doesn't beat Care Bears though. Care Bears is awesome. ICKY STICKY BUBBLEGUM!)