Things you never realised about Transformers (toys etc)

[KalEl]

That thing from Sentinel Prime looks like it was stolen from TF: Animated Swindle.

swindle is awesome

[Paulbot]

Until I was putting them out on display, it had never registered to me that all of the original Insecticons had Robot Heroes versions

[GoktimusPrime]

I should pay more attention to ending credits. I've been listening to the TF Prime Season 1 audio commentary and discovered that TF Prime is animated by a Japanese studio called Polygon Pictures, whose other works include Innocence: Ghost in the Shell and Sky Crawlers! For me, this also gives TF Prime a bit more of a G1 feel as the G1 cartoon as that was also scripted in the US but animated by a Japanese company (Toei).

Another interesting thing is how counter intuitive designing Transformers is from an animation artist's POV and a toy designer's POV. They're saying that HasTak design Transformers from alt mode first, then engineer it into a robot, but artists design Transformers as robots first... they described the communication between the two as "speaking different languages." This further cements my personal preference that Transformers ought to be designed as toys first... then let artists worry about rendering them as character models (as has happened in the majority of TF series).

Also interesting is how many of the voice actors are just in awe when working with Peter Cullen and Frank Welker -- and any time they hear them doing Optimus Prime and Megatron's voices. That must be an awesome experience.

They also said that they intentionally wanted to create non-annoying human characters for TFPrime, and the animators' favourite character is Miko!?! Umm... okay.

[5FDP]

They also said that they intentionally wanted to create non-annoying human characters for TFPrime, and the animators' favourite character is Miko!?! Umm... okay.

FAIL!

[LordCyrusOmega]

Human Alliance Skids and Mudflap have buttons on the tops of their head that make their mouths move.

[GoktimusPrime]

More stuff I've learned from watching the TF Prime DVD audio commentaries... ever noticed that some of the "historical flashback narration" scenes are hand drawn and not really animated? Much like a slightly moving picture book, like when Ratchet explained the history between Orion Pax and Megatronus, and how they became Optimus Prime and Megatron in "One Shall Rise, Part 3." Those scenes were animated around the time the Tsunami hit Japan and Polygon studios lost a THIRD of their workforce! Consequently Hasbro Studios ended up illustrating those scenes and working in some basic animation into them. But yeah, that's the reason why those scenes were done like that and not fully animated. While the end effect looks cool, it's sad to hear the reason why it happened.

[SkyWarp91]

Never knew Cybertron Runamuck was so... ...kibbletastic...

[SuspectimusPrime]

More stuff I've learned from watching the TF Prime DVD audio commentaries... ever noticed that some of the "historical flashback narration" scenes are hand drawn and not really animated? Much like a slightly moving picture book, like when Ratchet explained the history between Orion Pax and Megatronus, and how they became Optimus Prime and Megatron in "One Shall Rise, Part 3." Those scenes were animated around the time the Tsunami hit Japan and Polygon studios lost a THIRD of their workforce! Consequently Hasbro Studios ended up illustrating those scenes and working in some basic animation into them. But yeah, that's the reason why those scenes were done like that and not fully animated. While the end effect looks cool, it's sad to hear the reason why it happened.

The Tsunami was really sad, but reading that comment for the first time is really sad too. I guess Polygon studios must be located somewhere close to Miyagi prefecture then?