CG or traditional animation?

[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 As someone said, over time CG can look very outdated and while most CG cartoons made today look fantastic, they will surely age over time as technology progresses.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! 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

[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

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

[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

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!)