After having a couple of lengthy discussions on the subject of staying on model in animation with people who most of the time don't know the difference between animation and the character art, i felt i needed to make a blog post about it mostly to argue my points so i never have to talk about this subject again.
For all the people that harp on about how staying on model is the most important thing in animation i would say, yes that is important, but its OK to somewhat morph the design if its in service of the actual animation. As long as it doesn't stray too far and conveys the message it's OK. If you need to add a a certain style to better convey the sense of speed for example such as the one Shingo Yamashita did in the latter half of Birdy, i would say go for it. The characters were moving at high speed and it was a long shot so you don't have to put as much detail as you would for a medium or close-up shot of the character so for that example it's OK. It's still basically on model, just simplified further in service of more fluid animation. The same kinds of people also said that changing the style like that so make it look simpler and blocker was lazy/unprofessional despite the fact the director approved it. They argued that for the fans that were buying the Blu Rays it was unprofessional for the animators to get "lazy" at the end of the show. There is a difference between laziness and an aesthetic. That aesthetic was the best way to get across the sense of speed they were going for and to get the characters to look as if they are moving at superhuman speeds as they were. Another argument for fluidity would be that have you ever seen anything look normal when it moves at super speeds. When i watch Young Justice and see the way Kid Flash's speed is conveyed in that show, he moves quickly (obviously) and his movements look somewhat unnatural but that's what it would look like.
The same can be said for things that are played in slow motion. They look hella weird and when people bring up Pain looking stupid when he was punched by Naruto in Naruto Shippuden #167 i would say that yeah, it would look hella weird seeing as that scene was supposed to convey him being punched in slo-mo. In the case of the Naruto anime though, people had similar problems with the fight between Naruto and Sasuke in the first series because they picked still frames from instances of fast fluid motion and said "lol that is bad animation because he drawn bad and that make this episode shitty derp." Animation is supposed to be a series of still frames that form a moving image when played in sequence and they are supposed to be viewed as a whole so you can't take a frame of that and say that the animation is bad.
You also shouldn't confuse character art with animation either. Animation in general means that you are making an image appear to move so you can't take an episode that has very basic animation but good character art and say that has better animation. That's not how it works my friend.
For now that's all i have to say on this matter. I plan to fully elaborate my thoughts on the subject at a later date but this is it for now. Next week you can look forward to my animation analysis of the latter half of Katekyo Hitman Reborn that i meant to have up this week but seeing as i can't watch 100+ episodes of anime in as short a span as i'd like, this is it for this week. Look forward to it guys. *wink*
For all the people that harp on about how staying on model is the most important thing in animation i would say, yes that is important, but its OK to somewhat morph the design if its in service of the actual animation. As long as it doesn't stray too far and conveys the message it's OK. If you need to add a a certain style to better convey the sense of speed for example such as the one Shingo Yamashita did in the latter half of Birdy, i would say go for it. The characters were moving at high speed and it was a long shot so you don't have to put as much detail as you would for a medium or close-up shot of the character so for that example it's OK. It's still basically on model, just simplified further in service of more fluid animation. The same kinds of people also said that changing the style like that so make it look simpler and blocker was lazy/unprofessional despite the fact the director approved it. They argued that for the fans that were buying the Blu Rays it was unprofessional for the animators to get "lazy" at the end of the show. There is a difference between laziness and an aesthetic. That aesthetic was the best way to get across the sense of speed they were going for and to get the characters to look as if they are moving at superhuman speeds as they were. Another argument for fluidity would be that have you ever seen anything look normal when it moves at super speeds. When i watch Young Justice and see the way Kid Flash's speed is conveyed in that show, he moves quickly (obviously) and his movements look somewhat unnatural but that's what it would look like.
The same can be said for things that are played in slow motion. They look hella weird and when people bring up Pain looking stupid when he was punched by Naruto in Naruto Shippuden #167 i would say that yeah, it would look hella weird seeing as that scene was supposed to convey him being punched in slo-mo. In the case of the Naruto anime though, people had similar problems with the fight between Naruto and Sasuke in the first series because they picked still frames from instances of fast fluid motion and said "lol that is bad animation because he drawn bad and that make this episode shitty derp." Animation is supposed to be a series of still frames that form a moving image when played in sequence and they are supposed to be viewed as a whole so you can't take a frame of that and say that the animation is bad.
You also shouldn't confuse character art with animation either. Animation in general means that you are making an image appear to move so you can't take an episode that has very basic animation but good character art and say that has better animation. That's not how it works my friend.
For now that's all i have to say on this matter. I plan to fully elaborate my thoughts on the subject at a later date but this is it for now. Next week you can look forward to my animation analysis of the latter half of Katekyo Hitman Reborn that i meant to have up this week but seeing as i can't watch 100+ episodes of anime in as short a span as i'd like, this is it for this week. Look forward to it guys. *wink*
Haha. Good post. I agree that frames should be viewed as a whole, instead of judging the animation on one still frame.
ReplyDeleteI have watched Naruto #133 so many times(its this Naruto vs Sasuke fight you were talking about)i just love it. Flying-fish-Naruto faces and guts-punched-out-Sasuke face look so out of shape but it's so damn right for that moment. My favorite moment for that episode is when Sasuke jumps into the air looking like he's holding a skateboard under his feet and doing flips (it was before he finished the last shadow clone swarm i think)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you meant about that pain scene but that scene really was stupid. If there was an actual force to it out would be OK but there was no reason for it to be sketchy, there was no kinetic weight to it. It was just to add to the story or to make it more dramatic, and that animation was the wrong way to go