Facial Expressions

[AmishSamurai]

So does that mean no more gems like this?

[Limewater]

Studios like to make interns, new-hires, etc. do the real grueling tasks that no one else wants to do and when it comes to animation, rotoscoping tops the grueling task list so a lot of animators and visual effects artists make their way into the industry by becoming really good rotoscopers.

I meant that Ralph Bakshi started using rotoscoping as a means to cut time and cost from the production costs. Wizards used WWII stock footage for the battle scenes. Again, you would know this better than I would, but it does make sense that it could make it a lot quicker and easier to handle scenes with a lot of action going on.

[Erik_Twice]

As far as I know, he used rotoscoping beacuse he used designs that cannot be animated well and went overboard with characters on the screen. Too much stuff to actually animate.

No, rotoscope is shit! I couldn't stand rotoscope, but how else would you do the Rings? Those people that complain, you should [say to them], all right, motherfuckers. You're an animator, sit down and do the flight to the Ford, with nine wraiths chasing Frodo. Go ahead. I dare you. And finish it in less than ten years. Not to talk about the 200 orcs coming over the hill.

So did he save costs? I think he didn't, what he did was cutting costs by lowering the quality of animation.

Personally I think that he should chose better designs. He doesn't have as much money as Disney does.

BTW, why are all animators such dicks? Clampett,Chuck Jones, John K. What's wrong with them?


@Czernobog

A note, it's "Fritz the cat" not Felix.

[Czernobog]

As far as I know, he used rotoscoping beacuse he used designs that cannot be animated well and went overboard with characters on the screen. Too much stuff to actually animate.

No, rotoscope is shit! I couldn't stand rotoscope, but how else would you do the Rings? Those people that complain, you should [say to them], all right, motherfuckers. You're an animator, sit down and do the flight to the Ford, with nine wraiths chasing Frodo. Go ahead. I dare you. And finish it in less than ten years. Not to talk about the 200 orcs coming over the hill.

So did he save costs? I think he didn't, what he did was cutting costs by lowering the quality of animation.

Personally I think that he should chose better designs. He doesn't have as much money as Disney does.

BTW, why are all animators such dicks? Clampett,Chuck Jones, John K. What's wrong with them?


@Czernobog

A note, it's "Fritz the cat" not Felix.

Oh yeah I was thinking of Fritz though.

[Erik_Twice]

Oh yeah I was thinking of Fritz though.

Poor little Felix if he had a movie like that. Poor cat would lose all his 9 lives in the spot.

[Czernobog]

Studios like to make interns, new-hires, etc. do the real grueling tasks that no one else wants to do and when it comes to animation, rotoscoping tops the grueling task list so a lot of animators and visual effects artists make their way into the industry by becoming really good rotoscopers.

I meant that Ralph Bakshi started using rotoscoping as a means to cut time and cost from the production costs. Wizards used WWII stock footage for the battle scenes. Again, you would know this better than I would, but it does make sense that it could make it a lot quicker and easier to handle scenes with a lot of action going on.

Yeah, it does make it easier and actually quicker in those types of scenes. I misunderstood. I don't usually think of scenes like that when I think of rotoscoping cause I tend to think of those more typical mid-to close-up shots of people I see rotoscoped in various movies like A Scanner Darkly and some run of commercials that used them but I don't remember what they were selling.

I have to rewatch Wizards because I haven't seen it since I was young and back then I wouldn't have noticed the stock footage plus I was too young to get some of the themes. Now I really want to see that movie again.

[Czernobog]

Oh yeah I was thinking of Fritz though.

Poor little Felix if he had a movie like that. Poor cat would lose all his 9 lives in the spot.

Yeah he sure would have.

[Limewater]

So did he save costs? I think he didn't, what he did was cutting costs by lowering the quality of animation.

That's what I said. He cut time and costs by using rotoscoping. I don't see the disagreement here.

Personally I think that he should chose better designs. He doesn't have as much money as Disney does.

I'm not sure how much that would have helped. For LOTR, he wanted a lot of action on the screen at once, and rotoscoping let him do it without going too far over budget. As far as I can tell, his only other options would have been to switch to goofy-looking cut-out style animation or a slideshow of still shots.

But again, I'm not animation expert.

[ZeroAX]

If you are going to use motion capture for cartoons you lose everything that makes a cartoon good. Cartoon designs don't work with realistic movements, because there's nothing to move.

And worse, you are stuck with expressions real people can do. Why make cartoons then? Because I don't think you can capture this:



Motion capture is the reason why the animation in The Polar Express is so jarring and lifeless.

This. Video games are not movies. They should stop acting like a teenager, and accept what they are, love themselves for it, and play to their strengths. Video games are not real worlds, they are believable fantasy worlds, that is their main advantage over every other medium and that's the reason I fell in love with the medium.

[J T]

I love exaggerated expressions in cartoons too, but most games don't have much expression at all. There are exceptions like Daxter in the Jak and Daxter series, but even a lot of cartoony games have characters with a constant drawn-on expression.

I just think this technology could be used to aid in animating expression. For cartoons, I imagine something like a rotoscoped expression where everything has been pulled to extremes for the final animation, but you still get the subtle movements of the face.