site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2135 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 3, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It seems that 3D CGI animation has completely won against more 2D traditional animation styles. Looking at the animated media consumed by my kids these days, EVERYTHING is 3D-modeled CGI. I don't know of a single piece of animated media for kids that is not anymore. But is any such 3D CGI better than traditional animation? When I say "better" I mean, does it make better art than it would be if they did the same thing in traditional animation? Is there anything that this medium does really really well? Does it connect with us in a better way, make us feel more in any way?

I'm going to guess that the best thing that CGI does is "be cheaper". This makes sense, as once you produce a CGI model, you can use it forever, and you can adapt it to make new models. Do you want to make a scene of a crowd cheering? For traditional animation, you'd have to draw each person in the crowd over and over and over again, 24 times for each second. That's a lot of people to draw! For CGI, you can take one model, change it slightly to make other people, or use other preexisting models, and then animate them in a much less time consuming process than drawing frame-by-frame.

However, most 3D CGI stuff that I've seen looks kinda bland. As a case study, we can look at all of the Disney live action stuff vs the original animation. With the original animation, the artists pour lots of character into their characters. They exaggerate movements, change their faces to be very expressive with human-like characteristics. With remakes that extensively use CGI like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, the characters are just kinda flat. I suppose this is exacerbated that Disney has tried to make all of the characters seem anatomically appropriate, resulting in Simba looking kinda like he's meowing instead of horrified when he sees Mufasa die, etc. But even without this caveat, I can't really think of any CGI that I feel like did something amazing. As another example, I've heard about the animators who make pokémon sprites complaining when pokémon switched over from 2D sprites to exclusively 3D models starting around 2013 ish. They complained about how you just can't give the same level of character to a 3D model as you can to a 2D sprite. Just making something look realistic does not necessarily make it better art.

Can anyone point to any 3D CGI media that does something really well, that elicits an emotional response that traditional 2D animation could not? Is CGI just a cost-saving measure to churning out bland media?

The Lego Movie plays to the strengths of 3D CGI on account of the subject being made of countless tiny pieces of uniform rigid 3D shapes. I imagine it was a huge effort to make in CGI, never mind trying to do it freehand.

Replying to you and @RaiderOfALostTusken

I agree the Lego movie did a good job with the CGI and certainly wasn't lazy. But I think my point still stands of, would it have been better if they had done a more traditional 2D animation? Might the character movements have been accentuated in specific ways, such that it could have connected even more with its audience? Is there any particular strength of the way they animated the characters in CGI that would have been less effective if they had used traditional animation instead? The fact that you say:

I imagine it was a huge effort to make in CGI, never mind trying to do it freehand.

doesn't contradict my premise that the primary thing that CGI is good at is cutting cost and effort. It kind of supports it.

Only because the movie is about a real world dad and son relationship, making the lego scenes appear as realistic as they would if you were the kid playing with them helps put you in the kids shoes. If the movie was done in traditional 2D style, I believe you could tell the same story but I'm not sure if it would land as well emotionally.

In general I'm not sure. Would I like Toy Story as much if it was a standard cartoon style? I like the Miyazaki films well enough I suppose. Other than those I don't think there are any traditional 2D films I like as much as say, Ratatouille or The Incredibles. And I don't know if that's because of the animation or in spite of it

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats