Disney officially done with 2D animation

[flynnibus]

CG animation is a fad that I hope dies off eventually

I didn't know this because I couldn't really care less about how animation is made if it isn't done with hand painted cels

Its quite clear you have no objectivity in this and have taken an attachment to something purely because.. and not because of things you can articulate as actually being better.. but just actual preference.. almost a blind one.

You're focusing on the art.. and ignoring the actual product because you are too focused on the format. Move beyond it and learn the format is a means to an end.. not the objective in its own right.

 

[Yert3]

You're focusing on the art.. and ignoring the actual product because you are too focused on the format. Move beyond it and learn the format is a means to an end.. not the objective in its own right.

I never said I didn't enjoy the 2D animated films made with a computer. I said they're not as fun to watch. They just don't have the same charm to me. I love all of the films of the Disney renaissance but barely watch them. Why? Because the just don't have the style and look that I enjoy watching. Does that mean I don't like them? No. I thought Winnie the Pooh was very well made. [edit] Yes I have to make this edit to clarify the I KNOW the Winnie the Pooh isn't part of the renaissance, I'm not saying it was. I'm making a separate point. You people can get very literal on me so I had the make a disclaimer

 

[flynnibus]

I never said I didn't enjoy the 2D animated films made with a computer. I said they're not as fun to watch

And you should have the self-awareness to recognize your heavy bias here and understand it's a personal thing - not a universal thing. Listen to yourself.. you're saying a movie isn't as a fun based on the tools used? When said tools have enabled things not possible in the previous ones?

I hope you've not deprived yourself of great humor in the world from the likes of South Park because you focus too much on how it was created.

 

[Yert3]

I hope you've not deprived yourself of great humor in the world from the likes of South Park because you focus too much on how it was created.

No, I've seen every episode up to season 14. And yes, I know every episode after the pilot has been made with a computer.

And you should have the self-awareness to recognize your heavy bias here and understand it's a personal thing

I don't ever recall saying it wasn't personal

 

[Yert3]

I guess I don't quite understand that sentiment because CAPS is strictly a digital ink-and-paint system. Really the only difference between CAPS and xerography is that CAPS does painting in addition to inking.

The animation is far too cleaned up to have that "sketchy" look. The stray pencil makes and semi-uncleaned up animation is what give xerox it's charm for me. I DID notice in Winnie the Pooh the animation outlines were a lot more inconsistent than normal on a computer made 2D film. I don't know if that was intentional to mimic the original look or not, but I like it.

 

[Yert3]

I hope there's no hard feelings. I didn't mean to start an argument here.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The animation is far too cleaned up to have that "sketchy" look. The stray pencil makes and semi-uncleaned up animation is what give xerox it's charm for me. I DID notice in Winnie the Pooh the animation outlines were a lot more inconsistent than normal on a computer made 2D film. I don't know if that was intentional to mimic the original look or not, but I like it.

You're advocating for a technique used in a relatively narrow window of time. Your fondness for the Xerography process should endear you to the line work of the recent 2D efforts, as the drawings are done on a tablet and become the digital cel. You're big problem though seems to be an advocacy of a certain style, not necessarily a technique, regardless of its true appropriateness to the story being told.

 

[G00fyDad]

I hope there's no hard feelings. I didn't mean to start an argument here.

No biggie. You could have made a thread about how blue the sky is today and someone would have started an argument.

 

[Figments Friend]

-
I can relate to the view of preferring hand-drawn techniques to CGI based techniques. There is a lot of appeal for me in watching traditionally animated efforts and less appeal in seeing completely CG techniques, but that is purely a personal opinion.

I think the real issue with the ongoing Traditional vs. CGI Animation productions these days is that the movie going public at large has come to equate a quality animated feature with CGI.

At some point admist all the Pixar hits of the late 90s/early 2000s, movie goers attitudes towards animated features started to shift. People were starting to see CGI animated features as being more appealing, and more for adults to enjoy while Traditional features were struggling at the time to win over audiences and critics in the press. There was a definate gap there going on at the time.


Traditional suffered not because of the technique, it suffered because of poor direction, marketing, or just poor material. * Home On The Range* is the perfect example. The mental conditioning the public was converting to was accelerated by such weaker Traditional efforts in that later period. It was easy to see why many saw CGI as the *better* technique in comparison, since Pixar films at that time had some excellent story elements.

Add into that mix the various animation studios in town were more then happy to phase out Traditional productions due to the heavy costs involved in making such films. Costs were greatly reduced by switching over to digital media...so the appeal of a CGI produced feature in comparison to a Trad feature is easy to understand from a film-making perspective. Other studios were more then happy to feed the fire by cranking out *copy cat* efforts, all CGI animated efforts, to cash in on this public perception ..thus the glut of badly executed CGI films.

In the last few years, we have seen some CGI efforts try to return to a more Traditional appearance.


The purpose of *Tangled*, at least according to Glen Keane, was to try to recapture that appealing look and feel as past Traditional techniques within a modern CGI animated effort. The character designs and backgrounds reflect this, and I think it worked to some degree. Not a film i was overly excited about ( only a few key scenes worked for me ) but i am of course likely in a minority.

I think it is a good sign for fans of Traditional Animation that this is happening, as it shows there is a awareness that good old 2D Animation ambiance is missed.

A great film can be a great film though, regardless of the medium it is presented in.

 

[Yert3]

Yes, the rougher, sketchier look of Winnie the Pooh was intentional. If the sketchy style adds to your enjoyment of certain films, that's fine, but I think it's kind of silly to just dismiss films with digital ink-and-paint as inferior. Digital ink-and-paint methods reproduce the animators' drawings in the finished film just like xerography does, and the fact that the CAPS films and Winnie the Pooh were both made with these methods demonstrates that filmmakers can control how "sketchy" or "polished" their films look. I, too, enjoy the sketchy look for some films; I think it's a compelling design aesthetic in its own right, and it's a good look for some films. I wouldn't advocate the sketchy look for every film, though, but it's a good thing that digital methods give hand-drawn artists more control over the visual style of their films.

As compelling as the art for, say, 101 Dalmatians is, the graphical look of that film wasn't so much a choice as it was artists working within the limitations of the technology. Even during the heyday of xerography in animation, Disney was continually refining the process so that it more closely resembled manual inking (but with the added benefit of having the animators' drawings reproduced on the cels). Originally, xerography was unable to reproduce colored lines, which is why 101 Dalmatians has such a distinctive look:

By the time The Rescuers was made, more variety in toner color was available, so the character animation has a noticeably softer appearance. For instance, I seem to recall that it was relatively significant that Miss Bianca's hat could be done with a purple outline, and Bernard's fur uses a lighter, gray outline than the characters in 101 Dalmatians:

The Little Mermaid doesn't use xerography; the APT process for this film predated CAPS, but is more advanced than xerography (basically lines could be any color):

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the development of CAPS (Toon Boom Harmony is what they're using now) was just a continuation of something Disney was striving for all throughout the xerography era - greater control over the look of their films.

Yes. I pretty much knew all of that except the last part. I guess I've made myself out to be a dummy. I've heard of APT but I still don't know what goes into it or how it is different from xerox other than a cleaner look. Again sorry if I made myself look like a fool, but my knowledge of Disney animation is pretty much nonexistent from The fox and the hound to the Little mermaid. They used APT I'm assuming. and then anything after Fantasia 2000 I know nothing about. Other than that I do know quite a bit.

 

[Yert3]

Yes, the rougher, sketchier look of Winnie the Pooh was intentional. If the sketchy style adds to your enjoyment of certain films, that's fine, but I think it's kind of silly to just dismiss films with digital ink-and-paint as inferior. Digital ink-and-paint methods reproduce the animators' drawings in the finished film just like xerography does, and the fact that the CAPS films and Winnie the Pooh were both made with these methods demonstrates that filmmakers can control how "sketchy" or "polished" their films look. I, too, enjoy the sketchy look for some films; I think it's a compelling design aesthetic in its own right, and it's a good look for some films. I wouldn't advocate the sketchy look for every film, though, but it's a good thing that digital methods give hand-drawn artists more control over the visual style of their films.

I guess there's been a misunderstanding. I never wrote off any film inked digitally as inferior just for that one reason. It's just not a style that I prefer. Many people seem to love it and that's great. All of the films of the DR are quite amazing actually. It just doesn't give me the same feeling. I don't know how to describe it.

 

[clarksfan95]

In my years of watching cartoons, I think Xerography is the sloppiest looking technology to come down the pike. It also lifted any dirt that was on the paper and the lines were very inconsistent. In some movies, particularly Winnie the Pooh, it looked decent, because it seemed reminiscent of older pre-Disney Pooh images.

If you compare older Disney films (pre-Xerography) are more comparable to films post-Mermaid because the lines that the inkers made were much cleaner and not as scratchy. Other than.....I don't know....I disliked most films made during the 70's-mid/late-ish 80's. The Xerography did nothing for me to be honest, it was actually more of a turn off for me of those films.

Yert3, do you like pre-Xerography Disney films and how do you think they compare with the post-Xerography films looks wise? My opinion is that I'm not fond of it and it's strictly that. I think 101 Dalmations/Pooh were the best films to utilize it, I've seen the same process used for TV animation and perhaps that where my dislike of it comes from.

As for Disney being done with 2D animation....I would believe it....forever though, I doubt it. It's certainly not the first time that they've been done with it. They almost closed up shop before and after Black Cauldron. Animation comes and goes in cycles and 3D is in no way a fad....it's merely the advancement of technology, something Walt was always looking at. I believe it was shortly after Home of the Range, Disney had an animation house cleaning sale where they discarded hundreds of animation desks, disks and the like. Many were purchased by previously employed Disney animators and can now be found in the offices of smaller studios that some of ex-Disneys top animators created in the wake of the dismantling.

 

[Yert3]

In my years of watching cartoons, I think Xerography is the sloppiest looking technology to come down the pike. It also lifted any dirt that was on the paper and the lines were very inconsistent. In some movies, particularly Winnie the Pooh, it looked decent, because it seemed reminiscent of older pre-Disney Pooh images.

If you compare older Disney films (pre-Xerography) are more comparable to films post-Mermaid because the lines that the inkers made were much cleaner and not as scratchy. Other than.....I don't know....I disliked most films made during the 70's-mid/late-ish 80's. The Xerography did nothing for me to be honest, it was actually more of a turn off for me of those films.

Yert3, do you like pre-Xerography Disney films and how do you think they compare with the post-Xerography films looks wise? My opinion is that I'm not fond of it and it's strictly that. I think 101 Dalmations/Pooh were the best films to utilize it, I've seen the same process used for TV animation and perhaps that where my dislike of it comes from.

As for Disney being done with 2D animation....I would believe it....forever though, I doubt it. It's certainly not the first time that they've been done with it. They almost closed up shop before and after Black Cauldron. Animation comes and goes in cycles and 3D is in no way a fad....it's merely the advancement of technology, something Walt was always looking at. I believe it was shortly after Home of the Range, Disney had an animation house cleaning sale where they discarded hundreds of animation desks, disks and the like. Many were purchased by previously employed Disney animators and can now be found in the offices of smaller studios that some of ex-Disneys top animators created in the wake of the dismantling.

I love ALL forms of animation. A lot of you think that just because I don't prefer them, that I hate them. I don't. Part of the reason I love xerox so much is because for the most part you're seeing the original animation drawing. I never really did like that on the older movies the animation was traced by someone else. Again, not saying it's bad. A lot of the best animated films of all time were hand traced. But I still prefer the sketchy xerox look. It's just my personal preference

 

[DisneyGuyNYC]

They'll do other 2D-style animation but they'll do it digitally. Hand drawn animation has it's place and it's beautiful when done stylistically but it's never been Disney's goal. They've always strived for polish. You can get great characters and original looks digitally.

These are just tools. Digital production just makes a lot more sense for them.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Part of the reason I love xerox so much is because for the most part you're seeing the original animation drawing.

But you're not seeing the original. It is a copy whereas with the system employed since How to Hook Up Your Home Theater you are seeing the actual drawing.

 

[Yert3]

But you're not seeing the original. It is a copy whereas with the system employed since How to Hook Up Your Home Theater you are seeing the actual drawing.

Here we go again with me having to be 100% literal. Yes, it's a copy, but it wasn't traced over by someone else. That's what I meant when I say original.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Here we go again with me having to be 100% literal. Yes, it's a copy, but it wasn't traced over by someone else. That's what I meant when I say original.

And that is what happened with the more recent endeavors. The drawing more literally became the cell. You're having to be literal because you're sort of tripping over yourself to elevate a stylistic preference that could be achieved through a variety techniques.

 

[Yert3]

And that is what happened with the more recent endeavors. The drawing more literally became the cell. You're having to be literal because you're sort of tripping over yourself to elevate a stylistic preference that could be achieved through a variety techniques.

Okay. Yes. You're right. But I would have to type a novel here to explain why I feel this certain way. I'm just going to say it one more time, I love all animation. But I prefer the old style. I like the fact that what you're seeing on the screen existed in reality together at one point. Now it's pretty much all done separately in a computer and none of it really exists in reality except the original animation. I don't know for a fact if all the backgrounds are digital or not though.

 

[erasure fan1]

I disagree entirely. I found Princess and the Frog to be superior to Tangled for the most part. The story that is. Even if Tangled had been in 2D and PATF was in 3D, I still liked PATF better. Though I do definitely believe gorgeous 2D animation improves an animated movie and the best hand drawn animation always beats the best CGI animation.

I will agree with you 100%! Well except your transformers comment. Princess and the frog was light years ahead of tangled in my eyes. The story was better, the songs/music wasn't even close. The only thing that tangled did better was marketing. PaTF was horribly miss marketed as a princess film. I don't mind CGI and I enjoyed tangled but I still believe there is room for both mediums.

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

JUST ANNOUNCED On D23.com Mickey and Friends Return in all new 2D Shorts...2D is NOT DEAD!
http://d23.disney.go.com/news/2013/...horts-with-classic-comedy-contemporary-flair/

UPDATE: Found The video on Youtube..