9 replies to this topic

[Bakuda]

Quite a discussion has been sparked in the 2 Sonic Fan Movies thread about CGI animation as opposed to traditional hand drawn, so I thought I would start a poll so we could talk about it more in depth. So what do you say? Is CGI the new way to create good animated works, or does hand drawn animation still have a place in the world today?

[Inhibitor]

The main reason why I enjoyed SatAM so much is because it was hand drawn animation. I don't have anything against CGI, but my vote goes to what I enjoy more.

[RedAuthar]

I am a hand drawn animation fan. CGI is ok, but hand drawn is better.

[MistressAli]

I like them both, but hand-drawn edges out CGI for me. It's more charming and has more 'life' to it. My gripe with CGI is that it's replacing hand-drawn. It's not that I don't understand why ($$), but i wish it didn't have to be quite so dominate in the animation world today.

[Bakuda]

I like how you put it that hand-drawn animation has more life to it. It's true...CGI, for the most part, seems so fake. There are some good ones out there, but the ones that are totally computer just can't draw me in.

My gripe with CGI is that it's replacing hand-drawn. It's not that I don't understand why ($$), but i wish it didn't have to be quite so dominate in the animation world today.

Yes...that's my problem with CGI. It's not that it's a bad form of animation, because it's not. Computer animated films can be just as good (and many are) than hand drawn ones. The big problem is that EVERYONE is switching to CGI. I look at the old cell animated cartoons and I see true work of art...it's so sad it's being replaced. This is actually what got me into anime...at least in Japan they still got some good quality hand drawn animation.

[chief]

Ive always preferred hand drawn animation. Even though a lot of the hand drawn stuff these days use computers and so on to clean everything up.. Its still way better. Ive never been fond of CG movies. They just.. I dunno. They get rid of the good cartoons.

[furrykef]

I'd like to see CGI that's actually cartoony. I don't mean like Pixar or Team Fortress 2 kinda stuff. I mean CARTOONY. Make it feel like a cartoon. Make it feel like somebody like Tex Avery did it.

Anyway, the line between hand-drawn and CGI is rather blurred these days. For example, some of Futurama is CGI, but it looks hand-drawn (except for some scenes in the older seasons where the use of CGI wasn't covered up very well). Flash animation is closer to traditional animation than 3D modeling is, but it's still not usually done same way -- though it can be. Meanwhile, the days of ink & paint are pretty much dead for animated cartoons, so you can bet that a computer's going to figure into it somewhere no matter what you do.

[Cheezmatt]

It depends on the show, and the quality of production. Anime and most recent cartoons hardly make use of the hand-drawn medium, being either horribly stilted for the former or crude and angular for the latter. And I've definitely liked a lot of CGI shows and movies, and in fact am glad films like Toy Story were 3D rather than hand drawn. On the other hand, it's a tragedy that even legends like Disney barely do traditional animation at all anymore. A balance is needed.

[Vlad Yvhv]

It's hard to pin down exactly sometimes, but something always looks a bit off with CGI animation. The more poorly done ones are easier to spot, because it's always something to do with the characters or world not having enough of an "alive" feel to them. Or just outright animation failures. But even the better ones have that "something's not right, here" feeling to them... Or maybe it's just a warped perception... Though, it might be cool if they did something with a mixture of CGI and traditional animation. At the very least, it'd be interesting to see characters in different animation mediums interacting. Maybe toss in some good ol' fashion stop motion for good measure and see what happens...

[Bakuda]

Though, it might be cool if they did something with a mixture of CGI and traditional animation.

They did that to a certain extent with Bolt. The characters were all CGI but the backgrounds were all hand-drawn. Pretty neat concept if you ask me.