CGI in anime

Ah.. the age old battle of CGI vs traditional animation ( 2D ) has proven to be endless. While in the West, 2D animation has somewhat been lost in favor of more realistic CGI , propelled by the giants like Pixar , Disney and Dreamworks, traditional animation is still the choice of style in the East, mainly in Japanese anime, with the works of Miyazaki and the recent Your name, being examples of the beauty of traditional hand-drawn animation that oozes artistry. However , with the ever growing market, studios in Japan are under pressure to produce more shows at a lower cost, hence finding method on how to do it by turning to CGI. Since then ,Japanese animators has start to experiment more with CGI not just as a method of reducing cost , but as style of animation , bring some refreshment to the anime genre.

 

HOWEVER , as the examples above have shown, CGI anime has a very distinct feature that separate it from the rest, that is , more than often , it tries to imitate a very 2D style, hence , making it look distinctively anime, whether that is a good thing or not , we'll get to that. 

In the west , Pixar really set the standard for what CGI animation should look like with Toy story , and from then on, the other Western animated feature all follows that same standard, improving on the minor details,like making texture more realistic among other thing. In anime though, they didn't really have that.There was no "Toy stories" to create a template for what anime CGI should look like, hence, animators were left to explore with what style would fit in , and what did they have already available to them ? It is the popularity of 2D anime that was booming all over, hence, many chose it 

to be there style of choice. This choice was very much a double-edge blade however. As most CGI anime sequence that follow this style had to balance between the characteristics of CGI AND 2D anime, which often led to a clumsy and awkward mess of the two, such as, trying to lowering the frame rate to the standard 12 for 2D animation so the CGI model would "look" more anime, which doesnt work as 3D models really is intended for smooth movement and expression. On top of that , many of the quirks that anime has , such as the emotive signals , or the exaggerated expression , really would work well for a 3D model. Trying to do this , leave the characters falling into what has been dubbed as the uncanny valley of animation. These would include series like Ajin and Beserker , the latter trying to slap a 2D aesthetic to a realistic 3D model, making the character seems to age differently depending on how the light hit the model.

This is bad..

 That is to say however , if done right , CGI would really create a wonderful aesthetic to the animation, with 2D animation used properly as tools to SUPPORT the CGI and not as the object to mimic. In Tokyo Mirage Session, a combination of SIMPLE character design , coloring and lighting (simple clean shades ) create a very convincing 2D skin for the 3D models, and in turn , make it some of the best 2D-looking CGI to date. Another example would be the short "Cassette girl" , where the fast-pace CGI action scenes are supported by the expressiveness of the character which was helped by having that 2D skin on top. Another source actually would be from the west , in the form of the short :"Paperman" by Disney , where they literally painted 2D lines on top of the CG model, (more in my blog on Paperman and the future of 2D animation). In the case of studio Ufotable , the roles is reverse where CGI elements are used to enhanced 2D animation through the proper use of VFS, lighting and coloring , creating what I consider is to be the best in business to day in terms of 2D animation, with works like the Fate series being a prime example

You wouldn't think that it is 3D from this !

Simplicity in design 

Paperman

So in general , although there is always going to be the conflict between what is better , CGI or hand-drawn, it cannot be argued that if done right , CGI create some of the most spectacular visual in animation on a much cheaper cost than traditional animation . On top of that , many animator have chose it to be a form of experimentationand expression rather than just cost-contronl, hence preserving that aspects of creative artistry and craftsmanship that hand-drawn animation has. So, although I'm still very much a traditionalist at heart , I'm excited about the future where CGI and 2D can go in terms of cooperating with each other to create something that is new and refreshing .

Anime influence on Western animation

For some odd reason , Japan had , at some point became one of the most influential country on world culture, especially in the modern digital age, from cuisine, to technologies, and most prominently gaming and pop culture. Among those, Anime is probably one of the biggest phenomenon to happen to world culture , gathering such an incredible amount of popularity that now it is considered one of the main pillars of animation and entertainment, and in turn have had major influences on modern animation aesthetic in the West. 

Ironically enough, it is a bit like completing a circle , as early anime are very much influenced by the work of Disney and early 50s and 60s animation. The unique traits that modern anime now have (like the big eyes, big head and slim body) developed by Osamu Tezuka ( considered the father of anime ) were influenced by western character like Betty Boop , Mickey and Bambi. Those same characteristics are now widely seen reapplied to modern western animations , ranging from cartoons like Teen titans, Batman the animated series and Avatar to featured film like How to train your dragon and Tangled. 

Teen Titans is probably one of the most prominent examples , as it utilise the full spectrum of anime style from character design to "chibi style" to emotive cues. In some aspect , the storytelling has also been influenced , leaning toward a more dark and serious tone for the plot as opposed to the old convention that cartoons are designed only for kids: 

exaggerated expressions are very iconic of anime 

utilisation of Chibi style , more prominent the Teen titans go series

Alongside that , The Last airbender series have been one of the most popular example of a combination of both anime and western animation , retaining a realistic level to their character and world design , but leaves room for very Japanese-esque aspects, using the style much like how Teen Titans did, and building its story in a more matured way, which all contributes to its immense success.

  

The similarities in design choices are very clear 

  

Going into more specific details, many of todays animation are very much influenced by the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, widely regard for his storytelling and artistry in hand-crafted animation. Miyazaki is known for his recurring themes that can be seen in many of his movies, and many animators have gone to incorporate those themes into their own projects. For example, one of Miyazaki’s signatures is his use of flight in his movies. . Movies like The Rescuers Down Under, Pixar’s Up, and Dreamworks modern classic How to Train Your Dragon have had their creators use Miyazaki as an influence. Each one of these movies have their own ways to take to the skies with Up’s flying house, the dragons in How to Train Your Dragon and The Rescuers Down Under has a scene where the heroes travel to Australia on a bird. And of course not to mention the character design , especially human characters , all use the modern disney/pixar classic styles that is very much influenced by the popularity of anime characters.

  

And to close it off, there are shows that lies on the border of what is western animation and what is anime, like the American made anime RWBY, created by Monty Oum with a specific vision of producing a true "proper" anime-style animation and initialy relies on its dynamic and fast-paced fight scenes typical of modern anime, or shows like Powerpuff Girl Z, a spin of from the very chibi-style original show to what I considered is full on anime, from character design , to their personality to the very weapons they used , all share a very exaggerated flair that is very uniquely anime.

  

Animation practice : Run ( Finished )

Here's the final version of the run cycle I did earlier ! Gotta say , it was such a pain in the back to colour it all, since rather than colour everything in each frame, I colour each components in each frame separately hence It was a very repetitive process of going over and over the frames again. In hindsight thats probably me making it harder for myself, but the result came out just the way I like it ! As a plus side, I managed to familiarize myself with CSP and how timing, thanks to its easier editorial ability compared to CS6 , however , I'd like to get in Animate CC , if it wasn't block by that massive pay wall.

Reaction to the first sketch for the animation really helps to, when people complimented me on the smoothness of the overall animation and the expression of the character. Complaints were mostly about how the scythe was sliding up and down in her hand and seems to be too steady compared to her body, therefore I made the scythe bob a bit more. Other criticisms was about how the scythe is suppose to be at a slight angle to the screen, as opposed to be completely flat like this , but this was due to me focusing more on the figure and deciding to make it easier for myself, however , I'd like to fix it in the future. What I'm really pleased though is the colouring of the back ground and lighting , which really benefits from my knowledge in using paint tool sai and digital painting overall ( came out to a standard that I can confidently say is TV-ready ) . In short, really proud with this one !

Practice : Running animation test

This character is from the show RWBY ( an American-made anime) . 

The focal point of this was, like mentioned above, practice for my animating skills, to be more specific , to help identify my own process of producing an animation. I approached this very much like I do a painting, animating first the skeleton underneath using basic shapes, and then build upon that. This way , I've found it to be very easy to work with, as the skeleton really helps set the motion while not having to deal with the details. However , I'd like to move toward the more conventional method of building the base with all the features of the character, as the way Im doing now seems inefficient , because essentially , I have to animate the same scene twice.

An interesting feature in this is animating the cape. At first I thought cape movement would be very much sporadic. However , Martin helped me out this , describing it as a wave movement , where there are imaginary "balls" that move under the cape, creating bumps that move toward the end. He also helped me out a lot by giving tips on doing the key frames, breaking it down to S and C curves.

The detailed animation is very good in my view, the next step is to colour it !

As for the software , I found using Clip studio paint as I am doing here seems way easier than Photoshop !