cg anime... [cough] [cough] [cough] [cough] [sniff] ...Okay I think they're gone... Is fascinating... To me it's a completely new way
of doing computer rendering... ...and the Anime art style. 3D animations in mainstream
media tend to be attributed... ...to the fabled "pixar style" animations. With people not wanting to go outside of that style
because they a
ll wanted to be the next pixar. And... as a consequence... ...almost every one of them looks the same. I didn't even use any actual pixar movies to clip for that bit- But thankfully the field has opened up in the recent years. With works such as Spiderverse, ... ...Arcane, ...Entergalactic, ...and just recently, the Puss in Boots movie. Non Photorealistic Rendering or NPR are
now more within the mainstre
am radar. And with this, people finally
realize that they don't have to... ...strictly adhere to light physics for their CG. On the great lands of Nihon however, ...seems like they already saw the merit of NPR on visual media. Dare I say most of the innovations in NPR was done within the Anime field. If you know me, I like anime CG. It's a novel way of doing both of those styles at the same time. Beastars, is the ver
y first anime show I ever finished. And it marked my transition from... Furry,,, to Weeb... Over the years I have discovered a
few studios that I like the works of. Be it because of their overall quality, their artstyle, ...or just simply their technology. And I've been wanting an excuse
to talk about them for a while... ...Until recently when I took a peek
at the Winter 2023 seasonals. Ente
r our contestants: Trigun Stampede from Studio Orange, D4DJ All Mix from SANZIGEN, and Kaina of the Great Snow Sea from Polygon Pictures, All of them are culmination of the skills that the studios... ...have been developing for their entire existence. And with them being one of the most prevalent Anime CG studios, I thought we can learn some pretty valuable lessons
by studying how they went making them. Now...
for neatness sake... ...this video is going to focus only on their visuals. And their history in brief. I kinda don't want to make this video longer than it already is... And also I don't want to talk about All Mix
too much before the Groovy Mix video. which should come out in like 2 years or something... I'm sorry guys i have like too many projects on queue... You can check them out yourself if you're curious about their st
ory. But if you'd like a summary: Trigun Stampede is about this weird but
cool ass dude trying to live in the wild west, D4DJ All Mix is about cute girls doing EDM And Kaina of the Great Snow Sea is basically Made in Abyss... ...without the loli fetish stuff. So, where should we start? Well, I felt like... a uh... [♫ Yoshiaki Fujisawa - Battle ♫] Who doesn't know Orange? ...It's ALL that everyone kn
ows. It seems like to most, Orange is the only CG studio in existence. So, they're very popular. For good reason! They're the ones that are consistently a hit. Their quality is unmatched, Their works looks polished, the animation is fluid, the effects are flashy, They are indeed, pretty revolutionary. But how did they come so far? In 2004, CG Animator Eiji Inomoto
founded Studio Orange. He sees potential in
mixing computer
graphics with human drawings. Their first project that they worked on is
Aquarion which has many mecha robots. And for the next few years, Orange would work
on the CG segments for mostly 2D shows. But Eiji Inomoto soon realized that this
wasn't enough and wanted to do more. You see, Orange's first intended purpose
was always to become the throwaway CG... ...for bits the directors don't want to an
imate manually. It's really just a CG outsourcing house. They have the advantage of perfect mathematical computations... ...but they are constrained within the animation paper. And having to do "cel-look" CG to match the 2D animation... It means they can't fully utilize the "computer" in "computer graphics". But alas, due to how the industry was at the time, Full CG animations are a hard sell. The CG segments they did do at
the time went unnoticed. For those that did notice though, they appreciated how polished it was. But still, they wanted something more. They wanted to break free from
the confines of their cell-papers. They wanted to add a brand new dimension. To make a breakthrough, ...to move the entire industry forwards. The first solo-produced show by Orange. This needs no introduction. If you need one you can take a loo
k at the clip provided. Land of the Lustrous was quite literally a revolution. Although it's not the first instance of cel-look CG on TV, ...it is one of the first to utilize this in this way. ... which my sister denoted as looking like jelly... The fight scenes, the effects, everything. It looks amazing! Now, I wonder what the staff worked on previously... f[ ]in' Love Live? That's right bitches!
The director along with several other
staff members for Land of the Lustrous... ...actually animated idols prior to this. Phosphophylyte won't going to be a THING
if it weren't for μ's from School Idol Project. Everyone was dumbfounded by how good this looks. And likely, this changed peoples mind about CG in anime. CG CAN look good if you just put in the time and effort. If you just don't look at it as a cost cutting meas
ure, ...but instead look at it as a new medium. You can do things you weren't able to before. It's an eye-opening experience for everyone involved. Now, of course. It's still a matter of preference. You can look at Land of the Lustrous and go: "Hmm, that CGI f[ ]ing sucks..." And that's okay! It's okay to be wrong! So where does it takes us today? Well, to preface, The way Orange
uses NPR is kin
d of standard. But that's because they kinda defined the standard. So this is the perfect chance to explain... ...NPR basics before we move
on to the more wacky stuff. So the main challenge of doing
stylized CG is the fact that... Computer Graphics are developed to be realistic. uh... You know... Pixar Ray tracing, hair particle simulation, soft body, everything. A lot of advancements in CG are made
in search of realism. So, if you want to make stylized renders... ...you have to stylize the renderer itself. Often breaking the otherwise perfect math the computer is able to do. One easy example is how you do shadows and highlights. If you take a model and just put
a cel-shading algorithm on it, You'll realize it doesn't look right. You'll have to trick the computer into thinking... ...the geometry faces a differ
ent way to control the shadows. You'll see it a lot in Stampede, Technically, if you lit the model realistically, The shadows won't be the way they are. They are contorting the shadows to fit their needs. And it helps making the thing feel more natural. I felt like on Stampede, ...one of the more extreme examples of this is Vash's hair. To set the scene, CG anime hair typically looks like this... Spiky snakes.
If you just put a cel-shading shader on it it would... ...not look good. So to make the hair look flat but
still with natural looking shading is... It takes some f[ ]ing ingenuity. I don't even know how it works, I- I can't even recreate it for this demonstration- Another technique is to distort the models
to make it look better for the camera. This is day one NPR 3D modelling. As... well, when humans
draw... we don't really calculate 3D projection. This makes it more natural, of course. But that does mean when we tell the computer to draw, It sometimes just doesn't do it. To make it look more natural you
sometimes have to break convention... ...and make the model unrecognizable
from any other direction. Just so that when you look at it from the camera, ...the optical illusion kicks in, And now i
t looks almost as natural as it can be. There isn't any behind the scenes look of how
exactly they distorted the models in Stampede, but this is quite a common technique that Orange... ...and basically everyone else, does. Let's talk about one of the most common technique in stylized animation: Posterize Time It's that quirky thing where different layers of the
animation are animated in different framerates. I refuse
to call it the "spiderverse" effect... Spiderverse didn't invent this technique... Hand drawn animation usually aren't
drawn in full 24 frames per second. Or "on one's" To save time to not draw frames that
are too identical to each other, ...most of them are animated
every other frame. Or "on two's" And this often varies on how much the thing moves. This gives it the uh... "crunchy" look...
This technique is a bit hard to get right. If done wrong it would look less like hand drawn animation... ...and more like a stuttering graphics card. It would be like if you put Genshin
Impact on a 12fps frame cap. So that's the basics. Now we get to what makes Orange's work stand out. You can tell immediately that
there are a lot of subtle movements. You can almost see them breathing. This is one of the adv
antages of doing
things with interpolated keyframes, You don't have to redraw the
characters from scratch every time, And thus, expressing the nuances in their
expression becomes much more feasible. Almost every frame is unique... ...and so while this looks like a normal anime on a freeze frame, If you play it, it immediately becomes
obvious that no this ain't hand drawn. This is actually one of the more
"controversial" aspects of Orange's style. I felt it on Land of the Lustrous too, ...as it tends to make the characters
less "snappy" if that makes sense. They barely sit still, they're always moving. Much like normal -not stylized- 3D animation. Only this time it moves on 12 frames a second. And yeah... I do share that concern too, I almost felt like their movements are too jerky at times. But I think for what t
hey're trying
to do, to accentuate the subtle acting, I think they did a splendid job. The style for Stampede is actually not fully "Non Photorealistic Rendering" As we see there are almost photorealistic sands,
metal, and smoke simulations on places. No, this style is a subgenre of
NPR called "Photo-Surreal Rendering" A mix of those two styles. It's more prevalent in the opening where... oh... oh my...
yeah that's... yeah that's ~sand~ alright... If you ever tried particle simulation you should know... you should know... Combined with the goofy ahh cel-shaded
Vash here and dare I say AI-Art aesthetics. It looks... I don't know... I'm a bit conflicted? On one hand it looks pretty, On the other hand it's actually kinda inconsistent. While I do love Orange as much as the next guy, This one gets a
"see me after class" Okay now let's talk about the elephant in the room... Trigun Stampede is a remake of "Trigun", An iconic show from the 90's. Being a remake of a beloved classic, People are bound to compare the two to which one is better. On top of that, since people are
already attached to the original, ...it is highly likely they're going
to fight for that "nostalgia" factor too. There was a bit of a
friction when the fans realized the remake was going to be done in [3D]. Flashback to Berserk 2016...\ Even knowing the fact that this is Studio Orange... They- they probably watched Land of the Lustrous... Personally? I'm just a dumb child. The original is older than me. I never even seen the original up until
writing this very sentence on the script. So I guess we'll do a quick comparison
without the nostalgia facto
r. The original has this striking style, ...partially because said style is a product of a different time. It looks "sharp" if you know what I mean. With how the characters are designed
and how the scene is colored. Now, the remake. I feel like the goal there wasn't to just "recreate" it... ...but more "reimagine" it on a different medium. They didn't try too hard on making it
feel like the original because w
ell... ...they know they can't match it. So instead what they've done is see
what they can do given a new dimension. And that's in no small part due to the
actual (new) vision of the original mangaka. A lot of adjustments were made to make it both
more "modern" and to utilize the 3D space better. And overall, as a remake, it did what the original didn't. Given the advancements in technology. Is it "better" tha
n the original? Eh, I don't know... They went in different directions... They aren't really comparable. And unfortunately since I have little to no
attachment to the original in the first place, I'm probably not the one to ask about this. But nonetheless I like Trigun Stampede. It's Studio Orange. I've loved these guys
literally since my very first time with Anime. I know I can trust them. But so far
... it ain't looking too
good for the other studios now, eh? Orange is too good, They are unstoppable. How can you possibly beat them? Well, for one... You're not studio orange. You're never going to be Studio Orange. So the best way to approach this is to... well... Try a completely different approach. [♫ RAISE A SUILEN - CORUSCATE DNA ♫] Ah yes, death threats the sequel. We're going to s
ee it more later but
SANZIGEN has a thing for memeable faces. SANZIGEN has been making bespoke CG shows... ...actually for a lot longer than Orange. They're technically established in 2006... ...but they debuted with their full CG show in 2013, with Arpeggio of Blue Steel. 4 years before Land of the Lustrous. Right off the bat, you can see their
difference in philosophy by their animation. SANZIGEN is more d
eliberately choppy. Now, I'll admit, this is starting to show its age. It was 2013 after all. But doing a show entirely in cel-look
CG is a completely novel thing And allegedly, this was pretty good at the time. And people appreciated their bravery of using Full-CG... ...instead of reserving it for background shots, ...or action scenes or uh... Idol dance scenes like what Love Live did 8 months prior. They k
ept developing this style, mostly by doing more sci-fi stuff since
this is where the CG style shines, mostly. And for their 10th anniversary they released Bubuki Buranki. What surprised me the most about
Bubuki Buranki is how convincing it looks. Especially the stills... I have no problems believing that the individual stills from this show is hand drawn. And also how expressive the characters get. This will be a reo
ccurring theme later. Bubuki Buranki looks awesome. And to think that this was released just months before... ...Berserk 2016... Making convincing looking 3D is their specialty. When they co-produced Promare with
TRIGGER the composite is absolutely flawless. I love how Promare looks and how
they mixed the two mediums for it. Now with this, it looks like they found their
comfort making mechas and cool warship
s... ...And then Neo-Aspect happened... ..and now they produce strictly Cute Girls Dancing. Now Bushiroad is an interesting subject. I think they realized that BanG Dream anime season 1 is... [Trash can smashing] ...shit And they've decided to pivot completely
to CG animation to try and grab attention. They prepared for Season 2 and
Season 3 by doing these music videos. Now it would be easy to thin
k that
Bushiroad is doing this to save costs. And likely they did... But they commissioned SANZIGEN to
produce 4 music videos for Girls Band Party... ...to let them actually develop the "bandori" look. And I have a hard time believing
that if they're short on cash... How did they commissioned: Neo-Aspect... Luminous Once More... Tied to the Skies... and I need you!... All in the spa
n of a year. Now CG might be "cheap" But their upfront cost is no joke. Don't believe me? Try following a blender character tutorial from start to finish. I dare you. Now animating girl bands
demanded a different approach. Matsuura Hiroaki, the CEO for SANZIGEN,
was actually a band performer in his heyday. So the task of animating Poppin'Party and
friends naturally fell onto him and his team.
But now it means the focus is less
on the cool sci-fi structures and more about, well... The actual characters and their respective instruments. The style Bushiroad was after for the
3DMV's was similar to their card illustrations. And believe me when I say, those illustrations are f[ ]ing detailed. And that detail carried onto the 3D models! This is the kind of costume design
would be an arse to animate in 2D, ...
because the sheer number of details present. Now, by producing 4 3d music
videos purely for preparation sake, It seems like Bushiroad is here for the long term. And long term they did. Recently they did two music videos, one for Umaru Polka of Hololive, and freaking Guilty Gear. good taste, ArcSys. looking forward to the anime But before then, SANZIGEN only makes
Bandori Adjacent stuff which includes...
BanG Dream itself... ARGONAVIS... ...used to be "from BanG Dream!"
until the producers realized... ...it was a stupid name since they are not even remotely related. A bunch of other Bushiroad's IP And uh... D4DJ... ...All Mix We talked about its prequel First Mix before in great detail. So let's brush through the basics. The important difference with SANZIGEN's work
is how they did the "
limited animation" art style. If I had to describe it in one sentence... It would be that they treated the 3D renders
almost as if they're drawn 2D layers. The way the characters move
and the way they were framed. ...is very reminiscent of how regular anime works. If you pay attention, the characters don't
move very much when they don't need to. This is to contrast with the characters that did move. It creates
a nice dynamic and, for me... Actually reduces what I would call "visual noise" I sometimes find the amount of keyframe
Orange uses kinda distracting. They're well done but that sometimes means... ...I need to pause the frame to fully appreciate the characters. And it sometimes means on a given
shot I don't know what I should look at... ...since everything moves the same way. SANZIGEN, however, is very minimal.
It looks like they fully took advantage of the animation being "in twos" As opposed to just slapping the "posterize time" filter in After Effects and calling it a day. Now, the camera.... They don't move it very much... Mostly, It's either cuts or cropped overscans. This gives the thing a more familiar feel... As it moves the same way as the
normal 2D shows that we're used to. Alright, that's as far as I went on my video
about First Mix. [Soldier] Dear God... [Spy] There's more... [Soldier] No! See, the reason why they did that is
also because of another technique they used. It's the way they used 2D drawings
on top of their 3D models. They used it to fix the 3D models
frame by frame if they look uncanny. Well, to be fair, Orange dit too, ...but the way SANZIGEN does it is a bit special. Often times drawing w
hole new
ass expressions over the models, Or even as far as using hand drawn costumes over them, for when they can't\ model-texture-shade-rig
all of them one by one. The folds here would be an absolute nightmare to model... ...so I understand why they resorted to hand drawing the details. Another thing about their paint-overs
has something to do with what this show is. It's a comedy show... And this show heavi
ly relies on visual gags. Almost any frame of their faces
can be used as a discord reaction image. The way they distorted the model... ...and supposedly drawing over it to
sell the joke is honestly next level. It's really expressive, ...and dare I say none of the expressions for other
3 shows I'm talking about today are of this caliber. Another differentiating factor for All Mix over the
other two we're talkin
g about today is that... It's a slice of life... It's more character focused than the other two. And therefore, it makes sense to
focus on the characters more. And the result of that focus is the level of detail. It looks like an illustration. While Stampede and later Kaina
simplifies the character designs, ...as per animation standards. D4DJ has a fundamental difference
that the characters are design
ed, ...first and foremost, ...for a game. And therefore requires a different mindset
than a character design for animation. It's the "character detail" thing I mentioned prior. For animation you usually want to reduce that type of stuff as you'll be redrawing the character each frame. With CG however? You can spend all your time
making the characters look good once... ...during the modelling and texturing phase.
And any subsequent shots will
have that same level of initial detail. I didn't even notice the sheer amount of
details present until I actually paid attention. As a matter of fact, Let's go on an art appreciation session shall we? This is a frame from the opening... You can see the... detailed... patterns on their clothing... The individual leaves on this branch pattern... The intricate highlights on their hair.
.. And the multiple layers of color that exists in their iris. This is a frame from RONDO's live. You can almost count each and every petal. The individual chain as their accessories... And the patterns and everything... I'm honestly surprised I didn't catch up on this... ...when I first talked about them
during my First Mix review. Okay, so I like how this looks. But that's not without the baggage.
I still have the same criticism as last time, The pure 2D characters still look dodgy. They cheap out on the CG by not doing CG. Who- Who would've guessed it won't look good. Michiru what have they done to you? They didn't even attempt to make this fit in with the CG characters... It's just not happening. As a matter of fact, Here is a quick mockup I just made
on what she would look like... ...if she's sha
ded the same way as the CG characters. Feel free to thrash this in the comments
section and boost my engagement. Also, the "posterize time" thing... ...Yeah no even here they aren't fool proof. Specifically on the motion captured performance scenes. Because they aren't direct keyframes per-se... It's more difficult to do the stylized
"on two's" feel that I mentioned prior. Merm4id's live on episode 5 was incredibly in
consistent, ...it feels like a stuttering graphics card, even. They left a lot of it really smooth for some reason? I don't know who's in charge for compositing for that bit... ...but yeah- that- that won't do it. A grim reminder that not everyone is perfect. [♫ Peaky P-key - OVERWHELM!! ♫ slowly fades in] And a reminder that mocap data is a pain to work with. ...The songs still a banger though- Oh- Oh right...
One final thing I wanted to mention about this show, [♫ Airi Amano, Shano Himegami - WOW WOW WAR TONIGHT ♫ ] The ED... It's really good. Well, it's just Maho dancing to the music, ...but sometimes that and a banger
song is all you need for an ED. It has a very different vibe from
more conventional credit sequences. Dare I say it's "Unique" It's minimal but it has a clear and defined focal point.
That T-Pose at the end is- it's- it's f[ ]in' peak! Where else can you see anime girls t-posing? ...Oh fu- Now, that's First Mix's ED... For All Mix, they embraced what's unique about their ED sequence... [♫ D4DJ Cast - Around and Around ♫ ] By multiplying it by not one,
not two, not three four or five... ...but six... And fans of each of the units finally get their piece of the cake, ...and get their
Best Girl on stage dancing. The actual song slaps so hard too I love it. [♫ Lyrical Lily - Maihime ♫ ] ...The opening is not as good though... I mean it still slaps, But it definitely doesn't have the same
level of brilliance as First Mix's OP. I still stand by my point. The funny Death Threats opening is the PINNACLE of 3D animation... [♫ Happy Around! - GURU GURU DJ TURN!! ♫ ] ...and it should be taken mo
re seriously. So, Orange and SANZIGEN are, primarily, Anime studios. They are within the domestic market. And, unfortunately, that means they have to deal with the uh... anime industry It sucks but that's the reality. With tight budgets and unrealistic deadlines, ...sometimes you can almost feel the strain the studio is having. But what If you aren't burdened by that? What if you can go beyond? You unlock a
whole new world, a whole new suite of opportunities, An artistic vision... Something... special... [♫ Rob Cairns - One Last Dream Before Dying ♫] I only made the script as epic as it is to match the music. Come on, it's so good man. So, Polygon Pictures. You may or may not have heard of it. They're the guys behind Ajin, BLAME!, ...and that weird ass Estab show I reviewed a while back. But for those who don't. You
might have seen
them before and you didn't realize. Polygon Pictures actually works internationally. Most of their clients are stationed overseas. They worked on stuff like Tron: Uprising, Transformers Prime, The Clone Wars, Pacific Rim: The Black, And, my personal favorite work of theirs... F[ ]ing... Love Death + Robots, The Very Pulse of the Machine As you can see, they're a global operation.
It is to no surprise that they are
highly regarded within the industry. Emily Dean, the director for that specific episode, ...noted Polygon Pictures as having: "The technical and artistic craftsmenship"... ...that they're is looking for. And, you know, I'll take her word for it. They pulled neck and teeth for this project. Even went as far as developing a whole new ass pipeline. And retraining the staff fr
om scratch to fit this... "Not Anime" ... and "Very French" art style. Polygon is having their 40th anniversary with Kaina. They are among the oldest CG studio to date. They came into fruition almost the same time as Pixar themselves. They debuted with "In Search of Axis" CG short. And while this look underwhelming to the uninitiated, You gotta know... You gotta know, this was the 90's. You know what the To
y Story Dog looks like? And they have cutting edge technology! Even today, PPi is still highly regarded. Their veteranism with CG being
40 years in the game already... ..Is nothing short of a feat. Of course, being the earliest, it means
they encountered a lot of friction. Back then, the Japanese still didn't really get CG stuff. Not the wacky cel-shaded CG stuff either, just regular... 3DCG stuff. I
t just doesn't sell domestically. They still fixated hand drawn 2D-looking animation... ...and weren't willing to give this weird 3D stuff a chance. So when Polygon was trying to imitate
the look of cel-shaded anime, They're actually trying to cater to the masses. They did so out of necessity. This also means when I say they're a "global operation" It's actually because they aren't really appreciated in their hometown.
They need to go overseas to find clients. And that's how they get to shake hands with David Fincher. i mean not directly but you know what i- Another reason why they don't fly locally is just... The budget. Now, contrary to popular belief, CG is... and I can't stress this enough... ...Expensive How expensive? Well, to put things in perspective. An average 22 minute traditionally
animated anime episode ran
ges around... 200 grand... Sounds like a lot... Until you realize that's less than half of
what they actually need to get a project going. As a matter of fact, back in the early 2000's... it took them 30... ...million dollars to produce a whopping 3 minute scene. To add insult to injury, Some of the producers there said: "If we can hire digital 2D animators for
way cheaper and it makes way more mon
ey... ...why bother with a studio like yours?" That... must've hurt oh my god- But PPI CEO Shuzo John Shiota is determined. He will get clients. He will get work from people that actually appreciate the artform. And at last they finally did. But the gears really started to turn when
Netflix came at them for "Knights of Sidonia" Netflix's first original anime and Polygon's
chance to win back the fan
s at home. The big N has given them the pretty penny
to actually give ''anime,, another shot. Now, Ima be real with you, ...Sidonia does kinda start to show its age, But come on, you gotta give them some slack. This is their first go at this style. ...not really that title goes to Tron: Uprising but nevertheless- The good [shots] in Sidonia still hold up. It was a big stepping stone for them. And if it weren
't for that, I feel like they
wouldn't be where they are now... So, how did they manage? Pretty good I'd say! The animation for Kaina is a blend between Orange's realistic acting and SANZIGEN's snappy animation. To me it's the best of both worlds. It accentuates the 3D without it being too floaty. Polygon Pictures definitely has the
most advanced NPR engine out of the three. They have their own engine, PPixel.
It is made specifically for NPR. With comprehensive control towards the
actual lines, and the shadows, and everything. You can see it here too. With how the objects react to the light,
how the lines are rendered, It's honestly some fascinating stuff. It's so good it's almost invisible. A reoccurring theme with all three of
the studios we've looked at today is that... ...they employ some kind of method
to make the models look natural. But they all do it differently. Orange and SANZIGEN in particular, Painted over the models and resculpt
them frame by frame to make it look natural. But unlike those two, which geared more towards "sakuga" Polygon Pictures is a more CG centric studio from the start, ...so they take a more CGI approach. PPI actually models the characters to
look good 360 degrees from the start.
And then employ various calculations
to distort the models on the fly. Instead of manually frame by frame. As a result the quality of the characters
stay consistent across the show. You can tell they're a proper CG studio because... ...they actuAllY mODEl thE siDE chAraCTERS!!1! SANZIGEN, Orange, I love you, But no, you cannot put hand drawn 2D characters in the
middle of a 3D cast, and expect it
all to be hunky dory. It. Doesn't. Work. They are f[ ]ing different mediums. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know
that paper and Maya work differently. So how did Polygon do it then? Well again, they actually model the side characters. But of course, modelling is a time consuming task, ...often taking months for a single character. Here, Polygon employs different kinds of time saving techniques.
The most obvious of which is reusing models. This might be a bit on the nose for some, ...but it has the advantage of well, actually making them feel like part of the world? If it were me though I'd probably make something
similar to V-roid with all the different assets, So that one can quickly make variations without
modelling the whole thing from scratch. Another technique which is actually common in
almost every CG
Animation project is to... well... Not make the side characters as detailed. They only show up on screen for like 10 minutes tops... ...and even sometimes in the background. So if you can omit the details for them, ...you can save plenty of time by not making
something that's visible for only 2 frames. Polygon Pictures definitely has the most consistency
between the shows we've talked about today. As much as I love b
oth Stampede and D4DJ, ...there are still a few shots from there
that get a "see me after class" It almost feels like the project is
overwhelmed by itself and can't keep up. But Kaina, I feel like due to its relatively simpler nature, Polygon Pictures was able to finesse the style a lot more. There aren't as many kinks to iron out after all. That's another thing actually, Despite having quite possibly the most advance
d
NPR engine compared to the competition, Counterintuitively The way Polygon
utilizes CG here is rather modest. They don't do many flashy camera
movements or the fancy fight sequences, As a matter of fact, to the uninitiated this
might seem like a ''redundant,, use of CG. But I think this is a perfect time to talk
about CG simply as a storytelling medium. See, the reason why it's not as flashy as Trigun
Stampede is that it doesn't really need to. Instead, what Polygon wants to do with this
40th anniversary project is to simply tell a story... The world was originally envisioned by Tsutomu Nihei after all. Him and PPi already have close ties with each other. So it's only natural that they do this too. Polygon has a story to tell, ...and it's just so happened to be that they're a CG studio. And I don't think there's anything
wrong with that. The world that they envisioned for Kaina doesn't really call for flashy effects. You see, Kaina actually started planning
all the way back since Knights of Sidonia. The concept of this otherworldy universe that
may or may not have the same rule as ours. They gave the project ample time to take on a life on its own. When the time finally comes for them to finally start production, ...all they need to do was to
just... do it. If it doesn't call for flashy camera work
or complex fight scenes well they just don't. They don't have to show off all the time, ...that happened with BLAME!
and Love Death + Robots already. I'd argue the simplicity of Kaina is actually its biggest merit. It definitely is the most "natural" of the three I talked about. If you're an aspiring CG artist and want to give this artstyle a shot, ...you can d
o a lot worse than Polygon Pictures. This is an amazing reference point. And due to their more open nature... I feel like you guys can learn a lot from them. uh... Okay, quick sidenote: While I was editing this video they announced
the anime for iDOLM@STER: SHINY COLORS... And it will be animated... ...by Polygon Pictures.. [chuckles] So it looks like Bandai Namco pulled
a Bushiroad x SANZI
GEN move... ...and brought their idol series to full CG... oh damn, these studios are destined to do Cute Girls Dancing huh... ...even Orange, has their roots animating for Love Live! So no they are not immune. And there you have it, the three CG shows that aired in this... ...quite frankly lackluster season? I mean aside from these three, ONIMAI and maybe Kubo, ...I literally couldn't care less- As you can see, des
pite being
under the same umbrella of "CG Anime", The way they all use CG is very different. Be they used it for more realistic acting, more detailed visuals, ...or to just simply add a different flare. All of them are good in their own unique ways. I've seen a lot of people said that neither
D4DJ nor Kaina is like Trigun Stampede. But that's obviously because they're not Trigun Stampede. They all do differen
t things, basically. The reason I made this video is to... of course... Shill D4DJ again... ...but also to invite you guys to appreciate this art medium. It might be uncanny sometimes, ...and you might still not like it after I gave
a whole crash course on stylized CG, ...but I hope you can see why I like CG Anime so much. This is a relatively new artform. And there are still innovations to be made. A potent
ial if you will. I don't see this as a "replacement to 2D animation" I see this as a "new way to do 3D animation" The ingenuity in which this style works. The "artistic craftsmanship". To discard all that and just denoting CG Anime
as "lazy" or "cheap" is just uncalled for. In fact, it was that stigma from the producers that makes
the cheap looking CG that we're all too familiar with. Estab Life is unfortunately just
a scuffed tech demo. What I'm saying is, we don't need another Berserk 2016. What we do need though, is more Land of the Lustrous, ... Guilty Gear, Love Death + Robots... You know, the ones that actually cares about the medium. And we can only convince them it's worth
developing if we actually appreciate their work. On the BanG Dream! Anime Staff Q&A session... When asked about "is 3D better than 2D", Anime Director
Kodai Kakimoto said they
didn't specifically focus on emulating 2D. They focused on what they can only do in CG. And concluding that it all boils down to'
how much the animator cares about it. And I feel like that's an important note about this. The question should not be "How can we make CG better than 2D"... But more... "What can we do with CG" More freedom in camera movement? More fluid animation?
More detailed visuals? There is untapped potential here. And I feel like despite how long it has existed, We're just barely scratching the surface. And maybe, just maybe, When we get more people on board... We'll get more of something that looks like this: And less like this: [vomit sound] Well I guess there's another lesson we can learn from this... It's that... KURUMI IS BEST GIRL OHMY GOD I LO
VE HER SO MUC- [♫ C418 - stal ♫ ]
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