Disney's BIG HERO 6

OK, it's got a goofy title, but if this thing isn't a hit, I don't know what is:



This looks like a whole lotta fun. (You know... for kids.)

I'm predicting $500M by year's end, minimum. In theaters in North America starting November 7th.

 

Kids already got their request in to see this one.

 

Yeah, it probably will be big. I wonder when the next CG animation style shift will happen. For quite some time now we've been getting the same looking plastic-nerf type human characters. I'm not talking photorealism (which both isn't yet possible or necessary for this type of movie), but just a different look, like there are many different cartoon character styles.

 

Curious if anyone else agrees with this, but while I don't expect contemporary animation to be able to match or mimic hand drawn animation for the general look and feel, (the aesthetic detail), I notice a lack of aesthetic quality in the look of the images, when the characters are moving really fast, the look of the action disappoints me. It may be that they aren't creating enough frames per second, but I'm not sure. Any thoughts?

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean. As with almost all animation, movement and physics in general are usually exaggerated and tend to have a 'bouncy' quality, it's just that it now happens in 3D models instead of 2D cell animations. Was that your meaning?

 

Considering it more thoroughly now, I'm thinking it may be a stylistic, or directing trend in the animation industry, to have movement today, be even faster than the director would have designed it in the past. Either the animators/directors prefer it that way themselves, or they believe the audience will like it that way. Or it is actually an oversight, and/or a challenge to pull off with the current medium/technology.

To my eye, action in hand drawn animation, even the fastest action, was more fluid and graceful. Today it seems too abrupt, too fast, and not graceful, even less "believable." Older animation, even though we knew it was animation, some how became believable as an actual 3-D world, and I believe the aesthetic detail had a lot to do with that. Some animation today, just looks like clever animation, but doesn't draw me into it, doesn't inspire my imagination to believe in the characters actually existing.

I believe that it comes down to the choices in how the detail is handled, particularly in the action. I'm not sure, but it seems possible that the director has chosen to make all the quicker action to all be relatively the same speed, to be super fast. So either the scene has normal movement, or it has super fast action, but little in between.

Another possibility is about the fluidity. Perhaps older animation would tend to draw a full character, with all it's features, through every movement no matter how fast, where today perhaps they tend to use other marks and movement lines to mimic the character proceeding in the action. So when a character spins, instead of drawing the full character spinning, they simply draw various lines to mimic the character, hence less fluidity and less believability. Sure this has always been in the animators tool box, but perhaps it is being used more predominantly.

Sorry I understand if I'm not articulating this point very well, or perhaps it appears mired in too small of a detail to discuss here. It's something I've noticed for a very long time, but have never attempted to discuss.

 

Yeah, I'm still not sure what you're getting at, but if I read between the lines, it seems to me like you prefer 2D style animation to the 3D stuff because of the general way it looks. It's a different medium, so stylistic differences are inevitable.

What I find interesting is that while human 3D characters still look plasti-nerf, the environment that they inhabit is beautifully (near) photorealistic.

 

I think that's true, but I also believe there may be multiple issues.

Is that because the backgrounds are not involved in action, just like 2-d cell animation, so the background can have a lot more detail since it doesn't need to be rendered with movement?

 

No, it's because those sorts of things (vegetation, man-made structures, etc) are much easier to render realistically than people, so they don't bother to get people 'right' (Polar Express anyone), but also because it helps to sell the animation to kids.

 

But if they wanted to have realistic humans, is it currently a limitation of the technology or ability of the animator?

 

Technology. I've seen some impressive demos from SIGGRAPH, but these are reseasrch type projects which involve massive computing resources & long render times. And even if you get them looking right, getting them to move realistically with a sense of inertia or physicality is another thing altogether (which is why they use motion-capture now, which has its own limitations). I have no doubt it will happen one day, but not soonish.

 

I've been a print art director and designer, as well as a non-pro 2-d illustrator. Have always been interested in animation.
Any resources or sites you might recommend for one to learn more about it?

 

SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics) is the granddaddy organization of them all and through ACM produce top-notch CG journals (to which I used to subscribe).

Here is their site:
http://siggraphmediablog.blogspot.com.au/

And background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGGRAPH

Also try these resources:
http://www.awn.com/vfxworld
http://www.awn.com/animationworld

 

Thanks much.

 

No worries. It's a fascinating field and one in which I've had a life long interest, going back to wire-frame graphics with hidden line removal!

 

That CGI is stunning!

It's amazing how far we've come since 1995's Toy Story.

 

Eh, I think story and character trump everything. If the story is fun and the characters are interesting -- which the trailer seems to show -- then I think they'll do fine. I think the specific choice of surface texture for animated characters is a major conversation among the tech crews, and if anything, I think 3D-animated films are getting less "plasticky" over time. Although I gotta say Frozen (the biggest animated film in history) had some of that problem, particularly with the snowman character.

 

Can't wait to see this movie....

I still like the look of the Final Fantasy movie...

 

I saw about 15 minutes of still unfinished scenes about 2 months ago. After hearing some initial worries about the film, those were quickly eliminated after the viewing. Looks great and should be a ton of fun. The word is that it was white blobish character is testing even higher than Olaf from Frozen.

 

Close to a RAVE review from The Wrap:

“Big Hero 6” offers spectacular visions, mixing a realistic sense of place and people with delirious flights of inter-dimensional heroic fancy, remaining true to its comic-book source (Pixar vets Robert L. Baird and Daniel Gerson loosely adapt the Marvel miniseries) without ever losing the human element among the larger-than-life finale.

...Sweet and sharp and exciting and hilarious, “Big Hero 6” comes to the rescue of what's become a dreaded movie trope — the origin story — and launches the superhero tale to pleasurable new heights. Even if you're anti-”Avengers” and dreading the parade of Zach Snyder DC Comics adaptations over the next few years, you might consider giving this costumed bunch a shot.

http://www.thewrap.com/big-hero-6-r...-epic-is-smart-translation-of-japanese-anime/

The Variety review is nearly as positive:

With “Big Hero 6,” an obscure Marvel Comics title gives the Mouse House’s toon division just enough raw material to assemble its own superhero franchise, starring millions of robots — including one, a balloon-bellied virtual nurse named Baymax, that you’ll never forget. Co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams borrow the character names and a few key details from their pulp source, but otherwise succeed in putting a thoroughly Disney spin on things, delivering appealing personalities, bright, peppy animation, positive life lessons and what looks like a world record for the sheer amount of hugging featured in a superhero movie. More male-skewing than “Frozen,” the relatively hip result should do big business for Disney, especially in Asian territories, with easy expansion possibilities via additional movies, comics or a TV series.

http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-big-hero-6-2-1201337195/

Always good when a big movie opens and it doesn't suck or merely repeats stuff we've endlessly seen before.

 

I'll see the movie but must admit the trailers don't have me excited. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised!

 

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Interesting conversation about 2D and 3D animation.

Frame rate isn't what makes the perceived difference between them. If anything, there are less images per second in drawn animation most of the time ( on 2's; 12 frame per second). Somehow our eyes can follow the movement better a lot of the time.

To me the key difference is the fact that drawn animators only work from the camera view, whereas 3D animators have both perfective (3D view) and camera (2D view) to work with.

A 2D animator has to pay a lot more attention to on screen spacing and silhouette. The feeling of space is only created by depth cues ( size difference; convergence; movement etc..). If they have to subtly change the size and use other visual tricks to help the transition between frames, they can. 3D animators have the benefit of checking the character from different angles, but they in fact have less controls about what the audience sees from the camera.

The rough construction pencil lines in films like Jungle Book (the old one of course!) and Sword in the Stone also help our eyes to track the movement.

They did make an effort in 'Tangled' to bring back some of that '2D' quality- like the moving holds and flat camera moves etc... more than a lot of other CG movies.

 

Wired article, I'm looking to seeing this one.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/big-hero-6/#slide-id-1588169

 

Finally caught this movie on Blu-ray tonight, and I really liked it a lot. It's a charming, fast-paced movie that's absolutely beautiful in terms of animation quality, and the heroes (all six of them) are believable and quirky. It's a rare film where I say, "ah, they're going to do X, Y, and Z," and they totally surprise me and go off in a totally different direction. Great voice acting, vivid color, fantastic detail, and a really fun story that makes total sense. A terrific movie that deserved to make a huge profit (about $650 million, last I checked). Lots of in-jokes here and there, too -- watch out for some glass space windows from The Empire Strikes Back (as one example).

 

This is on our families list to watch. It is funny, my wife and I are more the ones looking to watch than our teenager (go figure)..lol