Realistic animation and rotoscoping

[billsqueak]

Does anyone think or even have an "insight into the industry" knowledge to inform whether or not realistic animation cartoons will again portray people "true to life" more like the Fleisher Superman cartoons or even superhero cartoons of TV prior to 1992's Batman?

And will rotoscoping be drawn or done by CGI again muck like Fliesher's or even Filmation's works?

Will animation (not just the storyboards or voices) but the actual and complete animation duties ever return to the US instead of being done entirely overseas?


Just curious,

Bill

[Sparticus]

Realistic superhero cartoons: There's no telling what gets greenlit.

CGI Rotoscoping: Probably - it's never been a popular medium but it's never gone away either. Although it lagely depends on what you consider computer generated imagery. I'd say most professional rotoscoping is done with a pen tablet, so while the frames are being drawn on the computer as opposed to film or paper, there's still a human hand behind it.

Domestic animation: HA! Nope. America's all about the bottom line, so if it's cheaper to have a studio in Korea do the majority of the animation, Korea is where it shall be animated. At least for larger productions - there are smaller studio's who mostly work in commercials and short films who do everything, or almost everything locally. And there's a solid community of short form, indipendant animators who do most of the animation themselves.

I'd say the small studio's and indie animators outnumber the larget studio's by quite a bit - they just don't get noticed very often.

[AlgeaX]

CGI Retroscoping? Isn't that pretty much what motion capture is? I'm also not sure what you mean by realistic animation, pre B:TAS? So basically you want to go back to 80s cartoons?

[Roman Legion]

CGI Retroscoping? Isn't that pretty much what motion capture is?

Motion capture takes 3D motion data from an actor and transfers said motion onto a pre-built, rigged model. It's (mostly) automatic. CGI Rotoscoping can be a couple different things, but it always involves an artist matching the movement of a filmed actor manually.

CGI Rotoscoping can just be traditional rotoscoping for 2D animation done on a computer. The result can look anywhere between "normal" animation or something like Waking Life. CGI Rotoscoping does, however, have a place in 3D as an alternative to motion capture. It was a useful technique going back to Gollum in LotR, where the shots acted with Andy Serkis on screen were preferable to the clean plates shot without him. 3D CGI Rotoscoping is still in use, the most recent example being District 9.

--Romey