Is normal Cel animation doomed?

[I.R Joey]

It seems that alot of the animated stuff that's getting mainstream attention attention is stuff that uses fancy cg and have alot of fx all over the place (or Disney stuff.) So I'm begining to wonder whether conventinal animation will even be here a decade or 2 from now. I mean by that time CG animation will be so far above and beyond what we can imagine ya know. Oh well, thoughts?

[Psycho Fox]

Well.... See 3D animation programs are nice eye candy and 2D animation programs cut productions budgets.

See from a suits eye why would they do it with cell when they can do it on a tablet with less man power.

But cells get rid of rough lines that plauge works animated digitally right now so for now they still have some use but in the future I am afrid that real cells might become like the teletype, telegraph and mechanical calucators and be nothing more then a historic link to the past.

[Sveven Dvorking]

Everything will eventually be computer generated, no exceptions.

[The Mad Hatter]

I wouldn't worry about cel animation being "outdated." If you really think about it, oil paintings are "outdated..." the technique was invented centuries ago, and art technology has been refined further with pencils, projected images, etc. Yet people still create oil paintings all the time. Why? They like the style of it.

...and the same goes for cel animation. CGI stuff looks great, but cel animation has its own certain feel to it. We may see less of it, now that CGI offers different techniques to choose from.

In fact, I predict we're entering into a phase where the studios think that anything made in CGI is inherently cool. Even studios who have gotten their butts kicked in animation, like Fox, are trying again with CGI. And so it'll go for a few years, until a sizeable number of studios watch their CGI movies flop. And Disney will always create cel movies... it's their tradition, and kept creating them occasionally back in the 80s even when costs were prohibitive and animated movies had fallen out of favor. So I don't think the medium will die.

But cells get rid of rough lines that plauge works animated digitally right now

WHAT rough lines? Even Toy Story, which was released years ago, had lines that are smooth as silk. Unless you're thinking of independent Canadian creations yet again...

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
I wouldn't worry about cel animation being "outdated." If you really think about it, oil paintings are "outdated..." the technique was invented centuries ago, and art technology has been refined further with pencils, projected images, etc. Yet people still create oil paintings all the time. Why? They like the style of it.

...and the same goes for cel animation. CGI stuff looks great, but cel animation has its own certain feel to it. We may see less of it, now that CGI offers different techniques to choose from.

In fact, I predict we're entering into a phase where the studios think that anything made in CGI is inherently cool. Even studios who have gotten their butts kicked in animation, like Fox, are trying again with CGI. And so it'll go for a few years, until a sizeable number of studios watch their CGI movies flop. And Disney will always create cel movies... it's their tradition, and kept creating them occasionally back in the 80s even when costs were prohibitive and animated movies had fallen out of favor. So I don't think the medium will die.

Yes but 2D animation programs lower the production cost. It is cheaper to get a animator to draw on a tablet then get another one to take all of those and animate them on a computer then doing everything on cell.

WHAT rough lines? Even Toy Story, which was released years ago, had lines that are smooth as silk. Unless you're thinking of independent Canadian creations yet again...

Toy Story is 3D I'm talking about works done with 2D animation programs. 2D animation programs have not evolved as fast as 3D animation programs so many still have rough edges yes there are a few that remove that but most studios I know of go for the cheaper 2D software packages.

[sun]

Originally posted by I.R Joey
It seems that alot of the animated stuff that's getting mainstream attention attention is stuff that uses fancy cg and have alot of fx all over the place (or Disney stuff.) So I'm begining to wonder whether conventinal animation will even be here a decade or 2 from now. I mean by that time CG animation will be so far above and beyond what we can imagine ya know. Oh well, thoughts?

Well, it really depends on financial conditions.. If someone can come up with a real winner,(that is one that makes hundreds of millions-like Shrek- and it is normal Cel animation, then it will continue....If the winners are all 3D and other stuff, normal Cel animation will go the way of the silent pictures....It isn't that you can't do it, and that there aren't animators who will do normal cell, it is who will finance it. Titan AE, combination lost close to 100 million. what a shame, and ATlantis, normal cell, isn't bringing in the bucks it was supposed to...best of luck to all old toon guy

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
I wouldn't worry about cel animation being "outdated." If you really think about it, oil paintings are "outdated..." the technique was invented centuries ago, and art technology has been refined further with pencils, projected images, etc. Yet people still create oil paintings all the time. Why? They like the style of it.

...and the same goes for cel animation. CGI stuff looks great, but cel animation has its own certain feel to it. We may see less of it, now that CGI offers different techniques to choose from.

Theoretically, you're right. But any animated movie is so expensive that unlike oil painting or poetry (which require little or capital investment to speak of) the production of cel animation will always be hostage to financial consideration, and hence hostage to exec boneheads who think nothing of aesthetics and only of the "next hot thing". . . .

Still, I really hope you're right.

[The Mad Hatter]

Yes but 2D animation programs lower the production cost. It is cheaper to get a animator to draw on a tablet then get another one to take all of those and animate them on a computer then doing everything on cell.

Wait, what? The rest of us are talking about hand drawn animation vs. CGI modelling... if I understand you right, you're talking about hand-painted vs. digitally-painted hand-drawn stuff. Right?

In that case, you've got nothing to fear... Disney's been digitally painting their animated movies since Beauty and the Beast (10 years ago), possibly even further back, and you'd never know unless you were told. Some TV shows have a way to go before they get to that level, true, but the last half of the Batman Beyond digitally-painted episodes looked just fine to me.

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter


Wait, what? The rest of us are talking about hand drawn animation vs. CGI modelling... if I understand you right, you're talking about hand-painted vs. digitally-painted hand-drawn stuff. Right?

Well Cell verses non-cell as in animated with cells verses animited without them

In that case, you've got nothing to fear... Disney's been digitally painting their animated movies since Beauty and the Beast (10 years ago), possibly even further back, and you'd never know unless you were told. Some TV shows have a way to go before they get to that level, true, but the last half of the Batman Beyond digitally-painted episodes looked just fine to me.

Is that totaly done on computer meaning no TMS or Startoons or any other grunt animation house

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Animation is not about technology--it is about telling a story with pictures, whether they be 2D or 3D computer generated.

That said, there are definite appeals to 2D animation--just the "feel" of creating a world through lines and/or curves is an art unto itself. A lot of critics are mistakenly under the impression that animation is supposed to "wow" you, or astonish you with its "tangibility." They, of course, miss the point. Animation has never been about trying to create something that seems "real," it's also about the surreal.

Note that I say "2D" animation, as cel animation is already almost dead--most studios don't use real "cels" anymore, much to the dismay of cel collectors. But you can still emulate cel animation with the aid of computers, as shown by Tarzan, and most other recent 2D Disney films.

[The Mad Hatter]

Psycho Fox, what Leaping Larry Jojo said is correct: if by "cel" animation you strictly mean stuff that's been inked and painted onto clear celluloid, then yes, cel animation is rapidly dying. And the digitally animated episodes of Batman Beyond--fully half of them--were in fact done by "grunt animation houses." Most animated studios are switching to them now that it's cost-effective... even TMS uses digital coloring now.

But I wouldn't sweat it. The only thing that has changed in this case is the medium, not the art itself. Every image is completely drawn by a human. Every color that is digitally placed on the image is completely chosen by a human. It's like the difference between primitive printing presses in which each letter must be replicated in metal and placed on a stamp and a digital printer. The two can look exactly the same, and reflect the same thoughts of a person placed on paper. It's just that digital printers enable you to do them much faster.

True, there's the nostalgia value of losing the painted cells... and I feel the loss since I have collected a few animation cels. But switching to digital coloring, now that the process has mostly been perfected, won't change what appears on the screen one whit.

But again, the real topic here is hand-drawn stuff (which includes digitally colored hand-drawn stuff) vs. CGI modelling.

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
Psycho Fox, what Leaping Larry Jojo said is correct: if by "cel" animation you strictly mean stuff that's been inked and painted onto clear celluloid, then yes, cel animation is rapidly dying. And the digitally animated episodes of Batman Beyond--fully half of them--were in fact done by "grunt animation houses." Most animated studios are switching to them now that it's cost-effective... even TMS uses digital coloring now.

Yes I know inking deparments are a thing of the past and currently it is a mix of computers and cels but what I'm talking about is not only coloring but the drawing too taking the celluloid totaly out of the picture a celless studio.

But again, the real topic here is hand-drawn stuff (which includes digitally colored hand-drawn stuff) vs. CGI modelling.

Well hand-drawen stuff (including hand-drawn via a tablet) is here to stay since CGI modelling don't come cheap

[The Mad Hatter]

but what I'm talking about is not only coloring but the drawing too taking the celluloid totaly out of the picture a celless studio.

Er, okay... what about it? Each frame, whether it's composed on paper or computer, is still traditionally drawn by hand, and the end result on the screen looks exactly the same than if it was put onto celluloid.

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter


Er, okay... what about it? Each frame, whether it's composed on paper or computer, is still traditionally drawn by hand, and the end result on the screen looks exactly the same than if it was put onto celluloid.

Well yhea it can look the same but there is one feature I notice some smaller studios use more and more and that is to let the computer fill in the in-bettwen frames and while this does work it is not perfect.