I'm a comedy guy, and for that I'd want nice, sharp, funny backgrounds like the ones in the old Viewmaster reels.
I wouldn't have much use for deliberately hazy backgrounds (above). Sure they make the foreground characters pop, but so what? They lose the context, the whole sense of the world the characters inhabit.
I'll come back to this in a minute.
Especially in comedy, the backgrounds and props are almost as important as the foreground figures. Comedy is about stupid people, and the stupid world they inhabit. You have to make a world like the one in the Viewmaster above, one that's fit for ignorant characters to live in.
Of course I'm not being fair to the Kung-Fu Panda people. They were trying to do a humorous adventure film, not a pure comedy, and some of their backgrounds weren't all that blurry. The public liked what they did, so maybe they know something I don't. What I do know is that this type of background wouldn't work in comedy. It's too real.
In the world of ignorance (above) mountains don't know how to look like mountains. The Sun doesn't know how to light people in a natural way...but it still looks beautiful and our characters are still delighted to live there.
Lighting is just as important as design. There's nothing natural about the light on these George Pal characters (above), but look how good they look. In 3D animated comedy you have to light for ignorance and what looks funny. You need a funny lighting man.
Your idea of a funny lighting man has really set off a chain reaction of thoughts in my head. In 3D animation, there are two sides to the team (not including executives): the animators and the technicians. The technicians handle all the software development and programming to make sure the lighting renders properly, and everything adheres to the laws of physics.
ReplyDeleteYou always hear about how wacky and fun the animators are, but you never hear about the technicians. Are they a bunch of serious people? How much effort do they put into making sure everything is logical and correct, in contrast to the animation environment?
I think you're on to something with the funny lighting man.
I adore those view master shots!! There must've been keen planning to keep the layout so clear and readable despite the added challenge of working with 3 dimensional figures! Those figures must be lost or worth their weight in rubies.
ReplyDeleteCG is at a natural disadvantage to cartoons. In a cartoon, the contrast of the flatly colored character against a lushly painted background makes the characters read effortlessly. In 3D the realistically surfaced characters blend right into the realistically rendered backgrounds.
I love the look of Puppetoons and those viewmasters!
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is Eddie, early CGI did look kinda puppet-like, like that Andre and Wally B short. THAT is the path I wish CGI art had built on more!
To give an idea, here is a game I've played recently that used CGI for the character sprites, albeit digitized. I doubt you're a video game type, but I figure this would make an example of the kind of "pure" CGI I like (but PLEASE stay away from that atrocious CGI cartoon based on this game--TRUST ME!)
Here is a pic to give an idea of what the original CGI models looked like before being digitized into sprites;
http://www.dkwiki.com/images/2/2a/DKDiddyHighFive.jpg
and here is a video of the game, Donkey Kong Country, in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwN_Dpsdnuw
I love a lot of early CGI in general, but come around the 2000s when you see it everywhere, and used in unimaginative ways, it lost a ton of the luster of earlier CGI. Then again, same can be said for hand-drawn animation as well.
"Lighting is just as important as design. There's nothing natural about the light on these George Pal characters (above), but look how good they look"
ReplyDeleteCould not agree more with your post, but the George Pal character lighting is FAR more "natural" than anything in CG. Basic physics. But I think you might mean how it's used, and there, I could not agree more.
CG lighting is all some engineers IDEA of how light works--shallow approximations of physics that become difficult for the lighting artists in CG to undo and bend to their artistic use..
So, it always boils down to the artistry of the people involved. CG's boring approach to vaguely approximating reality is getting more than a little tiresome.
Having worked at a small 3-d studio, I think the artistic side of animation gets lost with all the unlimited possibilities of medeling, lighting, and texturing things to make 3-d look so hyper real. In each film, Pixar invents some new technique or trick of making hair, water, or something else look or act more real.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if limiting the artists options on how to light, model, or texture would force them to get back to the basics, and solve problems more creatively as opposed to technology to solve them.
Your idea of funny lighting could revolutionize the whole CGI industry. I can visualize how these films would look like if they were influenced by those Viewmaster reels. Too bad many people don't get it and think crisp, HD like graphics are the way to sell funny comedy films. In the end, it adds nothing to the comedy and takes out the human element of the drawings in my opinion. That's what needs to be done in order to have funnier CGI films. Embrace the human element and bend the rules a little bit for comedic effect.
ReplyDeleteI love those Viewmaster pics. Ran into a few of those before. I'm mainly a cg animator but I do know a bit of the rest and to build the set and light it, not much fx yet. But it does remind me of kinda putting together a view master shot. Limited ability ( pallete) can be cool I think, My take on my work is sorta like a Aardman clay look. A hyper unreal looking is the way to go, and not match reality.
ReplyDeleteEddie, I'd bet you'd make the best damn CG film this world will ever see.
ReplyDeleteSteven, Arch: Haw! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSparky: Geez, I'd forgotten about Donkey Kong. I remember playing that game and thinking of how high-tech it was.
Anon: I like your articulation better.
Ram, Alberto, Roberto, Herman: Amen!
Joshua: I'm surprised there's not more photos on the net showing how the set-ups looked in ordinary room light. There's a Viewmaster museum in Portland. Maybe they have pictures worth seeing.
My thoughts go down different roads. I like the primitive puppet-like computer animation and the faux clay styles but as fun as they are, and as much as the represent the freedom of animation, there's still other routes.
ReplyDeleteI think that if we got away from real looking visuals for mere reality's sake, than there'd be a certain number left which use reality for more considered artistic reasons. I'd like to see a sort of screwy realism myself, where caricature would be a comparison of one real looking thing to another. You see, a long time I'd looked at your post where you pointed out that some things weren't funny when realistically portrayed. My opinion is that you can develop a different sort of caricature-like humor where one superficially real looking thing is compared to another rather than using caricature to portray a funny idea through direct tactics that a more graphic caricature allows.
There's other ideas I have for real looking graphics, but this one seems best suited for comedy. It's basically doing with 3D graphics what people now do with photo manipulation.