Will we ever see another full-length traditionally animated feature that was produced solely in the United States? It feels like the days of Burbank ink and pen are forever behind us, though if a studio gathers enough autists...
Traditional Animation
Because nobody wants to do it. So many autists claim they're passionate about it, but their own art is MS Paint scribbles. Something I've learned through years of disappointment is if you want something to happen, you can't be passive, just get started and do it yourself. That's why I started learning to script and draw, I wanted to make a video game with all my preferences in it. It's going to take years to get to the skill level you want, but considering Cinemaphile criticizes AI for taking the effort, skill and soul out of art, I would hope you guys actually do appreciate the challenge and aren't going to come up with lame excuses, right? Right?
right here
But we just did. In 2019
Bro, 2019 was 4 years ago…
That's about the usual turnaround. 4-5 Years of production for a feature film.
what was that?
Santa
Klaus
In the United States? No. Too expensive. Nothing gets made by a large corporation unless it can be done as cheaply as possible, and doing things the traditional way is the most expensive way possible.
>No. Too expensive
This is probably the biggest misconception that gets thrown around constantly and shows how little this community understands the actual technicals in regards to animation.
Of the three major forms of Animation (Traditional, Stop Motion, and CG) Traditional Animation has always been the most economical while CG has always been the most expensive. Just as an example Klaus and Wolfwalkers were made with budgets of 40 million and 20 Million respectively. Elemental cost 200 million dollars. In fact "cheap" 3d films such as those made by illumination cost between 80 to 100 Million. The only time 3d costs as cheaply as 2d is when it's peoduced overseas but you really don't want to make that argument since oversees 2d is even less expensive when that's taken into account.
cont.
>Well then why is 2d animation so cheap in comparison smart guy?
It really comes down to hardware and rendering. A traditionally animated film does not require the same expensive set ups to create. You can use pen and paper or a very cheap computer set up to create traditional animation, this isn't possible with 3d. 3d also has the burden of rendering which is the process by which the computer calculates how everything looks, this process requires armies of super computers just to render out a single frame of animation in multiple hours. Part of the reason we're seeing a shift to cel shaded graphics is because toon shaders render out at a fraction of the time.
>But wait what about Treasure Planet, Tarzan, and Sinbad? Those films were extremely expensive!
You're right, and those films featured just as many CG elements as they did Traditional ones.
>Wait! If 2d is so cheap then why did the US give up on it hmmmmm?
Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it is profitable. Disney. Dreamworks, Fox, and Warner all saw multiple major financial flops in their traditional animation departments all at once all while observing Pixar, PDI, and Blue Sky set box office records with their 3D animation software
I can't wait for Disney's first AI film to come out and they'll still manage to spend 200 million making it.
>ink and pens
>2023
You still think it’s the 2000s. 2D is still a thing today, it’s just done digitally now grandpa.
2D animation =/= traditional animation
We know cartoon network still shows ugly cheap garbage for autists.
There's literally still shows being drawn on paper.
Name one
Spongebob
No, SpongeBob moved to digital production after season one.
Still animated and inked on paper. At least as of the time this tweet was made.
https://twitter.com/adampaloian/status/1059277368844464128?t=s2p08UGad5QrSPfFfuqXoA&s=19
Unless you specifically mean 100 percent traditional cel animation, which wasn't clarified.
So, they just dropped cel animation after season 1 but kept pen and paper for what?
Because it's still a cheap and easy way to animate. Pencil and paper is cheap. Ink, paint and cellophane are not
Hand Drawn animation is a dead art in America. It also doesn't help that all the old guard like Don Bluth or Chris Sanders are getting older and aren't really passing on their skills to the youth who'd rather learn to animate with computers and models.
Doesn't Don Bluth actively teach animation? I knew a young dude a couple of years back who got excited about being accepted on a course.
Sure there might be a few people who keep the torch lit. But they're like those guys in Japan who learn how to make traditional japanese good and clothes. More of a rare niche novelty than someone who will actually be able to do anything mainstream with it.
Not unless some eccentric billionaire decides to start funding shit like this out of a passion for the arts (and not as an investment with expectation of maximized profit returns).
People say they want stuff like this, but if there was a crowdfund campaign not nearly enough people would donate. Lackadaisy made 2 million which was a big deal because for an indie production, that was a lot of money but that comes nowhere near being enough to cover a traditional pen/paper/cel animated feature.
How much would an animated feature cost without the bloat of celebrity voice actors, licensed pop music, and an obscenely huge ad campaign
>produced solely in the United States
Why is that a requirement? Go watch european animation, it’s dope.
It will be done eventually, like how they still do stop motion from time to time.
>Will we ever see another full-length traditionally animated feature that was produced solely in the United States?
Nope as long as we have people who don't care about the medium who are in charge we will never see it happen. Fixed might be one example, but will it be enough? Who knows. and theres also still indie animation and anime films to look out for, so there's that at least.
Despite getting an almost 60-year head start, the number of hand drawn animated films made in the United States is dwarfed compared to the amount of CG ones made in the past 28 years.
People ate up novelty of cgi. Companies don't want to take risks
How many of those CG films are any good and not just cookie-cutter slop?
I mean, Shrek falls under the slop category to me, but ask someone 15 years younger than me and I'm sure you'll get a different answer.
How many 2d films are literally the same fucking terrible level of quality?
Apparently not as many since they didn't make nearly as many.
Let's not be contrarians and just pretend per capita the output of good and bad animated content was essentially the same. For every Secret of NIHM you got 4 or 5 Care Bears movids. You're getting slop always regardless of the method of production and being nostalgia fags for traditional animation doesn't make the shit any better, just dried out.
NGL, I would rather watch Care Bears than the latest Pixar film.
I can't believe we've gotten to a point people will shill the god awful care bear movies just because they're 2D. It reminds me of those f/a/ggots that shill all anime just because it's made in Japan.
Yes, we've gotten to that point. That's just how bland and genetic CG films have gotten.
I'll even take We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story at this point.
I'm sick of this hate boner for 3d films like it's the worst possible animation technique even though it's provided dozens of fantastic works. It feels like its a bunch of nostalgia fags actively romanticizing the past without considering how bad things were back then as well. I'm not saying traditional animation isn't good but to pretend that it's automatically better than CG animation is not only stupid it completely ignores the craftsmanship and effort required for 3D that even rivals that of 2D animation. I swear half the people that discuss animation on this board have no actual understanding of how animated content is produced.
>I'm sick of this hate boner for 3d films
Not nearly as sick as I am of 3d films, I promise you. No one is arguing the people who work on them aren't talented or are lazy but they're so goddamned samey now. I'm tired, tired, tired, tired, tiiiiiired of looking at computer-generated imagery. Just, period.
I don't know if you all have or haven't yet, but there's over 100 years of hand-drawn animated films you can check out. If you love the medium I guarantee you that you don't need to look to the future: there's more than enough in the past.
Share some obscure 2D animated films that you've seen: maybe there are some other anons who haven't seen those films yet. I'll start with Bill Plympton's The Tune. Here's a link:
?feature=shared
Den Never where by Corben.
?feature=shared
It's a prequel to the comic
Oh nice! I've never heard of this.
I know, and it's depressing... I genuinely love animation, and it pains me whenever I hear somebody complain about the disappearance of something that never truly went away- be it traditional features, stop-motion, or high-quality adult animation. But I guess it's only noteworthy if it's being distributed by one of the Big Five with a 50 million+ marketing budget and celebrity VOs.
None of the people complaining about the lack of 2D animation actually care about 2D animation beyond what the most mainstream corpos put out.
>If you love the medium you shouldn't care about the death of the medium
Retard take
There are multiple traditionally animated films put out every year in Asia and Europe along with independent project here in the US. It's so weird people bitch about 2d being dead because they obviously don't even search for anything new themselves. Hell this entire thread is a bunch of homosexuals crying about 2D being dead when it's just not being made by major studios. It's hilarious to hear them shit on CG for being mass produced garbage when they are actively begging for 2D be mass produced into garbage.
The medium isn't dead, it's the dominant form of animation production in television. It's thriving theatrically everywhere besides the US. What I'm saying is that it makes no sense to turn to America for hand-drawn feature animation when the rest of the world is happy to oblige. Turn to America and you get corpo shit like The Bob's Burgers Movie. Look outside the US and you get passion projects like Klaus.
The thing is, with very few exceptions almost all 3d movies look the same. They are so boring. How can I appreciate them when most put me to sleep?
>Book of Life looks like Toy Story which looks like shrek Which looks like Spiderverse which looks like Despicable Me
Imagine unironically believing this.
It's a completely different medium of animation that I don't have any interest in. I find a mediocre 2D film way more engaging than the best 3D film ever made.
And that's fine but at least admit that your feelings are completely biased and in no way based on any real logical reasons and superficial as hell.
I will not. CG is boring. On-model is boring. Realistic lighting and reflections are boring.
>On-model is boring
Andre and Wally B, a CG shirt from the 80s, had deformers that made the character models deform and go off model. These techniques are used more than ever in current 3d films.
The majority of lighting tecniques aren't realistic in any manner in a large number of 3d films. For reference watch the first two Kung Fu Panda films and you'll see plenty off model shots and stylized lighting.
I don't care. It's still boring. Suck off CGI in a thread that isn't about traditional animation.
>On-model is boring. Realistic lighting and reflections are boring.
...Those aren't inherent to 3D. There are 2D animations that stay rigidly on-model and have realistic lighting and reflections, and there are highly stylized 3D animations that deform and have unique lighting. I swear you're all massive normies who just watch whatever Disney puts out and seek out nothing else, then complain about all 3D looking the same. Yeah, it will for you because your frame of reference is tiny.
It's insanely hard to stay completely on-model with realistic lighting and reflections in traditional animation. With digital it's a lot easier, but that shit is boring too.
I wouldnt mind the oversaturation of CG if steps were taken to make projects look distinct and interesting. But everything related to CG these days either looks like Pixar, Illumination, or Cocomelon. As nice as it would be for 2D animation to return Im more upset by the lack of visual variety these days than anything else. Elemental, Inside Out, and Good Dinosaur looked like parodies of pixar films more than they did actual pixar films.
>like it's the worst possible animation technique even though it's provided dozens of fantastic works.
such as what? Pixar was the only studio that ever actually experimented and inovated. Shrek is only popular because of the memes and the rest of Dreamworks is average to complete ass relying purely on now dated pop culture jokes, once popular celeberties and playing it safe. Illumination is even worse in that reguard and the only other option is Sony Animation which I feel like is already hitting it's peak since Sony is the most mismanaged israelite company on earth now. Your only other option for CGI films are those god awful CGI/live action mixes like with Underdog and The Smurfs.
That's why the opinions of people on Cinemaphile mean very little. People here somehow manage to have shittier takes on animation than random fags on twitter.
>It feels like its a bunch of nostalgia fags actively romanticizing the past without considering how bad things were back then as well.
That's literally all it is. You're essentially just talking to nostalgia-blinded walls, anon.
AI tech is coming for your chushy job soon
tick tock, tick tock
I won't be sad when AI replaces CG animation. They both look equally soulless anyway, we've already hit the bottom, nowhere to go but up.
The term CG diarrhea was created for a reason. Because it literally does look like that.
Nothing of value would be lost if every CG animator were fired today.
Bro, you're in a thread about hand drawn animation and you're getting offended over people throwing eggs at CG. Like, no shit. You're baiting yourself.
NTA but it's a little weird that this thread about traditional animation only got off track because of 2d enthusiasts shitting on CGI rather than actually talking about traditional animation.
I think my appreciation for hand drawn animation has increased immensely as I have become sick of looking at CGI, so the two go hand-in-hand. My love is balanced by my hate for the other.
I don't work in the animation industry, and I never wanted to.
Keep coping, retard.
You probably work at Burger King lol
Nope. Again, keep coping, retard.
The Care Bears movies are better than Illumination slop.
There were only two Care Bears movies, and you can say what you want about them and how most things from the 80s were made primarily to sell plush dolls and greeting cards, but as films to definitely feel more unique than most of the "good" CG films that have gotten high RT scores over the past decade.
>traditional animation doesn't make the shit any better
It takes more effort than animating in 3D. There’s at least that level of care put into it.
>It takes more effort than animating in 3D.
>I mean sure they have to model their assets by hand
>then they need to UV map those assets
>then they have to create shaders and textures foe those assets
>then they need to rig those assets so they can control them
>all of which needs to be done before a single frame of animation is produced...
>okay but then they can just animate it super easily even though a single character can require upwards of 1000 keyframes in a single second of 3d animation
>I guess they also have to create cloth and hair simulation too so that animation looks right
>Sure it requires multiple manual inputs and settings and isn't just something baked in
>then they got to light everything which takes hours getting everything right
>then of course they render everything for hours upon hours having to check in and make sure the renders are computing right
>but yeah man that's why it's so fucking easy to animate in 3d!
Once again Cinemaphile showing it has no idea how animated content is made.
All that shit can have presets and is doable by easily replaceable workers. Just because you put a long list doesn't mean that it's not easier than 2D animation.
>All that shit can have presets
Even the best preset can't be used for everything and require tweaks and changes to look good
>Can be done by easily replaceable workers
Good animation always requires good animators. It isn't something that just be easily replaced. If you belive this than download any open source 3d animation software and try it yourself because you'll see just how hard it is. The fact that many 2d animators couldn't break into the 3d animation world shows that their is a steep learning curve isnt easy just because you hate the artform
>The fact that many 2d animators couldn't break into the 3d animation world shows that their is a steep learning curve isnt easy
That's because you don't need to know how to draw to do 3d animation. The skillset needed for 3d is closer to game development or computer programming. Obviously people who spent their whole lives drawing wouldn't necessarily translate into that kind of mechanical work.
No the skill set is actually closer to stop motion animation and requires an understanding of 3 dimensional space. 2d artists often have trouble grasping this as their art often breaks rules of 3 dimensional space to create a more stylized work of art. Which is completely understandable given that their art requires that sort of break from reality and their art is better for it.
Like I said though, if you legitamately believe 3d animation is easy, try it yourself. You'll be very suprised by how little you'll get a hang of it.
>Like I said though, if you legitamately believe 3d animation is easy, try it yourself
Why would I get into something that I think looks hideous and would not be satisfied with my own hard work, no matter how much effort and skill I put into it? I didn't say it was "easy", I said the skill set was completely different. Both require training, but not the same kind of training at all.
>Why would I get into something that I think looks hideous
I'm assuming that's what all women think when they see you.
>do it yourself
No, I'm not an animator. CG is too easy to fix mistakes which means that there are few "happy accidents" or compromises that happen in physical animation (it's also too easy to fix mistakes in fully digital 2D animation before you bring that up). It's fucking boring. The best CG movies are from when the technology was something that was fighting against you.
Are you actually fucking retarded or is this bait too?
I'm assuming you work in CG animation and your skin in it is that you don't want to see your job replaced and don't actually enjoy it. I really don't understand how anybody can actually enjoy looking at it. It's so sterile and lifeless. Everything computers touch becomes instantly hideous.
CG animation is a hobby of mine so yeah I'll gladly admit I have a bias towards the artform but this is after being a staunch supporter of 2d and only 2d. However the amount of unique and interesting things you can do with CG makes it a fantastic medium to create animations with. It has a lot in common with stop motion oddly enough. So yeah when some idiots claim that CG is just boring or sterile because of personal bias yeah I take offense. I would never call traditional animation, stop motion, or even puppetry bad mediums to tell animated stories because each have their own flare and uniqueness to them but each also can be made terribly and aren't better than eachother by virtue. Thinking one medium is just better because it can be used to create bad works of art is pathetic and that thought process can be used for literally every other medium.
CG is boring because it's literally fucking everywhere. You're right in that there's nothing inherently bad about it but you can't turn on a tv set or even go see a live action movie without seeing it. Yes, it has gotten sterile. If these things were balanced, some people wouldn't be sick of seeing it. But here we are. It's the dominating form of animation now, and all of it does have a same-y look to it. When you eat the same meal every day, even if it's your favorite meal, you get tired of it eventually. It's just the way it is.
>When you eat the same meal every day, even if it's your favorite meal, you get tired of it eventually.
CG was never my favorite meal. I hated it since it started trickling into TV shows and commercials in the 80s and early 90s and that hate has only grown in the decades since. It was always hideous, soulless, uncanny valley looking corporate trash and it will always be hideous, soulless, uncanny valley looking corporate trash.
>CG animation is a hobby of mine
Would you animate me hitting your face for 100$?
All of those things is actually why 3d animation hasn't been able to unionize for a long time. CGI is compartmentalized, with people at each level doing very specific and repetitive jobs, and replacements are easily trained. CGI takes greater collective effort, but requires less skill at the individual level.
Traditional animation has talent and experience scarcity. 3D is infrastructure intensive, but things are getting cheaper and cheaper. A significant amount of lighting and rendering on TV CGI is outsourced to India, while studios in China handle the animation. Historically, CGI is bigger than 2D ever was, but the pace of outsourcing in 3D animation has also been faster than for 2D. You guys are going to get hit way harder.
>3D animation compartmentalized
So is 2d. You habe background artists, animators, layout artists, clean up artists, color artists, inking artists, and storyboard artists. The one aaving grace though is that 2d artists have greater easy of moving between departments than 3d artists which I'll gladly admit your right when it comes to compartmentalization issues for 3d studios.
>Historically, CGI is bigger than 2D ever was, but the pace of outsourcing in 3D animation has also been faster than for 2D.
Anon the vast majority of 2d american animation had been outsourced since the 1960s. Rocky and Bullwinkle was outsourced to Mexico. Since then the majority of American animation is animated in korea, even full length features have been outsourced like the simpons movie. Outsourcing has and always will be an issue in animation.
All of those departments in animation have the same underlying skills. And many of those roles are bitch work before they move into a higher position. Nobody with any skill is an in-betweener for life. Unlike CG, where you could absolutely just do repetitive technical tasks for your entire career and never get a chance to show off your personal artistic talent.
>So is 2d. You habe background artists, animators, layout artists, clean up artists, color artists, inking artists, and storyboard artists.
Anon, I am speaking of things comparatively. The amount of specialization and compartmentalization in 3D and 2D are not even close.
>Anon the vast majority of 2d american animation had been outsourced since the 1960s
Anon, I didn't say 2D wasn't outsourced. I said it's happening at a faster pace in 3D.
All of these are computers and programming. No drawing.
>UV/texture work doesn't require art skills
>mfw
Even modeling requires drawing skills. Becoming a good artist requires working with and building stuff out of shapes, I had to learn to draw 2D to improve my 3D art because I was skill capped and my anatomy looked like shit, you need to know how to improvise, the reference will only get you so far. Look at any 3D professional on Artstation, most will have 2D concept art on their portfolio that they drew themselves.
I love and hate when Cinemaphile rants about 3D because you guys can be passionately, outspokenly against it and not even know the basics of how it works. Even /misc/ researches cultures in order to come up with slurs.
WHO FUCKING CARES? Shut up about CG. You're like those fuckers who shit up any thread that isn't about capeshit because god forbid people don't like what they like. This is a thread about traditional anination
>WHO FUCKING CARES?
You and everyone else arguing about it, obviously.
It's not really an argument. I hate CG and literally nothing will change my mind. Go deepthroat your favorite tech in a thread made for it.
Nah, it's more fun watching you whiny fags seethe over something you know nothing about.
Please end your life.
No, it's not. It's an opinion.
you can still argue over differing opinions, which is what has been going on throughout this thread. this is something a five year old can grasp, I don't know why you have so much trouble with it
There is no discussion. I hate CG. This is a fact about myself.
we are discussing that fact right now, in this very thread. you're so close to finally getting it, anon. put two and two together, I believe in you
We're not discussing anything. I'm stating something.
we are discussing your statement right now
No.
Yes.
And now we're arguing. See how that works?
Again, I've stated a fact. That fact offers no possible counterpoints because it's an opinion. It cannot be argued against. I hate CG.
I can still talk about your opinion and disagree with it. Again, that's an argument.
How can you disagree with "I hate CG"? Do you think I actually like CG? Or an ambivalent about CG?
It's not about trying to convince you that you like CG or whatever, the point is that I can argue against the reasoning behind your opinion.
>but I won't change my mind
Doesn't matter if you're persuaded or not. It's still an argument.
There is no reasoning. It's purely subjective.
If you had no reasoning, you wouldn't have been arguing about CG in this thread in the first place.
I wasn't. I said just to shut the fuck up about CG. It's irrelevant to the thread.
>I wasn't
Uh huh.
Even if that's true, it still applies to everyone else that was arguing about it. If they didn't care enough to argue, we wouldn't even need to have this conversation.
>It's irrelevant to the thread.
Considering CG is one of the biggest factors for traditional animation dying out, it is.
anon that's still an argument, by definition. you being a stubborn retard doesn't change that
I don't need to understand it to know it looks crap
Programming is gay and so are you
It's nowhere near programming, it's digital art. You paint the texture in Photoshop and put it on the UVs. The closest thing to programming is procedural generations that use blueprints, but I don't use blueprints because I'm a brainlet who can't into coding.
>Let's not be contrarians
C'mon now anon, we're called Cinemaphilentrarians for a reason.
Cute
American animation will be completely dead within a generation.
You got Klaus. You still got hope, well for as long as the old men still live, after that the medium is shit out of luck.
There's this but you're never gonna see Cinemaphile talk about it since it's not mainstream.
https://www.animationmagazine.net/2023/09/exclusive-clip-michel-gagne-crafts-an-epic-fox-tale-in-the-saga-of-rex/
It’ll only happen after the unions die and creativity and talent can actually take precedent again. But that will never happen so we’re stuck with unions keeping failures employed
Yeah, it's obviously the unions and not the suits
It’s both, but at least the suits will let a movie get made
CG is bad now but don't worry, AI will soon be here to replace it.
Anyone have other in progress webms?
That little bit with the parachute skirt was cute as hell.
Source?
It's called pencil tests
Disney is currently in the process of having to retrain people into knowing 2D hand animation. They've released a couple shorts from that work and they're good. It's just sad it's been so long we're basically starting very close from scratch with people knowing how to do it.
ITT: 2d autist being ass mad that cgi has taken off despite prospering In other markets
Who am I kidding, half you fuckers are seething that weeb shit is still popular while cringe baby shows aren’t
AI may help bring it back in some form but ultimately takes too much time and it's too costly for execs to agree to making completely traditionally animated films or even tv shows
>or even tv shows
I'm still mad that how Green Eggs and Ham's second season was so awful. You can't afford to shit the bed with 2D traditional or else it puts companies off it for years.
it's a damned shame but it is what it is
There's that genndy movie coming out soon. It may be crass, edgy slop, but it still fits that criteria.
As others say, there are traditionally animated movies still, just not Hollywood movies.
Hollywood executives are weird because they are theoretically trying to make things that are popular, but they are also obsessed with whatever technology or format they consider "advanced."
An example no one will like is the studio audience sitcom. "The Big Bang Theory" must be the only big hit sitcom in history that the other networks simply refused to copy, because they were constantly doubling down on the idea that sitcoms with laugh tracks were just about to become obsolete, and they're still waiting for audiences to stop liking them, but in the meantime, most of the directors etc. who knew how to make that type of show have dropped out of the business because there's not enough work, even as people are still waiting for another "Seinfeld" or "Friends."
Traditional animation at least had slightly more excuse for being considered "dead," but really there was no reason why, after the Pixar sale, Disney couldn't have stuck with the idea that Pixar would do its thing and they would go back to traditional animation. They used some underperforming movies as an excuse but really I think they just thought 2D was old tech and therefore not as good.
Been waiting for the John K schizo squad to show up but they still haven't, weird. Did they migrate back to twatter?