Alrighty, time for a larger post/rant, since apparently you can only type so much in a textbox on the PS3 (which I used for my previous post).
One trend I've seen lately (which includes a couple animation studios near my place) in TV cartoons is that they're cutting even more corners by nearly dropping the whole hand-drawn aspect as they rely more and more on computers to do all the work for them after they create the 'base' assets for the show.
(and including a couple new layouts and props per episode, while recycling all the old existing content)
Essentially, what they do is create characters that usually have a front-view shot, and a 3/4 shot in a flat-style design so you can essentially do anything you'd want with the character without resorting to creating additional drawings as you can do all you need with the two above. From there, they essentially animate the entire how in the same manner you see on those Flash animations around the web: 'push-pin' the joints and move them about, letting the computer handle all the actual animation/tweening for you.
Personally, I find that it looks extremely cheap (which it is), and I hate it, but I can see why they do it givin' the actual cost of animation these days, as well as the number of shows I'm seeing that are adopting that setup. (most recent one being a show my sister watches called 6teen)
For me, I'm currently enrolled in college to get a major in traditional animation, and I really, really, don't want to come out of there to essentially work at a studio with a mouse and keyboard in hand. I want to draw the animations in a fluid manner, not have Flash/Toonboom/Maya/Etc programs do it all for me as I just position some joints of drawings some other guy did at keyframes and let it do all the tweening for me.
I just really miss my childhood days where *every* cartoon was essentially badass (from my childhood opinion, as to these days we'd all likely consider corny, but in a good way considering the baby-safe crap this generation of kids/early-teens get to endure) and animated very well all traditionally.
What exactly happened since then anyways, did the cost of animators just shoot through the roof or something, or was it just a case of companies giving their men lower and lower budgets, forcing them to actually take all the shortcuts they do as of today?
One trend I've seen lately (which includes a couple animation studios near my place) in TV cartoons is that they're cutting even more corners by nearly dropping the whole hand-drawn aspect as they rely more and more on computers to do all the work for them after they create the 'base' assets for the show.
(and including a couple new layouts and props per episode, while recycling all the old existing content)
Essentially, what they do is create characters that usually have a front-view shot, and a 3/4 shot in a flat-style design so you can essentially do anything you'd want with the character without resorting to creating additional drawings as you can do all you need with the two above. From there, they essentially animate the entire how in the same manner you see on those Flash animations around the web: 'push-pin' the joints and move them about, letting the computer handle all the actual animation/tweening for you.
Personally, I find that it looks extremely cheap (which it is), and I hate it, but I can see why they do it givin' the actual cost of animation these days, as well as the number of shows I'm seeing that are adopting that setup. (most recent one being a show my sister watches called 6teen)
For me, I'm currently enrolled in college to get a major in traditional animation, and I really, really, don't want to come out of there to essentially work at a studio with a mouse and keyboard in hand. I want to draw the animations in a fluid manner, not have Flash/Toonboom/Maya/Etc programs do it all for me as I just position some joints of drawings some other guy did at keyframes and let it do all the tweening for me.
I just really miss my childhood days where *every* cartoon was essentially badass (from my childhood opinion, as to these days we'd all likely consider corny, but in a good way considering the baby-safe crap this generation of kids/early-teens get to endure) and animated very well all traditionally.
What exactly happened since then anyways, did the cost of animators just shoot through the roof or something, or was it just a case of companies giving their men lower and lower budgets, forcing them to actually take all the shortcuts they do as of today?