Thoughts About Established Characters Switched To CGI.

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drummin0690

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The recent CGI Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner featurette got me to thinking about this idea for a new thread. I was just wondering what others' thoughts are on making the classic, established, 2D animated characters into CGI versions. Is there anybody who thinks that there are some things that should be left well enough alone and just stick to or with traditional animation? Is it a matter of what's perfect or what works best as a dependence? For me, even though it takes a while to settle into their new appearance, I figure that one reason for this trend is the "been there, done that" mindset when it comes to hand-drawn animation and wanting to try something different. But does that always mean it's suitable to attempt on everything?
 
Depends on the Show lots of Pre School Stop Motion animation Shows have become CG now such as Fire Man Sam, Bob the Builder and look rather cheap an because of it.
 
Not quite CGI, but PBS' "Cyberchase" switched from 2D animation to Flash animation for recent seasons for *some* reason (to save $$?), and looks really bad for it (yeah, Buzz as a rock musician is funny enough to merit becoming my avatar anyway, but still ;-) ).
 
It all has to do with how it's handled. The move from 2D looked particularly terrible in the case of Vuk, the little fox and Pacman. The new Babar show in CGI looks acceptable, though.

It's always easy to say "I hate this CGI," but you have to take into account that it's probably the only way we're going to get new material of old characters due to the cost of 2D animation. It's going to be CGI or really bad Flash.
 
2D animation can be cheaper than CGI, alot cheaper, but only if companies would give more thought about the production in general.

Anyway, it depends on how it is handled. The bigges aspect of the transistion is, has the character lost appeal? If the answer is yes, then it is a failed transition.

In the case of the new road runner shorts, the transition was great, Yogi Bear on the other hand, not so much. In fact, it was completely failed.
 
Probably because its Yogi freakin' Bear. A one note character that would have been charming in a one shot but is UNBEARABLE (no pun intended) as anything longer.
 
I'm part of the camp that believes the CGI Road Runner cartoons don't work. The humor of the characters depends so much on subtle facial expressions and split-second timing, and somehow the CGI world of these shorts can't pull it off nearly as well as the classic hand-drawn ones did. They spent all that time rendering every single strand of fur on Wile E. Coyote's body and making the explosions look as realistic and fiery as possible, but they forgot to make the cartoons funny.

Basically, if you're turning a hand-drawn character into a CGI character just because CGI is the "in" thing in animation right now, then it just strikes me as a bad idea from the get-go. Don't try to fix what isn't broken.
 
While not an absolute, for the most part i really don't like it... when it comes down to it i always feel like the original 2D form of the characters have a lot more life in their animation than the 3D versions. I think it could be in part to the 3D being more limited in it's range of movement; the animation of the character is only as good as the rig, while 2D animators have the advantage of having an unlimited range of movement. Something about the 3D versions just feel cold, or formulaic... like the difference between between something that's homemade and something that's pre-packaged

Though this is only the case of 2D to 3D conversions.3D on its own usually works out fine; it helps when there's nothing to compare it too... granted though, one possible reason why this is could be that when something is converted from 2D to 3D, its usually just to cash in on the original; so we could be looking at a weaker budget, where as when its done in 3D initially its given as much budget as possible...
 
I hear this arguement alot, but any character can work in any length story if handled with good staging, framing, and overall story development. The point Is that the cgi yogi bear model looked awful
 
Mostly, they are failures of imagination.
If these cartoons came from a creative spark they probably would have original characters. If they were born of an animator dreaming to add to a classic they more likely then not would be in the style of the original.
Instead they are corporate creations looking to capitalize on existing properties to increase their overall value.
Originality is risky. Vague familiarity, flashy computer graphics, and playing to the lowest common denominator is good for a quick buck.
 
Yogi converging with CGI was pretty lame. Remember when Bugs Bunny was suppose to be the new Roger Rabbit in Space Jam? Imagine a CGI bugs coming to the real world... yeah, it'll probably happen by the end of this decade. :shrug:
 
Funny, for a character that started out as a back-up segment of a cartoon show. Yogi has been the star of, or been a part of...

10 tv shows
4 holiday specials(3 Christmas, 1 Easter)
6 made-for-tv films
3 John Kricfalusi/Sp?mc? cartoons
1 animated theatrical fim
1 live-action/CGI theatrical film w/ a sequel in the works

Thats a lot for a "one-note" character.:D
 
Y'know tangled actually has me wondering about the opposite... 3D going back to 2D. granted it probabaly would not work out since it may suffer from what you usually get from these transitions; namely a smaller budget that could not do the animation justice, so we will never truly see what might have been. when i think about it, honestly when i finally saw tangled, and recalled a lot of the beautiful concept art for the film, it had me wondering if i would have enjoyed the visuals of the film more if it had been in 2D... as much as i loved the film i couldn't help but feel like something was "off" about the characters
 
For me it all depends on how good the CGI comes out and how well the story works with CGI characters. For instance, the original poster mentioned The Looney Toons Show skit with Roadrunner, I think something like this will transfer over really well in CGI while something like Yogi Bear wouldn't/didn't, it's really all ralative to the story they are trying to tell and the way the whole thing looks visually when it's done, or at least that's how I see it.
 
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