People really take animation for granted, understandably since even animators can't fully grasp the amount of effort that goes into animation, lol. I feel like this can be traced back to Bayverse Transformers, or perhaps even further to ILM. But somewhere in that time we started counting big robots fighting as live action because Shia LaBeouf is running around in the background too. It's like Bay realized you can make "animated movies for adults" as long as you show real actors interacting with it - that's why Polar Express doesn't count i think. People don't realize that animation doesn't mean it's necessarily colorful, cartoony and stylized. I really agree it comes down to marketing though.. If the MCU actually celebrated their animators and showed us the people behind the magic, western audiences would accept animation more. Instead, it's like studios are ashamed of all of the VFX as if theyre thinking "oh god let's hope nobody finds out baby yoda is animated in this scene". It's so good to see channels like yours fighting the stigma & educating people!
I think it also started with The Force Awakens when Disney realized that people think that they value practical FX over CGI (in reality, they can’t tell the difference). But this will influence their purchasing power and cause them to spend money on movies that “feel“ more real to them. Yet the same data also show shows that animated films are the most profitable category almost consistently, so there is certainly a difference between what people think they want versus what they actually want.
6 วันที่ผ่านมา +1
@@NoTheRobot "people think that they value practical FX over CGI". Well, people value well done effects over crappy ones, and it's way easier to point out at crappy CGI over crappy practical FX (or at least more common). Never mind the fact that crappy CGI is usually a product of burnout and exploitation.
It really annoys me that Avatar, the MCU, and other big budget Hollywood projects are scared of being animation, despite being mostly or entirely animated. Photorealism is both limiting in terms of animation and aesthetic, can cause jank when being composited with photography, and requires a sky-high budget and overworked VFX artists to do on the scale it's done. Imagine how incredible an animated movie that actually wants to be animated could look with a $300 million budget.
I completely agree. Arcane is a great example of this (I know it's a TV show, but still). It cost roughly $250 million, and its gorgeous. And it was made with care, and the production team made sure that everyone had time to do everything, from writing, to animation, music. It is so good.
Someone who really pisses me off in this regard is Andy Serkis. Verbatim he's literally said in multiple interviews that the CG is just a filter and the performance is all him.
So many thoughts! It's like a spectrum of animation really, haha. At CalArts I had one film that I wanted hyper-realistic performances in. I didn't make reference for a lot of the shots, but some I really needed to see, and for those I basically rotoscoped by-eye (not tracing) 1:1 the motion. There was another film I made that I used reference footage for suggestions of timing and silhouettes/posing. But, let's not forget that there's animation devoid of reference, where every frame or keyframe is totally made up, and that it can push way beyond the bounds of anything that can be caught on camera (which is why I like to call animation "the impossible medium"). I would personally argue that THIS is "animation" moreso than "digital cleanup" methods. But at that point, doesn't it just boil down to method/technique? They're so far apart from one another that they may as well be adjacent mediums! And, to the point about The Academy (OOOOO SHOTS FIRED!!! "Animation is for KIDS!" you tell 'em) they are, IMO, far removed from being authorities on the medium, which is why we have the Annie awards and festivals like Annecy to celebrate all forms of animation. "Digital Storytelling" neglects to include paper-animated films or stop-motion, even if both are still digitally composited.... so I still prefer the umbrella term "animation", even if the big kids think it's childish :P I wish more light was shed onto what mocap artists go through to clean up frames. It is insanely expensive to have mocap footage cleaned up, which in some cases leads artists to making their own mocap studios and defining their own methods to extract what keyframe data they need. Which this leads me to a new question: what about live performance that's taking mocap or live camera footage and is then rendered realtime, either with effects on top or in a digital 3D space? Is that animation, puppetry, or performance? I've been thinking of it as puppetry, but in a way it's almost augmented reality (even if the final result is in VR.... like dancers that turn themselves into creatures, for instance-- they're augmenting their reality). ok enough of my rambles! Great video!
As an Avatar fan, lifelong lover of animation, and someone who's done mocap cleanup professionally, this video was an absolute joy to watch. You're 1000% correct; I've been saying for years that mocap is just another form of animation. Furia ngal fìtxelet oeyktìng nìlaw fìtxan, irayo! ("thanks for explaining this subject so clearly", in Na'vi 😉)
brilliant video as always! Just because Avatar is made with Motion Capture doesn't take away from the fact that it was animated. You said it yourself, just because a video has been Motion Captured doesn't make it immediately suitable for a final render. In my opinion, 100% of Avatar was animated. That visual effects clip was really sad :( I'm surprised they have an award though!
I’ve never met anyone who thinks avatar isn’t animation. So this feels like a straw man to me. But I live In Denmark and most of my friends are pretty geeky. Maybe it’s perceived differently outside my circle or culture. Edit: I commented before watching through the whole video and didn’t know that these film makers are the ones trying to make the claim that it’s not animation.
Yup between the filmmakers, the marketing departments, and the Oscars, there’s a lot of gaslighting going on that these films are not animation, when they definitely are.
For 3D animation there is a clear distinction between recording a performance and referencing a performance. If keyframes came from data then it's not animation, if the artist creates the keyframes then it is animation (the illusion of life). And yes, it takes way longer, that's the point and what makes it so cool and satisfying as an animator, you clearly illustrated this in your animated version of the shot; the illusion of life and not a recording of it.
My point is that even in Avatar, artists are still creating the keyframes themselves. Which by your definition makes them animated. They just try to hide that in the marketing of these films to downplay the amount of CGI (probably because people are turned off by too much CGI).
@@NoTheRobot If they aren't importing or working from any mo cap data then yes they are animators and highly skilled ones!
6 วันที่ผ่านมา +1
There's some movies where the mocap data was actually useless for the animation and was used just as reference, while making the keyframes from scratch.
I love this take and completely agree! As someone whose planning on making my own 3d short films that absolutely won't be for kids 😂 With the logic of Avatar. That honestly puts the MCU in that category with the insane amount of VFX. They wouldn't be able to pull off half the shots they do without them
I can definitely see both sides. I think a defining factor as technology continues forward is how much clean up went into the final product. Stuff like metahuman animator is closing that gap rapidly - at least, for photoreal animation. I definitely agree that "animation" needs to be broadened as a term. Love Death and Robots is a prime example of, "not for kids. Still animated." And I think making that more accepted will open up a lot more opportunity in the industry. But yes, definitely would consider avatar an animated movie 😂 Great video as always!
The only comment I have about this is when you say "as soon as it's labeled animation, the audience will automatically associate it with it being a film for kids". I agree, with the asterisk of it being true for Hollywood and western audiences particularly. I think if you look at eastern animation there's a lot more animation geared for adults, going back 30+ years with films like Ghost in the Shell and Akira and it's just accepted as such since they deal with topics children won't fully grasp (I still don't fully grasp them at almost 30 lol). There's been a push for adult animation for western audiences in the past 5 years with pretty good success, I really don't understand why the stigma of "kids show" still exists.
I’d argue that this still applies to global audiences based on how much money these movies make outside of the US. Often times they are making more money internationally than they are domestically. But yes, I am speaking about American audiences as I am also American, though animation for adults has existed in the US for quite some time - it’s just difficult for studios to see the benefit of promoting it. That being said, it does feel like the last five years have pushed American audiences to challenge their perception of animation as a medium rather than a genre. My argument is that we should rightly be pointing to Avatar as an example of animation marketed to adults and not just kids with zero attention span.
intersting, good points and of course by talking about The Way of Water the ( first) Toa of Water in the background. In my opinion Hybrid fits better than animation, technicaly they are Animation and have a similar pipeline but in the end the execution differs slightly. Happy new year
Fun fact: James Cameron never used any motion capture or computer generated effect because he actually shot Avatar and its sequels on location in the planet Pandora
I’d recommend watching the full video-I directly address this and show how motion capture data still requires frame-by-frame cleanup, similar to rotoscoping, which is a widely accepted animation technique.
Hello No the Robot my name is Isaiah and I have something important to say to you. God loves you and like any father he wants to help you and keep you safe especially from the devil. But I am not just speaking to you about this I am also talking to your fans about this. God loves us all and he wants us all to be saved not just from ourselves but from the devils clutches. Do not be afraid to come to the Lord for his love is for evreyone Shalom Shalom.
IMO, for something to be considered "animation", it should have _at least_ a smidge of a some kind of a stylistic artistic choice. Polar Express has that, Avatar, on the other hand, goes full undiluted photorealism. Avatar doesn't really fits in neither live-action _or_ animation categories.
I mean, mocap cleanup and retouch is an important part of the pipeline, AND is hard, AND is done by 3d animators... but I don't think it's really _animation,_ as in, _the medium._ In that sense tweaking results of, say, physics or water simulation should count as animation too, right?
On the contrary, creature designs, animations, and environment designs involve countless creative choices, potentially even more than those made for the human-driven performances. There are more animation-related decisions (like storyboards, previs, visual effects, etc.,) than you might have been led to believe.
So, would you consider a film that looks stylized but doesn't have animators to be "animated"? Processed live-action footage that's no longer photorealistic, for instance.
If rotoscoping is animation, motion capture is animation, 100% agree.
Either of which can be objectively called "tracing".
In 3d there is a rotomation. And it’s nothing like mocap. It’s different technology. This dude just click baiting
it's because lots of people still believe animation is for kids only and supposed to be for kids only
Bingo🎯
People really take animation for granted, understandably since even animators can't fully grasp the amount of effort that goes into animation, lol.
I feel like this can be traced back to Bayverse Transformers, or perhaps even further to ILM. But somewhere in that time we started counting big robots fighting as live action because Shia LaBeouf is running around in the background too. It's like Bay realized you can make "animated movies for adults" as long as you show real actors interacting with it - that's why Polar Express doesn't count i think. People don't realize that animation doesn't mean it's necessarily colorful, cartoony and stylized.
I really agree it comes down to marketing though.. If the MCU actually celebrated their animators and showed us the people behind the magic, western audiences would accept animation more. Instead, it's like studios are ashamed of all of the VFX as if theyre thinking "oh god let's hope nobody finds out baby yoda is animated in this scene".
It's so good to see channels like yours fighting the stigma & educating people!
I think it also started with The Force Awakens when Disney realized that people think that they value practical FX over CGI (in reality, they can’t tell the difference). But this will influence their purchasing power and cause them to spend money on movies that “feel“ more real to them. Yet the same data also show shows that animated films are the most profitable category almost consistently, so there is certainly a difference between what people think they want versus what they actually want.
@@NoTheRobot "people think that they value practical FX over CGI". Well, people value well done effects over crappy ones, and it's way easier to point out at crappy CGI over crappy practical FX (or at least more common). Never mind the fact that crappy CGI is usually a product of burnout and exploitation.
It really annoys me that Avatar, the MCU, and other big budget Hollywood projects are scared of being animation, despite being mostly or entirely animated. Photorealism is both limiting in terms of animation and aesthetic, can cause jank when being composited with photography, and requires a sky-high budget and overworked VFX artists to do on the scale it's done. Imagine how incredible an animated movie that actually wants to be animated could look with a $300 million budget.
I completely agree. Arcane is a great example of this (I know it's a TV show, but still). It cost roughly $250 million, and its gorgeous. And it was made with care, and the production team made sure that everyone had time to do everything, from writing, to animation, music. It is so good.
Someone who really pisses me off in this regard is Andy Serkis. Verbatim he's literally said in multiple interviews that the CG is just a filter and the performance is all him.
So many thoughts! It's like a spectrum of animation really, haha. At CalArts I had one film that I wanted hyper-realistic performances in. I didn't make reference for a lot of the shots, but some I really needed to see, and for those I basically rotoscoped by-eye (not tracing) 1:1 the motion. There was another film I made that I used reference footage for suggestions of timing and silhouettes/posing. But, let's not forget that there's animation devoid of reference, where every frame or keyframe is totally made up, and that it can push way beyond the bounds of anything that can be caught on camera (which is why I like to call animation "the impossible medium"). I would personally argue that THIS is "animation" moreso than "digital cleanup" methods. But at that point, doesn't it just boil down to method/technique? They're so far apart from one another that they may as well be adjacent mediums! And, to the point about The Academy (OOOOO SHOTS FIRED!!! "Animation is for KIDS!" you tell 'em) they are, IMO, far removed from being authorities on the medium, which is why we have the Annie awards and festivals like Annecy to celebrate all forms of animation. "Digital Storytelling" neglects to include paper-animated films or stop-motion, even if both are still digitally composited.... so I still prefer the umbrella term "animation", even if the big kids think it's childish :P
I wish more light was shed onto what mocap artists go through to clean up frames. It is insanely expensive to have mocap footage cleaned up, which in some cases leads artists to making their own mocap studios and defining their own methods to extract what keyframe data they need. Which this leads me to a new question: what about live performance that's taking mocap or live camera footage and is then rendered realtime, either with effects on top or in a digital 3D space? Is that animation, puppetry, or performance? I've been thinking of it as puppetry, but in a way it's almost augmented reality (even if the final result is in VR.... like dancers that turn themselves into creatures, for instance-- they're augmenting their reality). ok enough of my rambles! Great video!
As an Avatar fan, lifelong lover of animation, and someone who's done mocap cleanup professionally, this video was an absolute joy to watch. You're 1000% correct; I've been saying for years that mocap is just another form of animation. Furia ngal fìtxelet oeyktìng nìlaw fìtxan, irayo! ("thanks for explaining this subject so clearly", in Na'vi 😉)
I'm a HUGE transformers fan, and would LOVE to see a video looking at TFONE!!!
0:12 "You travel with Gali?"
brilliant video as always! Just because Avatar is made with Motion Capture doesn't take away from the fact that it was animated. You said it yourself, just because a video has been Motion Captured doesn't make it immediately suitable for a final render. In my opinion, 100% of Avatar was animated.
That visual effects clip was really sad :( I'm surprised they have an award though!
Happy New Year!🎆🥂
You too! 🎉
@@NoTheRobot You too!
Live action lion king is nothing but animation
-The ground is live-action-
Please give us a video about Transformers One!
1:01 There are also so many other reasons to disagree with the Academy.
I want to see a video about Transformers One on this Channel
I’ve never met anyone who thinks avatar isn’t animation. So this feels like a straw man to me. But I live In Denmark and most of my friends are pretty geeky. Maybe it’s perceived differently outside my circle or culture.
Edit: I commented before watching through the whole video and didn’t know that these film makers are the ones trying to make the claim that it’s not animation.
Yup between the filmmakers, the marketing departments, and the Oscars, there’s a lot of gaslighting going on that these films are not animation, when they definitely are.
great video and well said!!
For 3D animation there is a clear distinction between recording a performance and referencing a performance. If keyframes came from data then it's not animation, if the artist creates the keyframes then it is animation (the illusion of life). And yes, it takes way longer, that's the point and what makes it so cool and satisfying as an animator, you clearly illustrated this in your animated version of the shot; the illusion of life and not a recording of it.
My point is that even in Avatar, artists are still creating the keyframes themselves. Which by your definition makes them animated. They just try to hide that in the marketing of these films to downplay the amount of CGI (probably because people are turned off by too much CGI).
@@NoTheRobot If they aren't importing or working from any mo cap data then yes they are animators and highly skilled ones!
There's some movies where the mocap data was actually useless for the animation and was used just as reference, while making the keyframes from scratch.
Send this video to Alberto Mielgo, please. I think he will brake your face for this video
i feel like its mostly because it doesnt "look" animated
I didn't watch the video yet but let me answer you. Yes. It is. Endofstory and Happy new year
You should still watch the video lmao thank you though!🎉
So, true question : are the Sonic movies live-action or animation ?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit ?
Space Jam ?
Sonic 3 was very close to that 75% benchmark. I would absolutely apply the animated film label to Roger rabbit and space jam.
I love this take and completely agree! As someone whose planning on making my own 3d short films that absolutely won't be for kids 😂
With the logic of Avatar. That honestly puts the MCU in that category with the insane amount of VFX. They wouldn't be able to pull off half the shots they do without them
I can definitely see both sides. I think a defining factor as technology continues forward is how much clean up went into the final product. Stuff like metahuman animator is closing that gap rapidly - at least, for photoreal animation.
I definitely agree that "animation" needs to be broadened as a term. Love Death and Robots is a prime example of, "not for kids. Still animated." And I think making that more accepted will open up a lot more opportunity in the industry.
But yes, definitely would consider avatar an animated movie 😂
Great video as always!
I just realised your name also spells "Not Hero Bot"
Yes, please make a video about Transformers One!
oh yeah of course it's animation
otherwise rotoscoping isn't either
I love the bionicle in the background
Conclusion. Politics rules to choose if is animated or not
Love it when you upload a new video!
Thank you! Lots of fun videos coming in 2025😁✌️
The only comment I have about this is when you say "as soon as it's labeled animation, the audience will automatically associate it with it being a film for kids". I agree, with the asterisk of it being true for Hollywood and western audiences particularly. I think if you look at eastern animation there's a lot more animation geared for adults, going back 30+ years with films like Ghost in the Shell and Akira and it's just accepted as such since they deal with topics children won't fully grasp (I still don't fully grasp them at almost 30 lol).
There's been a push for adult animation for western audiences in the past 5 years with pretty good success, I really don't understand why the stigma of "kids show" still exists.
I’d argue that this still applies to global audiences based on how much money these movies make outside of the US. Often times they are making more money internationally than they are domestically. But yes, I am speaking about American audiences as I am also American, though animation for adults has existed in the US for quite some time - it’s just difficult for studios to see the benefit of promoting it. That being said, it does feel like the last five years have pushed American audiences to challenge their perception of animation as a medium rather than a genre. My argument is that we should rightly be pointing to Avatar as an example of animation marketed to adults and not just kids with zero attention span.
intersting, good points and of course by talking about The Way of Water the ( first) Toa of Water in the background. In my opinion Hybrid fits better than animation, technicaly they are Animation and have a similar pipeline but in the end the execution differs slightly. Happy new year
Glad you made that Bionicle x Avatar connection😁🎉
Yet another reason why Disney’s live action remakes didn’t need to exist
Why would you need motion capture if not for animation? 🤔
Exactly-motion capture exists to enhance animation, not replace it, so it’s hard to argue it doesn’t fall under the same category.
@@NoTheRobotmocap exists to bring a real actor's performance to the screen. Get educated
Fun fact: James Cameron never used any motion capture or computer generated effect because he actually shot Avatar and its sequels on location in the planet Pandora
PLEASE make a video on Transformers One!
it's an "animation" sure... but a lot of it isn't "animated".. it's recorded movement from people
I’d recommend watching the full video-I directly address this and show how motion capture data still requires frame-by-frame cleanup, similar to rotoscoping, which is a widely accepted animation technique.
But that's exactly what rotoscoping is, which is also animation.
@@kaylacubbooks5176 hence the "" marks..because I've been doing this since the 90s
@@NoTheRobotmocap got nothing in common with roto, dude. Just stop bullshitting
I though this was sarcasm
I don’t joke about James Cameron movies
Yeah, I see now why you guys loosing your jobs in animation. You just don’t get how it works
Hello No the Robot my name is Isaiah and I have something important to say to you. God loves you and like any father he wants to help you and keep you safe especially from the devil. But I am not just speaking to you about this I am also talking to your fans about this. God loves us all and he wants us all to be saved not just from ourselves but from the devils clutches. Do not be afraid to come to the Lord for his love is for evreyone Shalom Shalom.
Another bullshit clickbate
IMO, for something to be considered "animation", it should have _at least_ a smidge of a some kind of a stylistic artistic choice. Polar Express has that, Avatar, on the other hand, goes full undiluted photorealism.
Avatar doesn't really fits in neither live-action _or_ animation categories.
I mean, mocap cleanup and retouch is an important part of the pipeline, AND is hard, AND is done by 3d animators... but I don't think it's really _animation,_ as in, _the medium._ In that sense tweaking results of, say, physics or water simulation should count as animation too, right?
On the contrary, creature designs, animations, and environment designs involve countless creative choices, potentially even more than those made for the human-driven performances. There are more animation-related decisions (like storyboards, previs, visual effects, etc.,) than you might have been led to believe.
@@NoTheRobot Sure, but I'd still argue that it's "animation the task", not "animation the _medium"_
@@DarthBiomechThat’s still animation though
So, would you consider a film that looks stylized but doesn't have animators to be "animated"? Processed live-action footage that's no longer photorealistic, for instance.