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I picked up the new remake of Appleseed the other day, since I've already got the original VHS version.
Anyone else seen it yet?
It's simply stunning.
I haven't seen the original in years, and I can't recall much about it, but IIRC it left me fairly confused. This one was crystal clear from start to end, and full of suspense [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
Anyhoo, it's been redone totally in 3D, which is a medium that I scrutinize far more than hand-drawn animation. They've done it mostly (99%) in Cartoon Shaded mode, rather than full-on 3D bump and texture mapping. While this definitely preserves the traditional Anime style (cartoonish, small color palette), it does present problems with shadows and how they fall (some places in the movie could have benefitted from better lighting to lessen the shadows), but I also know that shadows are fairly difficult to manage in Toon Render mode.
They've also managed to preserve the particle system that hand-drawn animation provides - explosions and dust and debris - when a giant mech plants it's foot on something and kicks up the cloud of dust, it looks great. Windows shatter and fall to the ground in the same "break-pause-rain" style that traditional ink does. Muzzle flashes light up the area just like the inked versions, and water effects are definitely the best - how they got tears to follow the surface of the face model I don't know, but I'd kill to have that liquid-generation and mesh-following script for Poser [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
In all, it's one of the best 3D films I've seen. Pixar and such are ok, but they rarely focus on even the most basic designs of real humans - the odd child here or there as a minor character, or with some outstanding clownish/cartoonish feature like "hot dog fingers" (Toy Story, Monsters Inc, etc).
While Anime character design has rarely tried to duplicate human form (the eyes, etc), it's generally been the closest since the Classic Disney films (which were largely Live-Action tracings) out of all the animated features that have been made.
Hopefully more studios will move to doing 3D Anime, but not try to do them "too" real like Final Fantasy. That was close, but could have been better.
I'd like to see more remakes of older Anime in 3D as well (Project A-Ko [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] )
Anyone else seen it yet?
It's simply stunning.
I haven't seen the original in years, and I can't recall much about it, but IIRC it left me fairly confused. This one was crystal clear from start to end, and full of suspense [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
Anyhoo, it's been redone totally in 3D, which is a medium that I scrutinize far more than hand-drawn animation. They've done it mostly (99%) in Cartoon Shaded mode, rather than full-on 3D bump and texture mapping. While this definitely preserves the traditional Anime style (cartoonish, small color palette), it does present problems with shadows and how they fall (some places in the movie could have benefitted from better lighting to lessen the shadows), but I also know that shadows are fairly difficult to manage in Toon Render mode.
They've also managed to preserve the particle system that hand-drawn animation provides - explosions and dust and debris - when a giant mech plants it's foot on something and kicks up the cloud of dust, it looks great. Windows shatter and fall to the ground in the same "break-pause-rain" style that traditional ink does. Muzzle flashes light up the area just like the inked versions, and water effects are definitely the best - how they got tears to follow the surface of the face model I don't know, but I'd kill to have that liquid-generation and mesh-following script for Poser [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
In all, it's one of the best 3D films I've seen. Pixar and such are ok, but they rarely focus on even the most basic designs of real humans - the odd child here or there as a minor character, or with some outstanding clownish/cartoonish feature like "hot dog fingers" (Toy Story, Monsters Inc, etc).
While Anime character design has rarely tried to duplicate human form (the eyes, etc), it's generally been the closest since the Classic Disney films (which were largely Live-Action tracings) out of all the animated features that have been made.
Hopefully more studios will move to doing 3D Anime, but not try to do them "too" real like Final Fantasy. That was close, but could have been better.
I'd like to see more remakes of older Anime in 3D as well (Project A-Ko [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] )