Thanks for the big response to this video, and the 500k! It’s been interesting to hear everyone’s perspectives on this. I want to make it known that my videos are first and foremost for non-animators, so I’ve been trying to hear out any constructive comments from that audience. While I stand by everything laid out in this video, for the past couple days I debated doing a follow-up video to explain/rebuke certain points in-depth. But I think it’s more constructive to just make it a pinned comment instead, so this is that. Sorry for the wall of text, (“happy for you tho/sorry that happened/etc. etc”) but if you disagree with this video, I encourage you to at least read any of the points that interest you. Two biggest ones: Arc System Works: I had a Guilty Gear clip in here (at 5:16 I think) but I exchanged it for 3D anime clips to focus purely on film and TV. It can be tempting to put clips of things in just because you enjoy them, but they don’t always fit - since I already want to do a video on fighting game animation and had mentioned Kinuko’s GDC talk, this was one of those times. But yes, Guilty Gear’s style is impeccable and they were very early to this method, if not the earliest. I think video games in general are pretty early to a lot of artistic styles that have eventually cropped up in TV and film, which is something I eventually want to talk about. Nausea/Discomfort: So, a few people specifically pointed to characters moving at a different framerate than the background creating nausea/discomfort. I can understand that. I mentioned in the video that this whole style is an experiment and maybe things evolve, 5:16. Maybe that aspect gets ditched, or refind, or whatever. I like it, but I get why it can be weird. But aside from that, I want to at least rebuke or question: why do you not feel the same way about stop motion? What about 3D that’s so convincing it looks like stop motion, ala The Lego Movie? That film has characters moving at different rates from the rest of the scene. Or stop motion with digital effects at a different framerate, ala Paranorman? If the main issue is that the images have depth, yet are still held on 2s and 3s, how is any of that different from more obvious 3D? I don’t say this as a “gotcha,” I’m genuinely curious as to what the disconnect is for people. Maybe it's because those films are creating more cohesive, steady images vs something like Puss in Boots and Spiderverse, which really push it. I can get that. But overall, it just seems like people are used to 3D images moving at a smoother rate due to video games. All these methods - 2D, 3D, and stop motion - are just ways of creating flat 2D images. All 2D animation principles apply. Whenever anyone tries to explain why it makes them uncomfortable they almost always use a word like “laggy” or compare it to video games. Again, if you feel nauseous from this style, that’s fine. 5:16 is for you. But as that timestamp says, it’s an experiment. It’s brand new. Have you considered that you're just not used to it yet? A lot of people are just as excited as me to see it considering this video stands at a 99.4% like to dislike ratio. Maybe you should try watching more stuff in this style, let your eyes adjust to it, and see how you feel afterwards. Some other dumb stuff that I’d put in a followup video: - 60fps Footage: I also had a short clip around 0:30 that took 60fps DMC5 footage and crunched it down to 24fps to demonstrate that when a clip isn’t animated with a lower framerate in mind, it looks properly choppy. But I didn’t want to talk about games for too long, so I took it out. I kinda wish I didn't. - 24fps Games: From my own hazy childhood memory I'm fairly confident that a number of PS3 games were specifically developed with 24fps as a target, but the few I was thinking of are indeed 30fps. (Uncharted, The Last of Us, etc.) That's what that section is referring to. There was an entire meme with the PS3 about "gaming at a cinematic 24fps." Anything else is splitting hairs on the silliest part of the video. - White Flashes on Impact: This has been the weirdest series of comments I’ve received, that the white flashing in DBZ and other anime is to censor the impact. If you’ve heard this, can you tell me where you heard it? The footage I’m using is the original Japanese DBZ cut and it has Frieza getting cut in half, so I highly doubt it’s a censorship thing. Thanks for reading if you did. EDIT: One more thing. I stand by the title of this video. I love smooth animation and even mention this in the video, but part of my motivation for the title is that I believe this trend is better for the industry overall. It puts more control into the artists' hands and has a ton of potential. Hence the latter half of the video. Just in case you were wondering!
Low framerates aren't really a problem for me unless I passively notice them. I'll try to explain with some examples. First, there's this stop motion video (ruclips.net/video/tZqIQmdSa1E/видео.html) which is animated at a consistent 24 fps, and it looks buttery smooth. No problems there. On the other hand, there is this video (ruclips.net/video/DpefYPLH67A/видео.html) which is noticeably choppy at multiple points, but especially during the punch from 1:27 to 1:35. I'm not trying to say the animation isn't outstanding, but the framerate at this moment distracts me and pulls me out of whatever trance / flow state you enter while watching something, which I think makes the experience of watching it worse. The entire motion seems to be animated on threes. I think this looks jarring when the camera does a 360-degree orbit around the protagonist before the punch. During the windup, animating on threes looks fine and helps sell the buildup. The animation stays on threes until after the follow through. The moment after the windup and before the impact, while his fist is travelling, looks especially off to me because of the low framerate. I find it weird that this video bothered me, because I don't have this problem when watching anime. It's worth noting that my experience may have been influenced by the fact that I was actively paying attention to the framerate, however.
I play a lot of video games though. It really could be that I just expect things in 3D to move smoothly, and I relax this condition for 2D animation. When I see a 3D animation animated at a low framerate, it grabs my attention, but rarely in a beneficial way.
@@KennKuun the first video looks so smooth because of "squash and stretch" while the second video can't utilize that technique. Edit: you can see it at the beginning of the first video if you pause it while a cube is falling.
Thanks for the follow up. I'm not entirely sure that we understand the way the persistence of vision works with stress. I'd love to see experiments which try and pick apart sensory priority, because my vision drops to 1 frame a minute when I'm listening to a podcast. 😉
It's definitely about finding a balance between animating on 2s and 1s. Puss in Boots The Last Wish looked amazing. I love how they switched to a lower framerate when heading into high-action scenes.
The same with Spiderverse! I loved the fact that in the film, Miles was always animated at 12fps while the rest of the characters were at 24fps. Then when he accepts being Spiderman, he’s animated at 24fps
I honestly don’t like the lowered frame rate in the action scenes. To me, if there is a part in a movie that needs to be smooth, it is a high action fight scene. If they cut out frames for specifically impacts I think it would have looked much better.
Though I do wish they could've done more stylized, artistic stuff besides cel shading 3d models with a few 2d stuff as wrinkles and comic book movement effect things whatever they're called on the main characters, and do things like having great portions of the bodies being 2d animated, like having the mouth and eye brows be 2d like in Max G's Brain Dump series on RUclips. As well as just a bit less cel shading in places because that's almost always used as a way to avoid real 2d animation work.
@FIGHTFAN777 Did you atleast like the second film, they make it more smooth and try different ideas. I think the framerate made a lot who are used to smooth stuff have a hard time adjusting.
@@nichescenes that's what stopped me from seeing the sequel: I've just found a lot of things in spiderverse just good ideas, but the worst execution possible... Musics (a great artist but there is a mess of "everything"), the plot at the ending (also with some plot holes), animation beeing too choppy... And then I saw Puss in Boots 2 and I was like: this is WAAAAY better not just for animation, but also for the plot. And I had that feeling that Spiderverse had high ratings just because "it is Spiderman" the same way as Spiderman NWH. I wanted it to feel like when The Lego movie just came out with a 3D animated stop motion style, but I just had headaches for the animation... A very missed opportunity. I hope the second is better...
might as well be. the computer is gonna do it best to smooth animation all it can that's how it is designed, which is why different animating softwares are being made to essentially make it easier to "fight the computer" basically telling it "Hey i know you want to interpolate everything but leave this part alone...will ya?". You have to do thing in a different inconvinient way to achive that effect of animating on 1s and 2s to have that impact.
you did an amazing job with this, very well explained. i love animating with 3s and 2s the most. varying the framerate is so fun and such an interesting topic people always seem to forget. many people just assume every second has 24 drawings, but the truth is that a fair bit of animation productions choose not to use 1s for every scene. ive had plenty of comments on my high framerate animation tests where people say "48fps animation at 5 seconds wow that means theres almost 300 drawings in this!" when the real number of drawings is less than 1/3rd of that. animation fans and enthusiasts have this odd obsession with the sheer number of drawings in any animation, but always seem to gloss over the quality and placement of drawings instead. thinking arbitrary amounts of drawings is as important as the animation itself, when the reality is that a lot of animation runs at varying framerates that are meticulously planned out by the animator, and we as animators are not strictly bound to a single idea of "always on 1s/2s/3s" in our works. its funny, and i wish more people understood about animation
Hey!! I love your animations, it's cool to see you around. Thanks for checking it out!! Yeah, overall I'm a firm believer in communicating in as few drawings as possible. There can be a beauty and fluidity to full framerate animation, ala James Baxter or Richard Williams, (and even Baxter animates on 2s often) but it's one way of doing things and not the status quo. I personally love seeing how well an animator can create impactful single drawings when they're just held for a bit longer. One of these days I'll get onto a video about fighting game animation and how games like Skullgirls or Third Strike had *better* impact from less drawings, as well as concepts like hit stop. I'm constantly trying to connect with non-animators and have them understand these concepts from an animator's eyes, even if they never plan to animate, and there's something there with connecting how juicy hitstop in fighting games can feel and the idea behind animating on 3s and 4s.
in the end of the day, there will still be tech bros who will force interpolate 2D or "choppy" animation to "60" or "100" FPS and declare them to be much better than the original.
@@Azure9577 using a system like it can do a ton for you still Rain World all the enemies are AI based and nearly all the time they don't glitch an can react far more then static Mobs
As much as I love tweening in Flash, there’s just something about converting that tween into an on-twos movement that makes it feel more visually appealing
@@kiwi__1011 ohh that i mean well its preferrable to hand tune the positions of objects anyways. could always use a tweemed circle as reference for the position of the object you wanna place
@@nooshstuff it’s practically necessary when doing certain shape tweens. No matter how many shape hints I add, sometimes Flash just won’t understand and I’ll have to clean it up manually. It’s so annoying 💀
Your two examples of arrow animation (Mulan and Mononoke) are actually a great illustration of a point I never see brought up in discussions about animation, and that's the quality of the decisions made for the final result. There is a lot of talk from animation artists on RUclips when it comes to animation, and it's usually the same bullet points all the time. You have the quick listing of how animation is 24 fps usually and the explanation of animating on 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. This is followed up by the assertion that it's always the animators intent and so forth. Rarely, if ever, have I heard anyone go into why and what the actual intended outcome is of these decisions. Puss in boots 2 is a great example where I both love the "choppy" animation at times and hate it at other times. It's the same style, probably the same frame rate at those points, and yet they manage to give two different impressions. This brings me back to the examples of the arrow shot animation. The two examples greatly illustrate the positives of both decisions, especially in the context of when they are used. In Mulan, the intent is to actually show how the arrow flies and how it interacts with objects. The arrow is the star of the scene, and it's all about displaying a complex feat of skill. This is a scene that, while it wouldn't fit, you could actually have made slow motion for a similar impact. When it comes to the scene in Mononoke, it's not about the path of the arrow, but the impact of its destination. The scene is tense, fast, and snappy, and the animation of the arrow follows suit. The shot is meant to snap the deer awake, so it can hurry out of the way of danger. The only commonality between those shots is that they involve a bow and arrow being shot. The discussion should be on how well the different styles are applied and not so much the styles themselves, in my opinion. I haven't seen Spiderverse, but I have seen some clips of it, and I'm not a fan of the "choppy" animation in many of them. Since I haven't seen the whole thing in context, I obviously can't make a judgement on the whole movie, it's just that the clips I have seen do more to dissuade me from seeing it. Lastly, it is possible to make high framerate animation look snappy and weighty, but that takes more than just deciding to make more frames, and I feel just the same about taking frames away.
When it comes to the arrow example, I like either, but there is one rule, if you will ever show the arrow flying you must show it flying from every angle (as it it cant disapear from the bow, be shown flying, and then appear at a target, if you want to show it flying it must fly out of the bow and in to the target.
@Baltu Lielkungs Gunārs Miezis but if you consistently do it the other way it's still stylistic consistency? You just called your preference an animation rule lmao.
@@charliewright2667 read it again. he said IF you animate the arrow flying mid-air you also have to show that same arrow flying into the target with in-between frames. if you have a scene where the arrow is flying mid-air and then the next scene it just snaps to the target you're sort of implying that the arrow somehow accelerated mid-air between those scenes, which obviously isn't possible
I love the cowboy bebop example. That shows main intro fight scene is just such a good introduction to the entire show and its style. Love the animation of it
1:01 it's really cool how the background and foreground, the stationary objects, are at a higher FPS than the action objects/moving things. i guess it still gives a sense of motion in a more efficient for the animators manner. EDIT: ok now he explained that it also adds more weight to the animation, it lets you see what the animators wanted you to see.
Stepped animation in 3D leads to a lot of interesting challenges. The camera always stays on 1s, even when a character is on 2s. This leads to issues like strobing, when the character only moves with the camera every other frame. Try going through Puss in boots or Spiderverse frame by frame and you'll see how they fix this. The characters move with the camera even when they are on a held pose, sliding along the ground. Looks super strange flipping through frames, but works perfectly in motion. This is part of "fighting the computer". It's completely unintuitive, hard to program for, but essential to this animation style.
My theory is that Spider verse showed everyone that animating that way won't end in failure, and will even be immensely praised :) it showed companies and animators that it's safe to do it
@@LecherousLizard Yeah, that's not how literally any of this works. You're so ridiculously wrong that I'm going to write about just how wrong you are for several paragraphs just to spite you, and I'm not even getting into any jargon to do it. Here we go. 3D animation isn't less expensive or ambitious because it holds frames. If anything, it's actually harder to get right. Variable framerate in 3D isn't something you can JUST do. It's a tool, and it needs to be treated as such. For one thing, holding frames in 2D isn't so complicated because it's been the standard for the last century, but we're only just now really exploring how it can work in 3D. 3D doesn't work like 2D does. Holding frames in 2D does tangibly reduce the cost of production, since with 2D, every frame is literally a new drawing someone has to make. 3D is less immediately demanding, but far more technically involved. Creating in-betweens in 3D tends to be faster and more straightforward, a lot of it is automated, with the artist doing manual clean-up and detail work during a polish phase. Really, intricate polish in 3D animation comes down to timing moreso than anything else. For instance, if you're working with traditional 3D in Blender, 80% of your time spent animating isn't going to be in the viewport, it's going to be in the graph editor. None of that goes away just because you've decided to reduce the framerate of something for a sequence, or hold a few frames for impact. If anything, it's actually even more important in such cases. For instance, holding a frame means your audience will have more time to look at it. Low framerates in movies can often hide imperfections, but in 3D animation, it shines a spotlight on them. When you hold a frame, you're giving it weight it doesn't otherwise have, which means you can't afford to let any rough edges slip through at all. A finger clipping through a coat sleeve in the background doesn't matter too much if you're rendering at a consistent 24 or 30 FPS, but it's a lot more noticeable when the frame is held. When you hold a frame, you're giving it significance. What was once a paused frame that you never intended your audience to see out of motion becomes a painting that will be seen as a highlight once the public gets ahold of it, and if you have even tiny imperfections in that painting, then they'll be all anyone can see once it's been spotted. Even with modern Pixar movies, as polished and high production as they are, have hundreds of little errors you can find if you look hard enough, so imagine how much more problematic they'd be if Pixar held their frames. They'd have to completely overhaul their workflow just to make the trick work at all. When it's a consistent 24 or 30 fps, it's just motion, but when the frames are held, each frame has to be as close to perfect as possible. It's actually a really vulnerable technique. It's like a literal spotlight. Yes, a spotlight on your actor will highlight them, but it'll also highlight any slight imperfections they might have. They'll seem more significant, but that's a double edged sword. But that's with entire shots. Animating everything in a shot at the same framerate is already complicated enough if you're holding frames, but it gets so so SO much more technically involved if different elements of each shot are moving at different framerates. For one, having a character moving at 12 fps directly interacting with a character moving at 24 can be an uncanny valley nightmare in 3D, and correcting that can be absurdly difficult, especially since it's such an unexplored technique. And forget characters, what happens when a flowing leaf hits a character in the face, and they grab it and look at it? It's a simple idea, but it already exposes some major hurdles. If the leaf is flowing at a consistent 24 and the character is holding frames, then that means there are frames where the leaf is still technically moving but the character is not, and the audience will absolutely feel that. So do you change the leaf's framerate temporarily to match the character's? Do you need to? Maybe the uncanny offness of that is part of the point, or maybe it's just a problem to solve. You also can't just haphazardly select frames to hold. If you've ever paused a movie while a character is making a funny face, you know why. If characters are holding frames when their expressions are readable, you need to specifically go into the scene with the expressions you want to show in mind. You can't just fully animate a scene and then back up and hold frames later, for one that's a waste of resources, and two it leads to production issues. What about doors? If you're using held frames as a constant part of your style, what fps should a door handle move when a character is turning it? What speed should the door itself move? If you animate the character, the handle, and the door at a matching framerate, the result might seem too graphic if you hold the shot for long enough. So then, can the handle move at a choppy framerate while the door actually moves at a steady one? What happens when a character with choppy movement jumps on a trampoline? Yeah, maybe the choppy movement works for the character, but maybe the trampoline itself feels more readable with a smoother motion. What about fluid and cloth simulations? What amount of choppiness feels good on waving hair? The answer to all of these questions and more are... you just don't know until you try and make it happen. A shot that seems like it might take a monumental amount of effort could be simpler than expected, while a little moment might turn into a gargantuan studio-wide effort. It's 3D animation, and you just don't know. I don't know what you're on about when you say they don't have to worry about making animation "crisp", when crispness is literally the entire point of the technique, and it definitely isn't less intensive or costly than standard steady animation. Holding frames in 2D is and has always been the standard, partly for effect and partly out of necessity. Animating anything in 2D at a consistent framerate is more expensive, and is a deviation from the industry standard approach. In 3D, it's the opposite. Holding frames in 3D is the deviation, and it requires a very very careful directorial approach. "Crisp" buttery smooth Pixar-esque animation is actually far more straightforward at this point.
I never saw Into the Spider-verse, so this style was new to me. When I first saw it I was a bit confused, but then it really started to click for me. When the smooth animation slipped into choppy, I was clued in that we are entering an action scene with a lot of things going on at once. The slower, more choppy animation gave everything more weight and let me appreciate details that I never could have seen without replaying the scene. I fell in love with the style because it wasn't an overload of data, and it let me just enjoy the scene rather than struggle to keep up.
thanks for teaching people the nuances of animation! ESPECIALLY how the “choppy animation” isn’t a financial desicion and instead is a artistic decision. if only it was as easy as people thought it was lol
YES I hate it when people see the choppy animation like in Puss in Boots and say they must have not had a big enough budget when they did it was a artistic decision
I've recently been transferring from 2d to 3d animation and interpolation has been a new concept as a result, at first I downloaded a pre rigged human to play around with and none of my animation felt right to me, the first breakthrough I had was to get rid of the interpolation in a round about way by setting my frames at the start and ends of it's display time, made everything feel better to me, in hindsight tho it was a lot of extra work to animate him like that and I started wondering how to make the interpolation work, so far I've been just trying to add more detail to the movements and staggering the timings of each bones actions within a single movement but so far it's hard going, this video is making me realize I might've been right the first time and going non interpolation and only bringing in the interpolation when I want a smoother movement does sound like a better strategy overall (so far actually my biggest issue with 3d is not movement but sculpting, like gimme back my paintbrush tool)
That's a good way to put it. At the end of the day, it's all based on a person's personal preference if one style of animation is better than the other. But it is true that the lack of "choppy" animation beforehand helps to make it more appealing nowadays.
I dont think its that rare. It just gives animation more of a comic book feeling and it looks less computer generated. Not to say that high framerate animation can't be good but I do think this is some kind of uncanny valley for animation.
I think that beyond just feeling fresh, it's also a very stunning tool. It allows artists to convey the idea of the action rather than just the literal action
Guilty Gear is one of my favorite videogame series and one of the major reasons is the use of 2d animation techniques on 3d characters. I love how the characters are usually animated in a lower frame rate but when they are charging up for their special attack, the model gets animated like it was animated on 1's in the style of 2d animation. The games made me appreciate animation a whole lot more which is why I am subbed to you now!
Go look up "Guilty Gear Overdrives", specifically Strive and XRD, if you want to see what I am talking about. Testament, Bedman?, and Slayer are my personal favorites.
Not to mention that the animators are deliberately making "mistakes" like tweaking the models a bit each frame to resemble the slight shifts in proportions in 2D animation.
Yesss, I feel like people don't give them enough credit for that, the use of low frame rates, smears, impact frames, stretching and bending solid objects, even deforming de models to make them look better from certain angles, it's all there and it looks amazing. They also made the dragonball fighterZ game, with the same animation style, imo the best looking dragon ball game ever
i came into the comments specifically to mention guilty gear lol the video by newframeplus on how they do their animation is super cool and the look of those games is what got me into them
Hey dude I appreciate thus video. As a rotoscope artist I am so used to drawing every frame. You've taught me that having less frames gives a better feel. Thank you bro. Subscribed
I know that there have been moments I questioned the use of reduced frame rate in some moments of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish just cuz it may not have felt right to my eyes/may not have delivered the impact in a way I thought was as effective, but I have always seen each an every use of it throughout as an artistic choice that I absolutely respect 1000%.
Thank you for reminding me why I pursued animation. The illusion of movement is an art and science that will never cease to amaze me and I'm happy to see artists making it clear that smooth doesn't always mean better and more frames doesn't always mean more good.
Definitely. The Lego Movie brought back the charm of stop motion (which is already animated in low FPS) while still being fully animated in 3D (discounting the live action scene).
Yeah. The Lego Movie really walked so that Spiderverse and every other production with choppy CG animation could run! Really Lord and Millers influence on western animation cant be understated with that one two punch!
i can not describe the LEVEL your work is in to make these funny videos that teach us about animation but let me just say you make AMAZING content and i'd love to see more of it, seeing this pop up on my subscriptions feed was awesome. incredible video as always :D
@@kathrineici9811 nope smears don't make everything outright better Ajin IBM creatures are 3D models with a swirl effect over their model an its amazing an that is just one example
Houseki no Kuni / Land of the Lustrous reference spotted! I absolutely adore how Studio Orange animated everything in it, and it was a really nice surprise seeing it mentioned in a video about good, impactful animation!! Hoping to a S2 🙏
No lmao 😂. Spiderverse made that choppy animation thing a trend, so now every movie is doing it. Hell, spiderverse didn't even pull it off that well. It only became popular because of all the positive feedback the movie got
@@VYDEOS2 spiderverse was dope, and defos did revolutionise the industry in style, but a LOT of 3d animators have been making indie features and short films with choked framerates for years, probably even decades.
Yes animation is superior to film because it doesnt have to be realistic. You can make it better than real life, the emotions are more clear the movements more intentioned. It is how ever important to not hold too many frames for too long since it stops being animation and starts being a comic as your brain no longer draws the inbetweens. When it comes to the arrow example, I like either, but there is one rule, if you will ever show the arrow flying you must show it flying from every angle (as it it cant disapear from the bow, be shown flying, and then appear at a target, if you want to show it flying it must fly out of the bow and in to the target.
As someone who utilizes held frames heavily in her 2d and 3d animations (for one reason or another) this was such a treat to watch! Thank you so much for making a video on how this affects animation artistically :-)
I have to say I'm really not a fan of this new framerate experiment that a lot of 3D animated movies are doing. I've never been bothered by switching to lower framerate in 2D before, but for it just does not work for me in 3D. Spiderverse was a great movie but I had a headache and eyestrain from just the first 15 minutes of watching it. And although I understand all the artistic decisions made for impact and different spidermen having a different framerate to represent their skill and such, I just really wish it didn't have those things so it didn't hurt to watch. Puss in boots was another really good movie, but the switch between framerates felt so jarring to me. I know you say it's not the same as videogame framerate's but when the movie cuts to a wide and suddenly the framerate slows down like everyone's an npc in the new pokemon game, I can't help but read it as a technical issue instead of an artistic decision. In the scene with the giant, I really wanted to be invested in the action, but the choppy motion made me feel like I was drunk, and I just can't help but feel like, at the very least, it could have been done better. It's not that I don't get why people like it, I just feel like if it really was good animation (by my standards) I wouldn't notice the change in framerate, it wouldn't pull me out of the movie, and it wouldn't give me eyestrain.
This eyestrain thing seems to be rare, I've seen others online mention it but from what I can find it's at most 4% of people who experience it and none of the people I watched it with (seen it in cinema 3 times with different groups of people) experienced it. So while I get it hurts your experience personally it seems like a weird thing to judge it by. Kinda like if someone with a dairy allergy said milkshakes sucked because they give them specifically the runs.
@@lonk2902 It's kind of like animation is one my favourite dishes that I've enjoyed for a long time. It's a dish that has seen some really great evolution and experimentation in recent years. Lately they've started adding all sorts of awesome ingredients that make it so much better, but they also added dairy. The dish is still awesome, but I wish I could enjoy all the new additions without the dairy because it makes me a little ill, and I feel like all of the other additions could easily exist without it. I'm not judging each of those films solely based on the frame rate, I'm just putting my two cents into the conversation. Trying to ask "is there a better way of achieving the desired effect?" And I feel like there must be because I've never had an issue with 2D animation doing the same thing.
I used to work as a video game animator, mostly working with Mocap. I left animation several years before this trend started happening. I think the Guilty Gear games were doing it shortly before Spiderverse. I always see this sort of thing and think to myself, "How are they doing that? Are they literally just fighting the computer and throwing it stepped frames here and there?" So I had a chuckle when you brought up that quote about fighting the computer. I hope some time soon we'll see animation software developing tools to explicitly support this style.
Yeah, I think GGXrd was one of the first 3D medias to experiment with choppy animation, and ArcSys absolutely nailed it. Combined with cel-shading, it emulates 2D graphics almost flawlessly, while still being noticeably 3D just enough to stand out and have these cool shots. It's especially cool because in fighting games, frame data is important, and so you can naturally emulate frames holding for longer when contact is made via hitstop, and also make certain key-frames "tells" that hold for longer and have a distinct pose! It's really neat!
Awesome video! I think the 2015 Peanuts movie deserves more credit for innovating with feature CGI animation using varied frame rates. The animation in the movie is stylish, suits its subject perfectly, and came out three years before Spider-verse.
Oh my god! This is the video that I have been searching. Mainly for the reasons: Since I lack knowledge in animation, I could not really search for the thing I was looking for. Hence when I saw something like "Dorohedoro" and witnessed the choppiness, I did not really know what to search for. Tried "low frame rate animation" at first 😅. But I was getting conflicting information. Often I see info like the choppy animation just being 2D animation in a 3D movie, hence making it feel different. Now that, I have come across your video, I finally understand. On that note, this is also the perfect Reference video that I can show to other people. You know the classic complaints right about now like, people not liking CG/3D because either it looks bad or it has the choppiness. But I thought that sometimes the choppy frame rate is given, on purpose, to make the scenes give a certain feel. But again, due to lack of knowledge I could never explain to anybody. Also, good on you for talking about artists and artistic choice. That's the other thing I'm really tired of, when people only talk about Big numbers or Higher frame rates and forget that there's a person behind it all. Moreover, Big numbers or Higher frame rates, does not always mean better quality. That's where the person behind these scenes, the artist choice or design philosophy, becomes integral. His/Her design choice can literally make or break these scenes. We should talk about the artists more often. Just, in general, this is a very well made video. Being informative, sourcing everything and again most important, a call for supporting the artists.
5:31 I have been called out cause spiderverse is fucking genius when it comes to animation. My friends got annoyed with me really quickly when I kept rambling about the beautiful animation 😳.
2:38 Wait, that writhing black mass is familiar.... I saw that in a nightmare like 17 years ago or something! I have been guilt tripping myself for almost two decades thinking it was my mind that came up with that! I distinctively remember a boar with that mass being used as a parasite and then the protagonist fending it off but accidentally getting infected and being forced to leave their village! *So it IS real!* *HOLY FK!*, I never expected to find confirmation about that, like, ever. Let alone in some unrelated youtube video! I can finally rest easy knowing that it DOES exist, and i wasnt crazy to remember it! I probably didnt remember the rest of the movie because i must have seen it on cable and changed channels because it was too scary for kid me Thank you!
I have never fully understood animating on ones/twos/threes until you explained it here so thanks! Also slowing down the animation and the arrow example really helped - I never realized HOW much our brain fills in the gaps! Animation is so damn cool!
Yeah it is. I caught on to the artistry of this in Mario Kart 64 and Viewtiful joe. Why are YOU handing video games over to these mooks, who at least call FPS what it IS, the same thing that already existed in TRON. NO digital animation, but panning around a still model of a virtual motorbike. The difference is, those people KNOW what they are asking for. You don't seem to have a clue, because you just push them aside as "just video games". When the choice to apply limited frame sprites in 3D environment is as old as THE SNES, MArio KArt BEFORE they had a 3D environment. Maybe ANIMATION fps was jsut dropping the ball for 20 years, while games knew the real deal.
Fuckin' gamers, I'll tell you what. It's usually the ones who know very little about what "fps" actually entails, they've just heard more is "better". ESPECIALLY if it's one of those poseurs who think they'll look discerning if they tell everyone that they think a higher FPS is always more important than better graphics settings. **PINCHES BRIDGE OF NOSE IN FRUSTRATION** Does no one fully read comments anymore? "Always" is the keyword here in "always more important". To spell it out for those of you who were snacking on lead paint chips when they wrote their reply, as a LONG-time PC gamer, I'm aware of the benefits of a high FPS. My point was directed at the people who think ALL games NEED a high FPS above all else. Because, as already stated, they're poseurs who think they'll look discerning if they tell everyone that they think a higher FPS is always more important than better graphics settings. For slow-paced, story-heavy games, a high FPS, while desirable if the game is already maxed-out, doesn't contribute a whole lot to the experience. You're not exactly circle-strafing and head-shotting enemies in "Firewatch". For these games, better visuals is a better use of GPU cycles. Ah, but the poseurs I mentioned think these types of games don't "count" as games, so that would explain a lot!
@@fireaza Is is more important tho at least in action games higher FPS is always better, because it means there's less delay between your input and a reaction from the game (that and now that VR is gaining steam it becomes even more important for all kinds of games). People can enjoy a blocky game with great FPS far more than a hyperrealistic game at 5fps.
@@fireaza If you play an actual video game and not a game that is pretending to be a movie then yes, higher fps is always better. And it's not just because of the visuals, the main concern is input latency, and the more fps you have the more you feel like you're in control, allowing for more immersion
i feel like this new animation renaissance is due to the fact that now all those kids that grew up with anime are the ones responsible for making these movies, so the inspirations are starting to take effect, and frankly im all in for it. sincirely hope it only keeps getting stronger and not eventually die out.
A lot of people cite “Spiderverse” as the movie that started the new trend, but I think “The Peanuts Movie” did it first. I’m particularly curious to see how much of an impact these films have on the animation medium as a whole, and what influences it will create. Dreamworks Animation has definitely embraced it with “Bad Guys” and “The Last Wish”, and Pixar’s “Turning Red” did it with its anime homages. With Disney’s upcoming film “Wish” combining CGI with traditional animation and watercolor paintings, a part of me wonders if this might be the main studio’s response to it.
Paperman is the very first example of hybrid animation (understood as 2D lines over 3D animation). Disney's Wish will use this technique, so it will be something different than Spider-Verse or Puss in Boots (Puss in Boots doesn't even have 2D lines, it's just more painterly CGI).
Bro, I just found your channel and I am hooked. These animation tutorials/lessons have really motivated me to give 3D animation another try. Thank you so much and keep up the content
Whenever this topic pops up I have to give a shout out to Arc System Works. Guilty Gear Xrd and Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus, and Dragon Ball FighterZ are also doing this. They are going out of their way to set up their 3D models in such a way that they look like 2D sprites, and animate the same way too. Choppy on purpose, certain frames are held longer than they "should" be, some others are pretty much skipped altogether, simply because it not only looks better, it FEELS better, too.
I love it! My dad was complaining that the puss and boots movie animators were being lazy by using a lower framerate in fights, I'm gonna show him his video!
You can but the truth is some people just don't like it, I'm one of them. He'll understand they're not being lazy but that doesn't mean he'll appreciate it
@@Thornskade its fine if he dosent like it still, but calling animators lazy for a stylistic choice isnt really a opinion, its like calling someone something that simply isnt true so it can come off rude lol
@@nirorn2993 If it looks worse to him then is it not a reasonable conclusion that the studio was trying to save money? He simply didn't know that this was intentional so I don't know why you're repeating that
@@Thornskade Its fine if someone doesn't like it, i can see why even though i like it :D It's fine to work on projects with budget cuts too, since for most cases its not laziness, it just calls for improvising! But if someone doesn't understand why something looks the way it does, they can just educate themselves on the topic like this video for example. Since calling animators lazy dosent reflect the truth in most cases by assuming :p (there are some, but in this case not likely )
@@nirorn2993 'They can just educate themselves' that's not how people operate. We don't have time to educate ourselves on everything all the time, but especially not when it's one scene in some film we watched. If it bothers you, you can do the educating, but if I consume media and there's something I don't like about it then I'm gonna jump to conclusions and probably not do an hour-long research on it. Like most people would. Do I really need to explain that?
See, that's why I loved spider-verse so much when it came out and still do 'till this day- it was revolutionary for animation and that's always amazing to see.
You’re doing a great job. Even as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about animation your video are very entertaining to watch. I’m excited to see your channel grow
Sometimes my best animations and movements come out of low framerate animation. I animated the start of a stop motion dance scene on 5s and i was shocked with how good it looked while only having to shoot 10 unique pictures for that shot.
I really appreciate this perspective and will keep a closer eye out for it. There are still times, however, especially in moments of smoother motion where a higher frame rate really just feels smoother to me. I don’t enjoy when I feel like I can make out the individual frames when it’s also serving no purpose like the ones you’re talking about here
There is a good example of "choppy" 3d animation in a game. Arc System Works used it in their new Guilty gear games to stylise their characters in 3d and also in Dragon ball fighterz where they had to do a few extra tricks to be the closest 3d animation to the hand drawn animation
Great video!! Thanks for teaching me about the arrow thing, that blew my mind. I personally am not a fan of people using the term "flash animation" to mean "tweened animation". Because you can do frame my frame hand drawn animation in flash, and you can do tweened animation in toon boom harmony. This video was so well put together, I really appreciate all the editing and animations you did. Great stuff!
I'm not a fan of using that term to describe it either, but it makes it more palatable and understandable for non animators, which is my target. Thanks!
I loved the video! As an aspiring 3D animator it taught me a few things. I love animation and even more so if it's in 3D, and I love watching animated movies because that's the way I learn. I also like to see the evolution of the animation and I hope we can see more
I just want to say that you are quickly becoming one of my favourite animation youtubers out there. You are able to explain animation concepts in a way that makes it easier to understand for me, and in turn inspires me to pick up the craft.
I'd love to see you talk about the animation Dragon Ball FighterZ vs Guilty Gear Xrd vs Strive vs all the other 3D games Arcsys has made. Specifically, the differences. Like how DBFZ has classic smears, while GG has stretched out shapes, and Blazblue has bendy bones. Stuff like that.
This is super educational & well explained. Thank you for taking time to talk about this, more people should understand animation deeper & think about the amount of work & love that’s put into it :)
And SPEAKING of feeling the passion of the artist behind the work, this whole channel is AMASING. As someone getting into game dev seeing these animations are not only educational but also very entertaining to watch! I can tell you love what you do and I can speak for everyone here when I say that we love watching what you make. Keep up the good work!
One of my favorite shows that do this is Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In my opinion, the 2d animation in Rise is the absolutely perfect mixture of fluid and choppy.
Just found your channel and man. You would make a GREAT teacher. I'm not really into the "Higher FPS =/= Higher Quality" debate, it's so obviously "What the scene is designed for, it works as. Nothing more." But- that's besides the point. The point is, I'm in love with your channel already. I hope you smile when you upload a video, I hope you're not exhausted and I seriously hope nothing sinister is happening to you.
I feel like the way you explained why the frame drops in Puss in Boots is a good thing is actually the reason why I dislike it. It’s noticeable, unlike where at 0:29 you stated it changes without us noticing, which is true. I just never liked it when I notice the frame rate drop during 3D animation because of how suddenly choppy it looks. There are other 3D films that do this trick but aren’t as noticeable. I can understand why so many people favor it and their reasons are very justified. But for me, it always gets too distracting. It’s why I’m also not a huge fan of The Spiderverse. I just wish I could enjoy it but it’s something that I always found jarring in 3D animation specifically.
Ahhh I noticed the animation change when I saw the movie and was delighted sometimes the lower frame rates can give me a headache but I try to appreciate it regardless the way of describing it that we're leaning back into the artist after leaning so far into the computers makes me so pleased. I hope that's exactly what's happening, especially in a time of the free AI art thievery mess. I miss 2D animation and I wish it was seen more often in mainstream. I think it's starting to happen again, even if it's just in parts of the movies like in Puss in Boots
The arrow example is a very interesting take, for both animation to "brain function". Also i just saw "Princess Mononoke" yesterday. What a coincidence
Choppy or smooth neither is better they are just meant to be use in different circumstances for different animations based on the drawers and what they think complements what they made best because frame rate is just another way of telling the story that the drawers want to share with the world
That bow & arrow bit was extremely helpful! And also a little odd! Normally when a human is told the trickery behind an illusion (which is essentially what's happening when the brain fills in gaps in animation) we can quickly (or immediately) see what is really going on. Rarely are we ever unable to discern the truth. However even when you explained that the arrow had zero frams for it's flight path, and then showed the clip at 25% speed (even then my mind vaugely filled in the flight path, albeit not the full flight path), upon reviewing the clip at 100% speed, my mind immediately re-inserted the flight path of the arrow as if it were actually animated. Incredible.
fun fact: back in 2014, Arc System Works released "Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-" which had choppy animation. for a videogame. and not gonna lie, it looks fucking amazing. to this day. so does other games they released like dragon ball fighterz and granblue fantasy versus. althought those tried to emulate the feel of 2D animation. their newest GG game, Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, while still having that style of animation, doesnt try to fool you into thinking its 2D. it just makes its own esthetic.
I went on a rant in my dms about this to a friend who had just watched puss in boots 2, and how the animation industry has been slowly changing to this exact technique for a while. I told him how amazing it is to fuse techniques of 3d and 2d animation into one cohesive beauitul whole. And then I found this video and I'm very happy others are talking about this.
this is why i love having the ability to interpolate with keyframes, and then go back and add keyframes without interpolation with an L shaped graph every few frames, it gives that low fps effect on that one movement and not the rest, like how in some scenes the camera movement is at a high fps while, the animation of one or more characters is on a lower fps. you can also tweak where you want the frame drop, like having interpolation for leg movement during running, but as soon as both are off the groud it snaps back to them on the ground.
Props to you for managing to not talk about the recent trend of using AI to make animation 60fps or higher in a video about animating at a lower frame rate
That reminds me how my early animations I did in Flash were choppy or hybrid because I grew up and loved the limited animation style of anime and TV shows. People loved it.
Absolutely loved this video!!! I think it nails just what I feel about the new trailer of Disney's "Wish"... I'm really excited they're going for a new style, I adore having 3D look *different* and I think this style could really fit Disney as it very much reminds us of the Old Classic Disney 2D animation, but to me something felt off... and while watching I kinda realized that to me the animation felt way too fluid! As in, exactly what you're mentioning, it felt like they were animation completely on 24fps without variation and that it somewhat clashed and contrasted a bit too much with the more 2D-feeling look of the movie. It didn't blend as well as these kinds of looks do when you have the frame variation on something like Spiderverse, Arcane, Puss in Boots etc. I don't really know if my gut feeling is right about Wish in this sense though haha it's just what it felt to me while watching! would love to hear your thoughts about it 💜
The irony of Puss In Boots is that I actually disliked the noticeable *_shift_* to "choppy" animation and back from it. Felt like a very jarring "Oh now they are having their little sakuga moment..." which completely pushed me out of it instead of immersing me.
This was an amazing explanation of the artistic choice behind stepped animation! Well done. This method of animating can be often misunderstood as lazy or cheap, but I think people should understand that both "choppy" or "smooth" movement should not be considered poor quality. Animation is never actually a simple task, so I believe that people should respect the animators' hard work even if they dislike the style. Once again, good work!
i feel like the movies "paperman" (disney) and "the peanuts movie" (bluesky) set the groundwork before spiderverse. Both of them had the mix of the 2D and 3D look to them, with the Peanuts movie having it's animation on twos. they weren't as nuanced and lifelike as spiderverse, but I feel as if both films were sort of pioneers of this kind of style before spiderverse. Most films afterwards had taken inspiration from spiderverse, but it's important to recognize things that came before it
I really loved seeing Guilty Gear Strive also take this approach to non-interpolated 3D. It really fits with it’s ragged aesthetic and fighting games have a long history of impact and emphasis in 2D animation, which reminds me of your examples in anime. Also, that GDC talk by Skullgirls’s lead animator you showed for a second should be required watching for any animator period, it’s such a valuable resource for any type of animation
I love seeing a return to form for recent animation styles such as Puss N Boots, Spiderverse and Guilty Gear. There’s such an added dimension of expression for something so simple, and it absolutely has to do with readability for the viewer- filling in the gaps in between without getting lost creates a significantly more interesting message that keeps everyone engaged. I can’t wait to see where we will take future animation! Excellent videos as always, I love your soft and easy-to-follow style!
I really like this way of animating, and Spiderverse was done in a way that was similar to a comic book which I find really cool. Good stuff, it's really informative!
4:29 I did find the animation style in puss in bots kind of jarring not because it was holding on frames like that, but because in other movies in that cinematic universe, it was all done with full fledged smooth in-between frames, thus, it felt abnormal when they changed it up for the last wish. Had they used this technique consistently with previous movies it would've felt normal, though it did pay off in the end, the fight scenes were incredible once I got used to it...
Thanks for the big response to this video, and the 500k! It’s been interesting to hear everyone’s perspectives on this. I want to make it known that my videos are first and foremost for non-animators, so I’ve been trying to hear out any constructive comments from that audience.
While I stand by everything laid out in this video, for the past couple days I debated doing a follow-up video to explain/rebuke certain points in-depth. But I think it’s more constructive to just make it a pinned comment instead, so this is that. Sorry for the wall of text, (“happy for you tho/sorry that happened/etc. etc”) but if you disagree with this video, I encourage you to at least read any of the points that interest you.
Two biggest ones:
Arc System Works:
I had a Guilty Gear clip in here (at 5:16 I think) but I exchanged it for 3D anime clips to focus purely on film and TV. It can be tempting to put clips of things in just because you enjoy them, but they don’t always fit - since I already want to do a video on fighting game animation and had mentioned Kinuko’s GDC talk, this was one of those times. But yes, Guilty Gear’s style is impeccable and they were very early to this method, if not the earliest. I think video games in general are pretty early to a lot of artistic styles that have eventually cropped up in TV and film, which is something I eventually want to talk about.
Nausea/Discomfort:
So, a few people specifically pointed to characters moving at a different framerate than the background creating nausea/discomfort. I can understand that. I mentioned in the video that this whole style is an experiment and maybe things evolve, 5:16. Maybe that aspect gets ditched, or refind, or whatever. I like it, but I get why it can be weird.
But aside from that, I want to at least rebuke or question: why do you not feel the same way about stop motion?
What about 3D that’s so convincing it looks like stop motion, ala The Lego Movie? That film has characters moving at different rates from the rest of the scene. Or stop motion with digital effects at a different framerate, ala Paranorman? If the main issue is that the images have depth, yet are still held on 2s and 3s, how is any of that different from more obvious 3D?
I don’t say this as a “gotcha,” I’m genuinely curious as to what the disconnect is for people. Maybe it's because those films are creating more cohesive, steady images vs something like Puss in Boots and Spiderverse, which really push it. I can get that. But overall, it just seems like people are used to 3D images moving at a smoother rate due to video games. All these methods - 2D, 3D, and stop motion - are just ways of creating flat 2D images. All 2D animation principles apply.
Whenever anyone tries to explain why it makes them uncomfortable they almost always use a word like “laggy” or compare it to video games. Again, if you feel nauseous from this style, that’s fine. 5:16 is for you. But as that timestamp says, it’s an experiment. It’s brand new. Have you considered that you're just not used to it yet?
A lot of people are just as excited as me to see it considering this video stands at a 99.4% like to dislike ratio. Maybe you should try watching more stuff in this style, let your eyes adjust to it, and see how you feel afterwards.
Some other dumb stuff that I’d put in a followup video:
- 60fps Footage: I also had a short clip around 0:30 that took 60fps DMC5 footage and crunched it down to 24fps to demonstrate that when a clip isn’t animated with a lower framerate in mind, it looks properly choppy. But I didn’t want to talk about games for too long, so I took it out. I kinda wish I didn't.
- 24fps Games: From my own hazy childhood memory I'm fairly confident that a number of PS3 games were specifically developed with 24fps as a target, but the few I was thinking of are indeed 30fps. (Uncharted, The Last of Us, etc.) That's what that section is referring to. There was an entire meme with the PS3 about "gaming at a cinematic 24fps." Anything else is splitting hairs on the silliest part of the video.
- White Flashes on Impact: This has been the weirdest series of comments I’ve received, that the white flashing in DBZ and other anime is to censor the impact. If you’ve heard this, can you tell me where you heard it? The footage I’m using is the original Japanese DBZ cut and it has Frieza getting cut in half, so I highly doubt it’s a censorship thing.
Thanks for reading if you did.
EDIT: One more thing. I stand by the title of this video. I love smooth animation and even mention this in the video, but part of my motivation for the title is that I believe this trend is better for the industry overall. It puts more control into the artists' hands and has a ton of potential. Hence the latter half of the video. Just in case you were wondering!
thanks for the awesome video, daddy- I mean doodley.
Low framerates aren't really a problem for me unless I passively notice them. I'll try to explain with some examples. First, there's this stop motion video (ruclips.net/video/tZqIQmdSa1E/видео.html) which is animated at a consistent 24 fps, and it looks buttery smooth. No problems there. On the other hand, there is this video (ruclips.net/video/DpefYPLH67A/видео.html) which is noticeably choppy at multiple points, but especially during the punch from 1:27 to 1:35. I'm not trying to say the animation isn't outstanding, but the framerate at this moment distracts me and pulls me out of whatever trance / flow state you enter while watching something, which I think makes the experience of watching it worse. The entire motion seems to be animated on threes. I think this looks jarring when the camera does a 360-degree orbit around the protagonist before the punch. During the windup, animating on threes looks fine and helps sell the buildup. The animation stays on threes until after the follow through. The moment after the windup and before the impact, while his fist is travelling, looks especially off to me because of the low framerate. I find it weird that this video bothered me, because I don't have this problem when watching anime.
It's worth noting that my experience may have been influenced by the fact that I was actively paying attention to the framerate, however.
I play a lot of video games though. It really could be that I just expect things in 3D to move smoothly, and I relax this condition for 2D animation. When I see a 3D animation animated at a low framerate, it grabs my attention, but rarely in a beneficial way.
@@KennKuun the first video looks so smooth because of "squash and stretch" while the second video can't utilize that technique.
Edit: you can see it at the beginning of the first video if you pause it while a cube is falling.
Thanks for the follow up. I'm not entirely sure that we understand the way the persistence of vision works with stress. I'd love to see experiments which try and pick apart sensory priority, because my vision drops to 1 frame a minute when I'm listening to a podcast. 😉
you animate on less frames because it looks good, i animate on less frames because im lazy. we are not the same
animating on less frames is harder in 3D than interpolating them.
*Live panopticon reaction*
You animate on more frames because it's revolutionary, I animate on more frames because I have no idea what I'm doing. we are not the same.
@@disgracedalmond7731 "this prison to hold me?"
🤓Ahem, *fewer* frames.
It's definitely about finding a balance between animating on 2s and 1s. Puss in Boots The Last Wish looked amazing. I love how they switched to a lower framerate when heading into high-action scenes.
The same with Spiderverse! I loved the fact that in the film, Miles was always animated at 12fps while the rest of the characters were at 24fps. Then when he accepts being Spiderman, he’s animated at 24fps
@@TheHimikoToga you mean 24 at the end?
@@Mouxeware i do lmao! Lowkey was speedrunning typing
@@TheHimikoToga It's amazing how something like that could be used for storytelling.
I honestly don’t like the lowered frame rate in the action scenes. To me, if there is a part in a movie that needs to be smooth, it is a high action fight scene. If they cut out frames for specifically impacts I think it would have looked much better.
Spiderverse showed the animation industry that there was success to be found in letting artists go off and make something unique and stylized
Though I do wish they could've done more stylized, artistic stuff besides cel shading 3d models with a few 2d stuff as wrinkles and comic book movement effect things whatever they're called on the main characters, and do things like having great portions of the bodies being 2d animated, like having the mouth and eye brows be 2d like in Max G's Brain Dump series on RUclips. As well as just a bit less cel shading in places because that's almost always used as a way to avoid real 2d animation work.
@FIGHTFAN777 Did you atleast like the second film, they make it more smooth and try different ideas. I think the framerate made a lot who are used to smooth stuff have a hard time adjusting.
And then everybody copied them because they wanted money
@@MccandlessH not the worst thing to happen, puss in boots was Excellent.
@@nichescenes that's what stopped me from seeing the sequel: I've just found a lot of things in spiderverse just good ideas, but the worst execution possible... Musics (a great artist but there is a mess of "everything"), the plot at the ending (also with some plot holes), animation beeing too choppy...
And then I saw Puss in Boots 2 and I was like: this is WAAAAY better not just for animation, but also for the plot. And I had that feeling that Spiderverse had high ratings just because "it is Spiderman" the same way as Spiderman NWH.
I wanted it to feel like when The Lego movie just came out with a 3D animated stop motion style, but I just had headaches for the animation... A very missed opportunity.
I hope the second is better...
For some reason, the term fighting the computer makes me think like getting up and smacking it around in order for it to do what you want
I guess it is sometimes lol, I certainly my computer a whack or two when I’m animating lol
sometimes it feels like that xD
might as well be. the computer is gonna do it best to smooth animation all it can that's how it is designed, which is why different animating softwares are being made to essentially make it easier to "fight the computer" basically telling it "Hey i know you want to interpolate everything but leave this part alone...will ya?". You have to do thing in a different inconvinient way to achive that effect of animating on 1s and 2s to have that impact.
as a 3D animator that does this style that's very accurate
yeah that’s pretty much how animators work
*Doodley: *talks about how choppy animation is better**
*Also Doodley: *animating his character on 86 frames per second**
yeah
@@doodley3d "i guide people to a treasure i cannot obtain"
loads of money
this is a journey to loads of money
It's bones or spine tools
you did an amazing job with this, very well explained.
i love animating with 3s and 2s the most. varying the framerate is so fun and such an interesting topic people always seem to forget. many people just assume every second has 24 drawings, but the truth is that a fair bit of animation productions choose not to use 1s for every scene. ive had plenty of comments on my high framerate animation tests where people say "48fps animation at 5 seconds wow that means theres almost 300 drawings in this!" when the real number of drawings is less than 1/3rd of that.
animation fans and enthusiasts have this odd obsession with the sheer number of drawings in any animation, but always seem to gloss over the quality and placement of drawings instead. thinking arbitrary amounts of drawings is as important as the animation itself, when the reality is that a lot of animation runs at varying framerates that are meticulously planned out by the animator, and we as animators are not strictly bound to a single idea of "always on 1s/2s/3s" in our works.
its funny, and i wish more people understood about animation
Hey!! I love your animations, it's cool to see you around. Thanks for checking it out!!
Yeah, overall I'm a firm believer in communicating in as few drawings as possible. There can be a beauty and fluidity to full framerate animation, ala James Baxter or Richard Williams, (and even Baxter animates on 2s often) but it's one way of doing things and not the status quo. I personally love seeing how well an animator can create impactful single drawings when they're just held for a bit longer.
One of these days I'll get onto a video about fighting game animation and how games like Skullgirls or Third Strike had *better* impact from less drawings, as well as concepts like hit stop. I'm constantly trying to connect with non-animators and have them understand these concepts from an animator's eyes, even if they never plan to animate, and there's something there with connecting how juicy hitstop in fighting games can feel and the idea behind animating on 3s and 4s.
in the end of the day, there will still be tech bros who will force interpolate 2D or "choppy" animation to "60" or "100" FPS and declare them to be much better than the original.
I absolutely despise those kinds of videos and channels
The sin of animation
@@Azure9577 using a system like it can do a ton for you still
Rain World all the enemies are AI based and nearly all the time they don't glitch an can react far more then static Mobs
@@senritsujumpsuit6021 animation in games and animation in animation is a different topic, noodles has made a video on this a year ago
@@Azure9577 duh its not the same but the same principles are at play
As much as I love tweening in Flash, there’s just something about converting that tween into an on-twos movement that makes it feel more visually appealing
i didn’t know flash could do that now, that’s pretty awesome
@@kiwi__1011 flash never actually REQUIRED you to tween anything. the default is holding keyframes.
@@nooshstuff i know, but you couldn’t convert tweens to different hold times in older flash versions
@@kiwi__1011 ohh that
i mean well its preferrable to hand tune the positions of objects anyways. could always use a tweemed circle as reference for the position of the object you wanna place
@@nooshstuff it’s practically necessary when doing certain shape tweens. No matter how many shape hints I add, sometimes Flash just won’t understand and I’ll have to clean it up manually. It’s so annoying 💀
Doodley is the best at explaining animations and animation choices, and I hope he has the best experience on this platform
Your two examples of arrow animation (Mulan and Mononoke) are actually a great illustration of a point I never see brought up in discussions about animation, and that's the quality of the decisions made for the final result.
There is a lot of talk from animation artists on RUclips when it comes to animation, and it's usually the same bullet points all the time. You have the quick listing of how animation is 24 fps usually and the explanation of animating on 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. This is followed up by the assertion that it's always the animators intent and so forth. Rarely, if ever, have I heard anyone go into why and what the actual intended outcome is of these decisions.
Puss in boots 2 is a great example where I both love the "choppy" animation at times and hate it at other times. It's the same style, probably the same frame rate at those points, and yet they manage to give two different impressions.
This brings me back to the examples of the arrow shot animation. The two examples greatly illustrate the positives of both decisions, especially in the context of when they are used. In Mulan, the intent is to actually show how the arrow flies and how it interacts with objects. The arrow is the star of the scene, and it's all about displaying a complex feat of skill. This is a scene that, while it wouldn't fit, you could actually have made slow motion for a similar impact.
When it comes to the scene in Mononoke, it's not about the path of the arrow, but the impact of its destination. The scene is tense, fast, and snappy, and the animation of the arrow follows suit. The shot is meant to snap the deer awake, so it can hurry out of the way of danger.
The only commonality between those shots is that they involve a bow and arrow being shot.
The discussion should be on how well the different styles are applied and not so much the styles themselves, in my opinion. I haven't seen Spiderverse, but I have seen some clips of it, and I'm not a fan of the "choppy" animation in many of them. Since I haven't seen the whole thing in context, I obviously can't make a judgement on the whole movie, it's just that the clips I have seen do more to dissuade me from seeing it.
Lastly, it is possible to make high framerate animation look snappy and weighty, but that takes more than just deciding to make more frames, and I feel just the same about taking frames away.
When it comes to the arrow example, I like either, but there is one rule, if you will ever show the arrow flying you must show it flying from every angle (as it it cant disapear from the bow, be shown flying, and then appear at a target, if you want to show it flying it must fly out of the bow and in to the target.
@Baltu Lielkungs Gunārs Miezis why tho?
@@charliewright2667 Stylistic consistency.
@Baltu Lielkungs Gunārs Miezis but if you consistently do it the other way it's still stylistic consistency? You just called your preference an animation rule lmao.
@@charliewright2667 read it again. he said IF you animate the arrow flying mid-air you also have to show that same arrow flying into the target with in-between frames. if you have a scene where the arrow is flying mid-air and then the next scene it just snaps to the target you're sort of implying that the arrow somehow accelerated mid-air between those scenes, which obviously isn't possible
I love the cowboy bebop example. That shows main intro fight scene is just such a good introduction to the entire show and its style. Love the animation of it
Yes great show and amazing animation even today.
1:01 it's really cool how the background and foreground, the stationary objects, are at a higher FPS than the action objects/moving things. i guess it still gives a sense of motion in a more efficient for the animators manner. EDIT: ok now he explained that it also adds more weight to the animation, it lets you see what the animators wanted you to see.
Stepped animation in 3D leads to a lot of interesting challenges. The camera always stays on 1s, even when a character is on 2s. This leads to issues like strobing, when the character only moves with the camera every other frame. Try going through Puss in boots or Spiderverse frame by frame and you'll see how they fix this. The characters move with the camera even when they are on a held pose, sliding along the ground. Looks super strange flipping through frames, but works perfectly in motion. This is part of "fighting the computer". It's completely unintuitive, hard to program for, but essential to this animation style.
OH! Very good point. I hadn't thought of that strobing problem.
You can actually see this exact thing at 4:02 in this video. Pause and use the keys to go through frame by frame and watch how Puss moves.
You explained this really well!
it's also a problem in 2d if you are not careful with camera instructions, usually you wanna move/ manipulate the bg itself, not the camera.
@@mark009vn Yep. I love that trick, makes things so much simpler.
My theory is that Spider verse showed everyone that animating that way won't end in failure, and will even be immensely praised :) it showed companies and animators that it's safe to do it
Great, now they can cut costs and not have to worry about making animation crisp.
@@LecherousLizard Yeah, that's not how literally any of this works. You're so ridiculously wrong that I'm going to write about just how wrong you are for several paragraphs just to spite you, and I'm not even getting into any jargon to do it. Here we go.
3D animation isn't less expensive or ambitious because it holds frames. If anything, it's actually harder to get right. Variable framerate in 3D isn't something you can JUST do. It's a tool, and it needs to be treated as such. For one thing, holding frames in 2D isn't so complicated because it's been the standard for the last century, but we're only just now really exploring how it can work in 3D. 3D doesn't work like 2D does. Holding frames in 2D does tangibly reduce the cost of production, since with 2D, every frame is literally a new drawing someone has to make. 3D is less immediately demanding, but far more technically involved. Creating in-betweens in 3D tends to be faster and more straightforward, a lot of it is automated, with the artist doing manual clean-up and detail work during a polish phase.
Really, intricate polish in 3D animation comes down to timing moreso than anything else. For instance, if you're working with traditional 3D in Blender, 80% of your time spent animating isn't going to be in the viewport, it's going to be in the graph editor. None of that goes away just because you've decided to reduce the framerate of something for a sequence, or hold a few frames for impact. If anything, it's actually even more important in such cases. For instance, holding a frame means your audience will have more time to look at it. Low framerates in movies can often hide imperfections, but in 3D animation, it shines a spotlight on them. When you hold a frame, you're giving it weight it doesn't otherwise have, which means you can't afford to let any rough edges slip through at all. A finger clipping through a coat sleeve in the background doesn't matter too much if you're rendering at a consistent 24 or 30 FPS, but it's a lot more noticeable when the frame is held. When you hold a frame, you're giving it significance. What was once a paused frame that you never intended your audience to see out of motion becomes a painting that will be seen as a highlight once the public gets ahold of it, and if you have even tiny imperfections in that painting, then they'll be all anyone can see once it's been spotted. Even with modern Pixar movies, as polished and high production as they are, have hundreds of little errors you can find if you look hard enough, so imagine how much more problematic they'd be if Pixar held their frames. They'd have to completely overhaul their workflow just to make the trick work at all. When it's a consistent 24 or 30 fps, it's just motion, but when the frames are held, each frame has to be as close to perfect as possible. It's actually a really vulnerable technique. It's like a literal spotlight. Yes, a spotlight on your actor will highlight them, but it'll also highlight any slight imperfections they might have. They'll seem more significant, but that's a double edged sword.
But that's with entire shots. Animating everything in a shot at the same framerate is already complicated enough if you're holding frames, but it gets so so SO much more technically involved if different elements of each shot are moving at different framerates. For one, having a character moving at 12 fps directly interacting with a character moving at 24 can be an uncanny valley nightmare in 3D, and correcting that can be absurdly difficult, especially since it's such an unexplored technique. And forget characters, what happens when a flowing leaf hits a character in the face, and they grab it and look at it? It's a simple idea, but it already exposes some major hurdles. If the leaf is flowing at a consistent 24 and the character is holding frames, then that means there are frames where the leaf is still technically moving but the character is not, and the audience will absolutely feel that. So do you change the leaf's framerate temporarily to match the character's? Do you need to? Maybe the uncanny offness of that is part of the point, or maybe it's just a problem to solve. You also can't just haphazardly select frames to hold. If you've ever paused a movie while a character is making a funny face, you know why. If characters are holding frames when their expressions are readable, you need to specifically go into the scene with the expressions you want to show in mind. You can't just fully animate a scene and then back up and hold frames later, for one that's a waste of resources, and two it leads to production issues.
What about doors? If you're using held frames as a constant part of your style, what fps should a door handle move when a character is turning it? What speed should the door itself move? If you animate the character, the handle, and the door at a matching framerate, the result might seem too graphic if you hold the shot for long enough. So then, can the handle move at a choppy framerate while the door actually moves at a steady one? What happens when a character with choppy movement jumps on a trampoline? Yeah, maybe the choppy movement works for the character, but maybe the trampoline itself feels more readable with a smoother motion. What about fluid and cloth simulations? What amount of choppiness feels good on waving hair? The answer to all of these questions and more are... you just don't know until you try and make it happen. A shot that seems like it might take a monumental amount of effort could be simpler than expected, while a little moment might turn into a gargantuan studio-wide effort. It's 3D animation, and you just don't know.
I don't know what you're on about when you say they don't have to worry about making animation "crisp", when crispness is literally the entire point of the technique, and it definitely isn't less intensive or costly than standard steady animation. Holding frames in 2D is and has always been the standard, partly for effect and partly out of necessity. Animating anything in 2D at a consistent framerate is more expensive, and is a deviation from the industry standard approach. In 3D, it's the opposite. Holding frames in 3D is the deviation, and it requires a very very careful directorial approach. "Crisp" buttery smooth Pixar-esque animation is actually far more straightforward at this point.
@@themindfulmoron3790 TL;DR
@@LecherousLizard TL:DR You're wrong, and you're bad at being wrong.
@@themindfulmoron3790 I'm sure you are sure you think I'm wrong.
3:39 never forget what Lord Hater said:
''ANIMATION IS SO HARD! ANIMATORS DESERVE MORE CREDIT AND RESPECT!''
I will even tried to forget what hater said
Never forget
This aged pretty badly tho 😞 if only corporations weren't so stingy
I never saw Into the Spider-verse, so this style was new to me. When I first saw it I was a bit confused, but then it really started to click for me. When the smooth animation slipped into choppy, I was clued in that we are entering an action scene with a lot of things going on at once. The slower, more choppy animation gave everything more weight and let me appreciate details that I never could have seen without replaying the scene.
I fell in love with the style because it wasn't an overload of data, and it let me just enjoy the scene rather than struggle to keep up.
Same ❤❤❤
Except I never watched that movie it was a different movie for me. ❤❤❤
You struggle to keep up with spiderverse? A kids movie?
@@TheKeksletsplay And what is wrong with that?
All it did for me is give me a headache.
thanks for teaching people the nuances of animation! ESPECIALLY how the “choppy animation” isn’t a financial desicion and instead is a artistic decision. if only it was as easy as people thought it was lol
YES I hate it when people see the choppy animation like in Puss in Boots and say they must have not had a big enough budget when they did it was a artistic decision
@@Doodle1678 it did actually have a lower budget than the first one, but the choppy animation style was definitely its own decision lol
@@RushWheeler yes absolutely
It's a sucky artistic decision tho
@@corphish129 I think it looks great but it’s your opinion
I've recently been transferring from 2d to 3d animation and interpolation has been a new concept as a result, at first I downloaded a pre rigged human to play around with and none of my animation felt right to me, the first breakthrough I had was to get rid of the interpolation in a round about way by setting my frames at the start and ends of it's display time, made everything feel better to me, in hindsight tho it was a lot of extra work to animate him like that and I started wondering how to make the interpolation work, so far I've been just trying to add more detail to the movements and staggering the timings of each bones actions within a single movement but so far it's hard going, this video is making me realize I might've been right the first time and going non interpolation and only bringing in the interpolation when I want a smoother movement does sound like a better strategy overall
(so far actually my biggest issue with 3d is not movement but sculpting, like gimme back my paintbrush tool)
Ultimately it's not better, it's different. But because it's different and rarer, it feels fresh.
That's a good way to put it. At the end of the day, it's all based on a person's personal preference if one style of animation is better than the other. But it is true that the lack of "choppy" animation beforehand helps to make it more appealing nowadays.
its not rare. all TV animation is limited animation
I dont think its that rare. It just gives animation more of a comic book feeling and it looks less computer generated. Not to say that high framerate animation can't be good but I do think this is some kind of uncanny valley for animation.
@@Chillerll computer generated feeling is subjective, neither is better than one another; it's just taste.
I think that beyond just feeling fresh, it's also a very stunning tool. It allows artists to convey the idea of the action rather than just the literal action
Guilty Gear is one of my favorite videogame series and one of the major reasons is the use of 2d animation techniques on 3d characters. I love how the characters are usually animated in a lower frame rate but when they are charging up for their special attack, the model gets animated like it was animated on 1's in the style of 2d animation. The games made me appreciate animation a whole lot more which is why I am subbed to you now!
Go look up "Guilty Gear Overdrives", specifically Strive and XRD, if you want to see what I am talking about. Testament, Bedman?, and Slayer are my personal favorites.
Not to mention that the animators are deliberately making "mistakes" like tweaking the models a bit each frame to resemble the slight shifts in proportions in 2D animation.
Yesss, I feel like people don't give them enough credit for that, the use of low frame rates, smears, impact frames, stretching and bending solid objects, even deforming de models to make them look better from certain angles, it's all there and it looks amazing. They also made the dragonball fighterZ game, with the same animation style, imo the best looking dragon ball game ever
i came into the comments specifically to mention guilty gear lol the video by newframeplus on how they do their animation is super cool and the look of those games is what got me into them
I adore guilty gear animation !
Hey dude I appreciate thus video. As a rotoscope artist I am so used to drawing every frame. You've taught me that having less frames gives a better feel. Thank you bro. Subscribed
I can not wait until you talk about Treasure Planet, and how CGI and 2D animation blends in harmony in a deep canvas.
many Anime an Chinese shows do blends to varying degrees too an its interesting
Or the Prince Of Egypt
or Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
The latest Animator vs. Animation does it, and they even made a documentary on how they blended it!
I know that there have been moments I questioned the use of reduced frame rate in some moments of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish just cuz it may not have felt right to my eyes/may not have delivered the impact in a way I thought was as effective, but I have always seen each an every use of it throughout as an artistic choice that I absolutely respect 1000%.
ok but like the way his collar bone clips through his head if hilarious 5:08
That arrow frame freeze part makes me appreciate Darkest Dungeon animation a lot more, the move feels really impactful.
"Animation"
Thank you for reminding me why I pursued animation. The illusion of movement is an art and science that will never cease to amaze me and I'm happy to see artists making it clear that smooth doesn't always mean better and more frames doesn't always mean more good.
5:46 the Lego Movie definitely also helped, maybe not as directly, but still
Definitely. The Lego Movie brought back the charm of stop motion (which is already animated in low FPS) while still being fully animated in 3D (discounting the live action scene).
Yeah. The Lego Movie really walked so that Spiderverse and every other production with choppy CG animation could run! Really Lord and Millers influence on western animation cant be understated with that one two punch!
i can not describe the LEVEL your work is in to make these funny videos that teach us about animation but let me just say you make AMAZING content and i'd love to see more of it, seeing this pop up on my subscriptions feed was awesome.
incredible video as always :D
Verified with little likes? Impossible.
Simp crew we need you
Ay it’s ya boy Pixelcraftian
I love smears and reducing framerate, it makes the animation so much more interesting
Smears spark joy
Choppy animation without smears does not spark joy, it’s just yucky
@@kathrineici9811 nope smears don't make everything outright better Ajin IBM creatures are 3D models with a swirl effect over their model an its amazing an that is just one example
I've been learning to animate in gmod, and I've binged your videos recently. It's all been really helpful.
Houseki no Kuni / Land of the Lustrous reference spotted! I absolutely adore how Studio Orange animated everything in it, and it was a really nice surprise seeing it mentioned in a video about good, impactful animation!! Hoping to a S2 🙏
I think it's safe to say we've officially entered a new era of animation, one that I hope will be a long and prosperous
it has been changing long before these movies
the amount of Asian productions outside of Japan doing crazy stuff is massive
No lmao 😂. Spiderverse made that choppy animation thing a trend, so now every movie is doing it. Hell, spiderverse didn't even pull it off that well. It only became popular because of all the positive feedback the movie got
@@VYDEOS2 wasnt into the spiderverse so positively welcomed because of the animation?
@@VYDEOS2 spiderverse was dope, and defos did revolutionise the industry in style, but a LOT of 3d animators have been making indie features and short films with choked framerates for years, probably even decades.
Yes animation is superior to film because it doesnt have to be realistic. You can make it better than real life, the emotions are more clear the movements more intentioned. It is how ever important to not hold too many frames for too long since it stops being animation and starts being a comic as your brain no longer draws the inbetweens.
When it comes to the arrow example, I like either, but there is one rule, if you will ever show the arrow flying you must show it flying from every angle (as it it cant disapear from the bow, be shown flying, and then appear at a target, if you want to show it flying it must fly out of the bow and in to the target.
Its so cool that you have only done a few videos but you have put so much passion and work into it that im learning heaps from it. I love it!
As someone who utilizes held frames heavily in her 2d and 3d animations (for one reason or another) this was such a treat to watch! Thank you so much for making a video on how this affects animation artistically :-)
I have to say I'm really not a fan of this new framerate experiment that a lot of 3D animated movies are doing. I've never been bothered by switching to lower framerate in 2D before, but for it just does not work for me in 3D. Spiderverse was a great movie but I had a headache and eyestrain from just the first 15 minutes of watching it. And although I understand all the artistic decisions made for impact and different spidermen having a different framerate to represent their skill and such, I just really wish it didn't have those things so it didn't hurt to watch.
Puss in boots was another really good movie, but the switch between framerates felt so jarring to me. I know you say it's not the same as videogame framerate's but when the movie cuts to a wide and suddenly the framerate slows down like everyone's an npc in the new pokemon game, I can't help but read it as a technical issue instead of an artistic decision. In the scene with the giant, I really wanted to be invested in the action, but the choppy motion made me feel like I was drunk, and I just can't help but feel like, at the very least, it could have been done better.
It's not that I don't get why people like it, I just feel like if it really was good animation (by my standards) I wouldn't notice the change in framerate, it wouldn't pull me out of the movie, and it wouldn't give me eyestrain.
This eyestrain thing seems to be rare, I've seen others online mention it but from what I can find it's at most 4% of people who experience it and none of the people I watched it with (seen it in cinema 3 times with different groups of people) experienced it. So while I get it hurts your experience personally it seems like a weird thing to judge it by. Kinda like if someone with a dairy allergy said milkshakes sucked because they give them specifically the runs.
@@lonk2902 It's kind of like animation is one my favourite dishes that I've enjoyed for a long time. It's a dish that has seen some really great evolution and experimentation in recent years. Lately they've started adding all sorts of awesome ingredients that make it so much better, but they also added dairy. The dish is still awesome, but I wish I could enjoy all the new additions without the dairy because it makes me a little ill, and I feel like all of the other additions could easily exist without it.
I'm not judging each of those films solely based on the frame rate, I'm just putting my two cents into the conversation. Trying to ask "is there a better way of achieving the desired effect?" And I feel like there must be because I've never had an issue with 2D animation doing the same thing.
@@LazyAlarm alot of people also hate a constant unchanging fps and swear by that.
I used to work as a video game animator, mostly working with Mocap. I left animation several years before this trend started happening. I think the Guilty Gear games were doing it shortly before Spiderverse.
I always see this sort of thing and think to myself, "How are they doing that? Are they literally just fighting the computer and throwing it stepped frames here and there?" So I had a chuckle when you brought up that quote about fighting the computer.
I hope some time soon we'll see animation software developing tools to explicitly support this style.
Yeah, I think GGXrd was one of the first 3D medias to experiment with choppy animation, and ArcSys absolutely nailed it. Combined with cel-shading, it emulates 2D graphics almost flawlessly, while still being noticeably 3D just enough to stand out and have these cool shots.
It's especially cool because in fighting games, frame data is important, and so you can naturally emulate frames holding for longer when contact is made via hitstop, and also make certain key-frames "tells" that hold for longer and have a distinct pose! It's really neat!
Awesome video!
I think the 2015 Peanuts movie deserves more credit for innovating with feature CGI animation using varied frame rates. The animation in the movie is stylish, suits its subject perfectly, and came out three years before Spider-verse.
Yeah, tbh im kinda dissapointed it was not mentioned. Its severely underated.
100%.
Exactly! I'm glad someone is also talking about Peanuts Movie. and I keep forgetting that was Blue Sky Studios. RIP
lego movie too
Wa-wait...The Peanuts Movie came out *3 YEARS BEFORE* Spiderverse?!!?!!
SHEEEESH i mean Peanuts is always peak but wow
How animation works with the brain is amazing. Persistence of vision is a brain quirk that without animation wouldn’t exist.
Oh my god! This is the video that I have been searching. Mainly for the reasons:
Since I lack knowledge in animation, I could not really search for the thing I was looking for. Hence when I saw something like "Dorohedoro" and witnessed the choppiness, I did not really know what to search for. Tried "low frame rate animation" at first 😅. But I was getting conflicting information. Often I see info like the choppy animation just being 2D animation in a 3D movie, hence making it feel different. Now that, I have come across your video, I finally understand.
On that note, this is also the perfect Reference video that I can show to other people. You know the classic complaints right about now like, people not liking CG/3D because either it looks bad or it has the choppiness. But I thought that sometimes the choppy frame rate is given, on purpose, to make the scenes give a certain feel. But again, due to lack of knowledge I could never explain to anybody.
Also, good on you for talking about artists and artistic choice. That's the other thing I'm really tired of, when people only talk about Big numbers or Higher frame rates and forget that there's a person behind it all. Moreover, Big numbers or Higher frame rates, does not always mean better quality. That's where the person behind these scenes, the artist choice or design philosophy, becomes integral. His/Her design choice can literally make or break these scenes. We should talk about the artists more often.
Just, in general, this is a very well made video. Being informative, sourcing everything and again most important, a call for supporting the artists.
This was very nice to read, thank you!
5:31 I have been called out cause spiderverse is fucking genius when it comes to animation. My friends got annoyed with me really quickly when I kept rambling about the beautiful animation 😳.
2:38 Wait, that writhing black mass is familiar....
I saw that in a nightmare like 17 years ago or something! I have been guilt tripping myself for almost two decades thinking it was my mind that came up with that!
I distinctively remember a boar with that mass being used as a parasite and then the protagonist fending it off but accidentally getting infected and being forced to leave their village!
*So it IS real!*
*HOLY FK!*, I never expected to find confirmation about that, like, ever. Let alone in some unrelated youtube video!
I can finally rest easy knowing that it DOES exist, and i wasnt crazy to remember it! I probably didnt remember the rest of the movie because i must have seen it on cable and changed channels because it was too scary for kid me
Thank you!
I have never fully understood animating on ones/twos/threes until you explained it here so thanks! Also slowing down the animation and the arrow example really helped - I never realized HOW much our brain fills in the gaps! Animation is so damn cool!
YES! Animation fps is not video Games fps!! More people need to realize this
is this a big problem?
Yeah it is. I caught on to the artistry of this in Mario Kart 64 and Viewtiful joe. Why are YOU handing video games over to these mooks, who at least call FPS what it IS, the same thing that already existed in TRON. NO digital animation, but panning around a still model of a virtual motorbike.
The difference is, those people KNOW what they are asking for. You don't seem to have a clue, because you just push them aside as "just video games". When the choice to apply limited frame sprites in 3D environment is as old as THE SNES, MArio KArt BEFORE they had a 3D environment.
Maybe ANIMATION fps was jsut dropping the ball for 20 years, while games knew the real deal.
Fuckin' gamers, I'll tell you what. It's usually the ones who know very little about what "fps" actually entails, they've just heard more is "better". ESPECIALLY if it's one of those poseurs who think they'll look discerning if they tell everyone that they think a higher FPS is always more important than better graphics settings.
**PINCHES BRIDGE OF NOSE IN FRUSTRATION** Does no one fully read comments anymore? "Always" is the keyword here in "always more important". To spell it out for those of you who were snacking on lead paint chips when they wrote their reply, as a LONG-time PC gamer, I'm aware of the benefits of a high FPS. My point was directed at the people who think ALL games NEED a high FPS above all else. Because, as already stated, they're poseurs who think they'll look discerning if they tell everyone that they think a higher FPS is always more important than better graphics settings. For slow-paced, story-heavy games, a high FPS, while desirable if the game is already maxed-out, doesn't contribute a whole lot to the experience. You're not exactly circle-strafing and head-shotting enemies in "Firewatch". For these games, better visuals is a better use of GPU cycles. Ah, but the poseurs I mentioned think these types of games don't "count" as games, so that would explain a lot!
@@fireaza Is is more important tho at least in action games higher FPS is always better, because it means there's less delay between your input and a reaction from the game (that and now that VR is gaining steam it becomes even more important for all kinds of games).
People can enjoy a blocky game with great FPS far more than a hyperrealistic game at 5fps.
@@fireaza If you play an actual video game and not a game that is pretending to be a movie then yes, higher fps is always better. And it's not just because of the visuals, the main concern is input latency, and the more fps you have the more you feel like you're in control, allowing for more immersion
Always loved how Puss in Boots: The Last Wish did it, gave it a more story-book feel.
Genuinely the screen moving at 4:23 tricked my brain into thinking my phone was falling off the shelf over my basin hahaha
i feel like this new animation renaissance is due to the fact that now all those kids that grew up with anime are the ones responsible for making these movies, so the inspirations are starting to take effect, and frankly im all in for it. sincirely hope it only keeps getting stronger and not eventually die out.
A lot of people cite “Spiderverse” as the movie that started the new trend, but I think “The Peanuts Movie” did it first.
I’m particularly curious to see how much of an impact these films have on the animation medium as a whole, and what influences it will create. Dreamworks Animation has definitely embraced it with “Bad Guys” and “The Last Wish”, and Pixar’s “Turning Red” did it with its anime homages. With Disney’s upcoming film “Wish” combining CGI with traditional animation and watercolor paintings, a part of me wonders if this might be the main studio’s response to it.
Good point. I was thinking of the short Paperman as well since it also sorta blended the look of 2D and 3D art.
They said they were inspired by spiderverse (as a lot of ppl are, esp since the low fps is used in a storytelling matter)
spiderverse was partially animated by the people who animated land of the lustrous, and they very much use that technique in that too
Paperman is the very first example of hybrid animation (understood as 2D lines over 3D animation). Disney's Wish will use this technique, so it will be something different than Spider-Verse or Puss in Boots (Puss in Boots doesn't even have 2D lines, it's just more painterly CGI).
@@TuboCremesi When was it confirmed that they would be using the Paperman technique in the film?
Bro, I just found your channel and I am hooked. These animation tutorials/lessons have really motivated me to give 3D animation another try. Thank you so much and keep up the content
Whenever this topic pops up I have to give a shout out to Arc System Works. Guilty Gear Xrd and Strive, Granblue Fantasy Versus, and Dragon Ball FighterZ are also doing this. They are going out of their way to set up their 3D models in such a way that they look like 2D sprites, and animate the same way too. Choppy on purpose, certain frames are held longer than they "should" be, some others are pretty much skipped altogether, simply because it not only looks better, it FEELS better, too.
AND it was done YEARS before into the spiderverse
I love it! My dad was complaining that the puss and boots movie animators were being lazy by using a lower framerate in fights, I'm gonna show him his video!
You can but the truth is some people just don't like it, I'm one of them. He'll understand they're not being lazy but that doesn't mean he'll appreciate it
@@Thornskade its fine if he dosent like it still, but calling animators lazy for a stylistic choice isnt really a opinion, its like calling someone something that simply isnt true so it can come off rude lol
@@nirorn2993 If it looks worse to him then is it not a reasonable conclusion that the studio was trying to save money? He simply didn't know that this was intentional so I don't know why you're repeating that
@@Thornskade Its fine if someone doesn't like it, i can see why even though i like it :D
It's fine to work on projects with budget cuts too, since for most cases its not laziness, it just calls for improvising! But if someone doesn't understand why something looks the way it does, they can just educate themselves on the topic like this video for example. Since calling animators lazy dosent reflect the truth in most cases by assuming :p (there are some, but in this case not likely )
@@nirorn2993 'They can just educate themselves' that's not how people operate. We don't have time to educate ourselves on everything all the time, but especially not when it's one scene in some film we watched. If it bothers you, you can do the educating, but if I consume media and there's something I don't like about it then I'm gonna jump to conclusions and probably not do an hour-long research on it. Like most people would. Do I really need to explain that?
See, that's why I loved spider-verse so much when it came out and still do 'till this day- it was revolutionary for animation and that's always amazing to see.
3:08 I thought the flashes were a censorship thing, like how old batman cartoons would have the full screen "pow!"
Amazing vid as always, love the cozy way you respect everyone’s thoughts on frame rates and you don’t leave anyone out!
You’re doing a great job. Even as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about animation your video are very entertaining to watch. I’m excited to see your channel grow
Sometimes my best animations and movements come out of low framerate animation. I animated the start of a stop motion dance scene on 5s and i was shocked with how good it looked while only having to shoot 10 unique pictures for that shot.
4:29 and Anime animation, the famous Sakuga animation.
I really appreciate this perspective and will keep a closer eye out for it. There are still times, however, especially in moments of smoother motion where a higher frame rate really just feels smoother to me. I don’t enjoy when I feel like I can make out the individual frames when it’s also serving no purpose like the ones you’re talking about here
There is a good example of "choppy" 3d animation in a game. Arc System Works used it in their new Guilty gear games to stylise their characters in 3d and also in Dragon ball fighterz where they had to do a few extra tricks to be the closest 3d animation to the hand drawn animation
Great video!! Thanks for teaching me about the arrow thing, that blew my mind. I personally am not a fan of people using the term "flash animation" to mean "tweened animation". Because you can do frame my frame hand drawn animation in flash, and you can do tweened animation in toon boom harmony. This video was so well put together, I really appreciate all the editing and animations you did. Great stuff!
I'm not a fan of using that term to describe it either, but it makes it more palatable and understandable for non animators, which is my target. Thanks!
I loved the video! As an aspiring 3D animator it taught me a few things.
I love animation and even more so if it's in 3D, and I love watching animated movies because that's the way I learn. I also like to see the evolution of the animation and I hope we can see more
I just want to say that you are quickly becoming one of my favourite animation youtubers out there.
You are able to explain animation concepts in a way that makes it easier to understand for me, and in turn inspires me to pick up the craft.
I'd love to see you talk about the animation Dragon Ball FighterZ vs Guilty Gear Xrd vs Strive vs all the other 3D games Arcsys has made.
Specifically, the differences. Like how DBFZ has classic smears, while GG has stretched out shapes, and Blazblue has bendy bones.
Stuff like that.
A video on fighting game animation is very high on my list!
This is super educational & well explained. Thank you for taking time to talk about this, more people should understand animation deeper & think about the amount of work & love that’s put into it :)
And SPEAKING of feeling the passion of the artist behind the work, this whole channel is AMASING. As someone getting into game dev seeing these animations are not only educational but also very entertaining to watch! I can tell you love what you do and I can speak for everyone here when I say that we love watching what you make. Keep up the good work!
One of my favorite shows that do this is Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In my opinion, the 2d animation in Rise is the absolutely perfect mixture of fluid and choppy.
0:35 guys i caught doodley in 4k for showing this
Just found your channel and man. You would make a GREAT teacher. I'm not really into the "Higher FPS =/= Higher Quality" debate, it's so obviously "What the scene is designed for, it works as. Nothing more." But- that's besides the point. The point is, I'm in love with your channel already.
I hope you smile when you upload a video, I hope you're not exhausted and I seriously hope nothing sinister is happening to you.
I feel like the way you explained why the frame drops in Puss in Boots is a good thing is actually the reason why I dislike it. It’s noticeable, unlike where at 0:29 you stated it changes without us noticing, which is true.
I just never liked it when I notice the frame rate drop during 3D animation because of how suddenly choppy it looks. There are other 3D films that do this trick but aren’t as noticeable. I can understand why so many people favor it and their reasons are very justified. But for me, it always gets too distracting. It’s why I’m also not a huge fan of The Spiderverse. I just wish I could enjoy it but it’s something that I always found jarring in 3D animation specifically.
5:16 Land of the Lustrous mentioned? Criminally underrated anime
Yea my freind mika loves it also rip in the chat for phos
Ahhh I noticed the animation change when I saw the movie and was delighted
sometimes the lower frame rates can give me a headache but I try to appreciate it regardless
the way of describing it that we're leaning back into the artist after leaning so far into the computers makes me so pleased. I hope that's exactly what's happening, especially in a time of the free AI art thievery mess.
I miss 2D animation and I wish it was seen more often in mainstream. I think it's starting to happen again, even if it's just in parts of the movies like in Puss in Boots
I love that he credits every piece of music and tv he shows
The arrow example is a very interesting take, for both animation to "brain function".
Also i just saw "Princess Mononoke" yesterday. What a coincidence
Choppy or smooth neither is better they are just meant to be use in different circumstances for different animations based on the drawers and what they think complements what they made best because frame rate is just another way of telling the story that the drawers want to share with the world
That bow & arrow bit was extremely helpful!
And also a little odd! Normally when a human is told the trickery behind an illusion (which is essentially what's happening when the brain fills in gaps in animation) we can quickly (or immediately) see what is really going on. Rarely are we ever unable to discern the truth.
However even when you explained that the arrow had zero frams for it's flight path, and then showed the clip at 25% speed (even then my mind vaugely filled in the flight path, albeit not the full flight path), upon reviewing the clip at 100% speed, my mind immediately re-inserted the flight path of the arrow as if it were actually animated. Incredible.
fun fact: back in 2014, Arc System Works released "Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-" which had choppy animation. for a videogame. and not gonna lie, it looks fucking amazing. to this day. so does other games they released like dragon ball fighterz and granblue fantasy versus. althought those tried to emulate the feel of 2D animation. their newest GG game, Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, while still having that style of animation, doesnt try to fool you into thinking its 2D. it just makes its own esthetic.
I went on a rant in my dms about this to a friend who had just watched puss in boots 2, and how the animation industry has been slowly changing to this exact technique for a while. I told him how amazing it is to fuse techniques of 3d and 2d animation into one cohesive beauitul whole. And then I found this video and I'm very happy others are talking about this.
this is why i love having the ability to interpolate with keyframes, and then go back and add keyframes without interpolation with an L shaped graph every few frames, it gives that low fps effect on that one movement and not the rest, like how in some scenes the camera movement is at a high fps while, the animation of one or more characters is on a lower fps. you can also tweak where you want the frame drop, like having interpolation for leg movement during running, but as soon as both are off the groud it snaps back to them on the ground.
and then people use those weird 60 fps things on already good animation and ruins it
Props to you for managing to not talk about the recent trend of using AI to make animation 60fps or higher in a video about animating at a lower frame rate
That reminds me how my early animations I did in Flash were choppy or hybrid because I grew up and loved the limited animation style of anime and TV shows. People loved it.
Absolutely loved this video!!! I think it nails just what I feel about the new trailer of Disney's "Wish"... I'm really excited they're going for a new style, I adore having 3D look *different* and I think this style could really fit Disney as it very much reminds us of the Old Classic Disney 2D animation, but to me something felt off... and while watching I kinda realized that to me the animation felt way too fluid! As in, exactly what you're mentioning, it felt like they were animation completely on 24fps without variation and that it somewhat clashed and contrasted a bit too much with the more 2D-feeling look of the movie. It didn't blend as well as these kinds of looks do when you have the frame variation on something like Spiderverse, Arcane, Puss in Boots etc. I don't really know if my gut feeling is right about Wish in this sense though haha it's just what it felt to me while watching! would love to hear your thoughts about it 💜
The irony of Puss In Boots is that I actually disliked the noticeable *_shift_* to "choppy" animation and back from it. Felt like a very jarring "Oh now they are having their little sakuga moment..." which completely pushed me out of it instead of immersing me.
This was an amazing explanation of the artistic choice behind stepped animation! Well done. This method of animating can be often misunderstood as lazy or cheap, but I think people should understand that both "choppy" or "smooth" movement should not be considered poor quality. Animation is never actually a simple task, so I believe that people should respect the animators' hard work even if they dislike the style. Once again, good work!
It's not better, it just suits some situations more
Land of the Lustrous!!! I love it’s use of CGI and 2D animation and how seamlessly they fuses the two into a masterpiece
I love you for this video, its to the point, its informative without being too talkative, its a good length to keep my attention.
In 3:49 I was like "Are there going to be any TMNT animation in this video?" and then BOOM! I think I predicted something lol
6:08 SUBLO AND TANGY MUSTARD LETS GOOOOO
i feel like the movies "paperman" (disney) and "the peanuts movie" (bluesky) set the groundwork before spiderverse. Both of them had the mix of the 2D and 3D look to them, with the Peanuts movie having it's animation on twos. they weren't as nuanced and lifelike as spiderverse, but I feel as if both films were sort of pioneers of this kind of style before spiderverse. Most films afterwards had taken inspiration from spiderverse, but it's important to recognize things that came before it
5:21 Thank you for putting Dorohedoro
I really loved seeing Guilty Gear Strive also take this approach to non-interpolated 3D. It really fits with it’s ragged aesthetic and fighting games have a long history of impact and emphasis in 2D animation, which reminds me of your examples in anime. Also, that GDC talk by Skullgirls’s lead animator you showed for a second should be required watching for any animator period, it’s such a valuable resource for any type of animation
Because that's how your eyes move when your not focused on one thing.
The stuttering animation of Spiderverse and Puss in Boots TLW give me a headache. It's like walking in a pitch black room with a strobe light on.
4:58 I legit thought he said “fighting with the pewter” (like the metal)
I’m just learning how to animate and after hearing this, maybe I should also try messing around with choppy animation when animating.
as a software engineer the phrase "fighting your computer" resonated too much with me
I love seeing a return to form for recent animation styles such as Puss N Boots, Spiderverse and Guilty Gear. There’s such an added dimension of expression for something so simple, and it absolutely has to do with readability for the viewer- filling in the gaps in between without getting lost creates a significantly more interesting message that keeps everyone engaged. I can’t wait to see where we will take future animation!
Excellent videos as always, I love your soft and easy-to-follow style!
I really like this way of animating, and Spiderverse was done in a way that was similar to a comic book which I find really cool. Good stuff, it's really informative!
4:29 I did find the animation style in puss in bots kind of jarring not because it was holding on frames like that, but because in other movies in that cinematic universe, it was all done with full fledged smooth in-between frames, thus, it felt abnormal when they changed it up for the last wish. Had they used this technique consistently with previous movies it would've felt normal, though it did pay off in the end, the fight scenes were incredible once I got used to it...