Disney Does Digital, Ditches Drawings

May Kasahara writes "This is something which has been the talk amongst animators for the past couple of weeks: Walt Disney Feature Animation is in the process of halting all work on traditionally-animated features and going completely CG. Supposedly, all of their animators-- even staunch traditionalists such as Glenn Keane-- are being trained on 3D computer animation techniques. The last hand-drawn high-budget Disney feature scheduled for release is Home on the Range, which is due out next April. It appears that Disney is bowing to the supposed pressures of the market, even though the hand-drawn Lilo and Stitch was considered a success and the all-CG Dinosaur (done at Disney's now-defunct FX house The Secret Lab) was not. However, I believe there's another factor at work: Pixar's contract with Disney is set to expire soon, and the revered CG house has been making their own demands of Disney for the contract's renewal."

Comments

Walt Disney

[dolo666]

Walt Disney would have loved this move to full CG! He likely would not have liked Pixar's pushy behaviour, however. Apparently Walt loved the results of drawing cartoons, but complained about the long hours at his desk, until he gave up drawing altogether to supervise his own studio. He also loved new inventions, as he was the first person to make a cartoon with sound (Steamboat Willie (1928)). Therefore, I would have to say that Walt would have loved the idea of making machines draw for him!

Re:Walt Disney

[mr100percent]

How was Pixar pushy? They got screwed over contract-wise for Toy Story, and Disney managed to make a CG for less than a traditional animated film.

For the next movie (Bugs life?) they got a bit pushier, yes. They asked for top billing alongside the Disney trademark, and Steve Jobs managed to make Pixar a household name. Anyone know about current relations? They seem to be a cash cow for both parties.

Re:Walt Disney

[UnknowingFool]

He likely would not have liked Pixar's pushy behaviour

Pixar films has made like 1.5 billion dollars in ticket sales alone. That's not including merchandising, cross-licensing, and home entertainment. In that same time, what has Disney done with their animation films? Between Lilo and Stitch and Mulan, all other Disney films have done very poorly compared to Pixar and even Dreamworks. I think they've earned the right to be a bit pushy.

While Disney might have one of the most powerful marketing divisions in media, somehow, I suspect that all things outside film making mean little to Pixar. Sure they like the money that merchandising might bring in, they know they can get a better deal somewhere else. So if you're Pixar, do you stick with a 50/50 deal or do you shop around for a better one knowing that your partner needs you more than you need them?

Re:Walt Disney

[NaugaHunter]

Pixar was known in the film circles for their animated and award winning shorts. All Disney did was distribute Toy Story, it's mostly the movie itself that made Pixar famous. It can probably be argued that having Disney involved in merchandising and advertising did have a positive effect, but a) that wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't made a good movie, and b) that would have been a part of a deal with any distributor.

In other words, Pixar was MADE by Toy Story, which was made by Pixar exclusively. Disney was just the marketing tool who set the deal heavily in their own favor because they didn't think CGI movies would be as big as regular animation. (Of course, it's the plot/story that matters, but few distributors understand that.)

Re:Walt Disney

[drfuchs]

Walt Disney never drew a single cartoon character! He couldn't even draw Mickey Mouse when kids asked for his signature. It's a well-known fact. So what fantasy-land did you get your story from?

Re:Walt Disney

[mr100percent]

Toy Story was shot on a Budget of around $30Million USD. When Pixar pitched it to Disney, they had asked for at least $5Million more (but probably closer to $40Million total), but Disney said it was an outrageous price for animation and refused. Pixar had to lower the cost in the end. After the deal was inked and signed, Steve looked up the records and found out that Disney ROUTINELY does movies for way more than that.

Pocahontas, which came out the same year as Toy Story, had a $55Million budget. As a result, Pixar felt screwed and Jobs pushed harder for a better deal the next time around. Of course, Disney had better compulsion to accept for a second movie, seeing as Fox was making rival "Antz" as a CG animation to compete with their "A Bug's Life."

Re:Walt Disney

[DavesWorld334]

---quote---
He likely would not have liked Pixar's pushy behaviour, however.
-endquote---

Walt likely wouldn't have treated Pixar so incredibly poorly, as Eisner has.

After Toy Story 2 was produced by Pixar as a full-feature, at Disney's insistence, Eisner then shoved the terms of the contract down Pixar's throat (long-story shortened, Disney assumed any sequels to Pixar films would be Disney type sequels, which are always low budget direct-to-video and usually considered crap by the film market; for this reason apparently, the contract specifies sequels do not count towards the five pictures Pixar is contracted to deliver under the current deal).

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/302/302352p1.h tm l?fromint=1

Of course, Eisner took Disney's full cut for Toy Story 2, even though it "didn't count". Eisner further thumbed his nose by pointing out Disney could produce a third Toy Story film whenever it (Disney) liked.

I dearly, very dearly, hope Pixar walks after the way Disney's treated them. I hate seeing Disney's name on Pixar's work. It further infuriates me so many mundane folks don't understand Toy Story and Finding Nemo are *PIXAR* movies, not Disney movies.

I very much want Pixar to emulate Dreamworks (or Lucas with Fox if you like); production but cutting straight distribution deals with existing studio distribution muscle. Aside from the money, Pixar's storytellers *deserve* to own the stories and characters they've breathed life in so brilliantly. That Disney has ownership over Buzz Lightyear, Dorrie the Blue Fish, Flick the Ant, and even Sully the Monster is a creative travesty.

Any way you want to spin the story, the facts remain the same. Disney can't put a picture together since Katzenburg left, and Pixar hasn't hit less than a homerun yet. Pixar doesn't need Disney, and should walk just to show they're not going to reward those who treat them so poorly.

Other References:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/d nflash/sep200 1/nf20010928_5607.htm
http://www.macdirectory.com /ntrvu/Eisner/Index.htm l
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/columnist/l ieb erman/2003-02-09-pixar_x.htm

Re:Walt Disney

[mnemonic_]

"After the deal was inked and signed, Steve looked up the records and found out that Disney ROUTINELY does movies for way more than that."

Jobs investigated Disney's demands AFTER the deal was made? What kind of businessman is he?

Re:Walt Disney

[danimal]

Fox didn't make "Antz", Dreamworks did (and it was produced at PDI). The person at the helm of it all was Jeffry Katzenburg. Disney accused him of stealing the story for "A Bug's Life" because he had been head of Disney's animation group and then departed to found Dreamworks.

Re:Walt Disney

[Aidtopia]

Actually, I've seen interviews with Pixar folks (John Lasseter?) who praised Disney's contributions to the Toy Story script. They claimed that while the animation would have been just as superb, the story would have suffered without Disney, and thus the movie would not have been as good. I think it's misleading to claim that Disney was merely a distributor.

moving towards a paperless system

[56ker]

I try to limit the amount of paper used as far as possible. In this day and age - graphics tablets, decent graphics software I'm sure Disney have figured out that it's cheaper and more efficient to use a computer.

It also gives the animators more artistic freedoms as well as freedom from some of the drudgery of cell animation where every single frame has to be drawn by hand.

Re:moving towards a paperless system

[eetvar]

I do not think the point here was about ditching paper, that transition has already mostly happened. (AFAIK)

The point was moving from drawing lines in 2d to modeling+animating+rendering in 3d. (although the result might sometimes look like hand-drawn, if wanted..)

eetu.

Re:moving towards a paperless system

[fenix down]

See, that makes sense, but they already did that with Lilo & Stich, I believe. All the DVD special features stuff was all them on the Macs and tablets, anyway.

I'd like a article from competent people rather than USA Today, who clearly don't have a clue what the hell they're talking about. Are they abandoning 2D or hand-drawing? USA Today makes it sound like 2D in general is getting thrown out, which is idiotic any way you slice it.

3D animation is a great medium, but unless Disney can develop some kind of style for it, they're screwed. They're throwing out their 2D style, which is absolutely unique, and jumping into 3D which they're not going to be able to brand anywhere near as easily.

Not that using computers is a problem, but doing things in 2D gives you stylistic options you don't get doing 3D. You have to make an actual 3D model when you're doing CG, with 2D you can bend space-time and make it look good. With CG you're stuck with basically a puppet show, albeit a much more elaborate puppet show, but you have to go at it like a physical place or else it looks ridiculous.

Re:moving towards a paperless system

[scottgfx]

Disney has a system called CAPS. It's a computer based ink and paint system that I believe was developed in the 80's... By PIXAR... Ed Catmull anyway.

The Disney film "The Black Cauldron" made use of 3D generated elements. "The Great Mouse Detective" I believe is another one.

Re:moving towards a paperless system

[AnyNoMouse]

Strangely enough, that's not really true. On Studio Ghibli's latest film, The Cat Returns, they included a second disc titled "Giblies." In Japanese, the studio's name pronounced with a soft G (Jibli), but the second disc title has it spelled with a hard G.

Anyway, the entire disc is basically the animators playing around with various 3d software programs. You'd hardly recognize it as 3d! It's very stylistic and doesn't have that "puppet" feel at all. Of course, the entire thing is rendered with a special cell shader (not the type I'm used to seeing) and was overall very difficult to tell from a regular 2d animation.

Could Disney pull this off? Who knows, but it's at least a possibility.

not the most important.

[mirko]

3D is not all.
I personally consider that "The Emperor's new groove" though classsically designed is much better than some more technologically advanced movie.
Now, if they want to privilegiate the marketing and the buzzwords to the storytelling, it's their business.

Sad news, Mickey Mouse dead.

[cliffy2000]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - cartoon Mickey Mouse was found dead in his Anaheim home this morning. There weren't any more details yet. I'm sure we'll all miss him, even if you weren't a fan of his work there's no denying his contribution to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Re:Sad news, Mickey Mouse dead.

[Nucleon500]

Although it's sad that Mickey is gone, we will always have his copyright to remember him by.

I'll miss the hand-drawn movies..

[smilingirl]

I will miss the old hand-drawn films. They have a certain nostalgia about them... the not-so-crispness lends a certain effect that is lost in computer-generated animation. CG is nice, but I don't think they should completely eradicate the old way.

Re:I'll miss the hand-drawn movies..

[NanoGator]

"CG is nice, but I don't think they should completely eradicate the old way."

Even though I'm a 3D artist, I must say I agree with you. I wonder if anybody at Disney (any of the PHBs rather) has ever seen Animatrix. If they had any appreciation for the artform, they'd reconsider their view. All those movie segments were animated and drawn in dramatically different ways. And, most importantly, it *worked*. If those movies had all looked like the Final Fantasy-esque technique used in Flight of the Osiris, a huge chunk of the intrigue of those movies would simply have disappeared.

Why? Because drawing by hand is about as close as drawing straight from your imagination as you can get. With CG, you have to rationalize your style in 3D form. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but it takes your creative look and applies rules to it.

Now, there's nothing that says you can't have unique style to 3D. I've seen some rather interesting and impressive attempts at it. I saw one 3D movie that was made by using a series of filters that made it look water-colored. Cool effect, but I have a seriously difficult time imagining how the Animatrix Movie with the skateboarding kid in highschool would have been done in 3D. (Sorry, the title of it escapes me.)

Hmm. I guess there's a silver lining though. Maybe if everything is pushed through 3D, it'll force new creative styles to surface. Just wish it wasn't at the cost of a whole media.

2D Computer generated?

[jokkebk]

It would be interesting to see "normal" animations generated with computers, instead of the now-so-common 3D things like Finding Nemo.
I would suppose digital equipment would offer lots of possibilities for texturing in general, and cinematic effects such as lense focus, motion
blur and a lot of more complex things.

Well, if 3D feature animations sell, then those we shall have, it seems. And I do have to admit that Finding Nemo does have a similar look to it as some "traditional" animation titles, being "less" three-dimensional..

Re:2D Computer generated?

[MtViewGuy]

I think Disney is heading towards doing animated features that look like traditional hand-drawn animation but is completely computer-generated.

The reason is simple: this allows for much more sophisticated character movements, lighting effects, and cinematic effects. Anyway, both Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet were almost there in terms of computer animation, anyway, with only the main characters being hand-drawn (and that's debateable at best). If you look at Lilo & Stitch, while the hand-painted watercolor backgrounds look great it is also a LOT of work to paint such backgrounds; with today's computer illustration technology, we can do backgrounds completely by computer that has that watercolor painted look.

This change is actually not new; in Japan, anime TV series and movies are mostly done by computer anyway due to the fact that Fujifilm stopped producing in the late 1990's the clear plastic sheets that is used to paint animation cel drawings on.

Re:2D Computer generated?

[Unknown Relic]

Actually a huge number of "normal" animations are already being done by computer. One example which many people here may be familiar with is the Dilbert series. Another even more extreme example is Southpark which is done using Maya, something you'd never know from looking at it.

One good indicator that computers and 3d modeling is part of the process is how the background moves. Traditionally drawn cartoons often have static backgrounds. They may move, but very rarely does the angle at which you're viewing the background change. This is why cartoons today typically have much more dynamic environments than they did in the past. Going back to the Dilbert example, the opening credits of the show demonstrate this extremely well.

Re:2D Computer generated?

[acroyear]

Well, it doesn't change all the time in "2-D" but it DOES change. Disney has a fantastic package called "Deep Canvas" that does most of the work for generating the 3-D backgrounds while appearing like 2-D space. Its used heavily in Tarzan, Atlantis, and Treasure Planet (where they added the ability to "move" parts of the background around). It allows the background people to "paint" directly into the computer the complete 3-D picture, by painting onto geometric solids with the stylus.

meanwhile, a skeleton-graphics outline of the shapes are sent to the 2-D animators to draw onto, with those outlines removed by the cleanup crew before going into the computer for the final mix down. The computer has already replaced the "ink-and-paint" department, and the "multi-plane camera" of Disney's history; there are no "cels" anymore.

Machines now are fast enough, over their 1997 Tarzan-era counterparts, to render Deep Canvas's work at run-time, as opposed to having to do overnight rendering sessions and see the finished product the next day. This means that effectively Deep Canvas can now be used for pretty much ALL the sets, whether the background will move or not, because the biggest time constraint (rendering) is now a non-issue.

However, what you will get, IMHO, when the 2-D people start using the computer more directly is a lot of scanning. They'll still draw the roughs onto paper, scan them into the computer, then manipulate their 3-D character model to what they already drew. It may actually be the trick to get 3-D to move "properly".

One of the biggest problems with (Disney Feature Style) 2-D animation is the characters move around too much, compared to real life. One of the biggest problems with (Pixar/Dreamworks) 3-D animation is the characters move around too little, compared to real life.

So by having 2-D people drawing on paper, scanning into the computer, you'll get 3-D models that move too much. Have them runthrough and slow things down a little, and the balance between the two (making "perfect" 3D) may finally be achieved.

The only thing *really* being lost in all this is the ability of the animators to reflect the "look" of the actors who provide the voices. Ellen DeGeneres's character in Nemo is the closest I've seen 3-D come to doing what Disney does with their 2-D characters, in that aspect. Consider Rourke in Atlantis (James Garner), Victor and Hugo in Hunchback (one definitely looks like Jason Alexander), Danny DeVito's character in Hercules, or even the the two mooses in Brother Bear (who do kinda look a little like Bob & Doug MacKenzie). 3-D character design at present does not allow that kind of control over eye movements to really get the drama or comedy of the original voice performance across, where the best model for that is the voice artist themselves. Exagerations work in 2-D, they don't work in 3-D. As I said, Dory is one of the few times I've been able to "see" the voice actor in the work produced (Shrek's Donkey being the first, but its hard to miss Eddie Murphy, who'd already done voice work before in Mulan). 3-D just doesn't have the "human touch" consistently, IMHO, that well-done 2-D will always have.

One last comment: Is it really necessary to have the background angle move all the time? Its good for action scenes, and sometimes for tense dramatic moments, but it really gets in the way of exposition sequences, and ANY film director will tell you that. Just because you CAN move the background all the time, or even most of the time, doesn't mean you should. Even in 3-D films, they don't do it all the time; set a camera angle (the job of the layout department) and stick to it.

On a side note, I'd give almost anything to have the footage of DeGeneres in the studio during her recording of the "whale song" sequence of Nemo...

Drawing by hand will still be around

[Gogl]

This is really just a sensible evolution, a transition to a newer way of making a polished product. Drawing by hand will still be around as an intermediate step for design and planning (storyboards and such).

CG != 3D

[obsidianpreacher]

Making a transition to "computer graphics" does not necessarily mean a move to "3D work." There's been tons of CG usage in Disney cartoons already (stampede in Lion King, flying through trees in Tarzan, etc.), and neither of those would be considered 3D animations (like Toy Story, Shrek, et. al.) ... hell, even South Park is animated completely by computer, and you can't seriously tell me that it looks in the least like it's 3D.

This is not going to be the end of a traditional 2D-look for cartoons, but I can see it as Disney just embracing the technology that's there, like they did with Snow White and the pseudo-3D frame photography that they used for that.

Re:CG != 3D

[90XDoubleSide]

Every Disney movie made after The Little Mermaid has been done entirely on CAPS without the use of cells; if that's what they meant, they did it over a decade ago. They could do some movies that are animated in 3D and rendered with cell shaders as was done in Titan A.E., but if they say they're retraining their animators, it seems that the drawn animation process is going out.

Re:CG != 3D

[cascino]

Making a transition to "computer graphics" does not necessarily mean a move to "3D work." There's been tons of CG usage in Disney cartoons already (stampede in Lion King, flying through trees in Tarzan, etc.), and neither of those would be considered 3D animations (like Toy Story, Shrek, et. al.)
I believe this is incorrect. The way I understand it, CG was used in both of the examples you cited to add 3d elements to a 2d cartoon. In The Lion King, the stampede sequence uses 3d to show changing overhead perspectives (think tracking cameras) across the moving herd of wildebeasts. In Tarzan, the trees were CG modelled such that they could be rotated, panned, etc., during the "flying through trees" sequences.
In both cases, simple 2d characters were overlaid on 3d animations. The only difference between those two examples and Toy Story, Shrek, et al., is the fact that the primary characters were composited from 2d sources, not 3d.
I think the best example is the rotating ballroom from the "dance" sequence from Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, the technology's been improved, and the primary focus (the characters) are hand-drawn, but otherwise there's no difference between that and the 3d animations you mentioned above.

Pixar

[Spytap]

To call Pixar pushy is to miss the point: right now they're getting screwed. Disney is getting 50% of their movies for doing nothing more than distributing. Pixar is investing years of labor and untold hours of computing time into making these as good as possible and Disney is pulling crap like not counting Toy Story 2 in the original 5 movie deal (Disney doesn't count sequels as new properties, even when they're immensely successful and have a veyr nice theatrical run).
Pixar deserves whatever they can get, and Disney deserves the same deal that Fox gets for distributing Lucas' work: 15% or lower.
That being said, I would also venture to guess that Pixar is looking to branch out into more adult fare as well. It's only time until a fully rendered CG film deals with adult themes (NOT porn...but that's a possibility too) instead of just catering to kiddie audiences. Finding Nemo was closer than anything else they've done, but my guess is that once Disney drops Pixar, they announce a PG-13 rated drama.

Re:Pixar

[Animats]

Nobody, even Lassiter and Jobs, really expected that Pixar would end up being a better and more original storyteller than Disney. Yet they did. Most Disney work is derivative. From Snow White to Treasure Planet, the story came from elsewhere. "Toy Story" and "Monsters, Inc" are entirely original. That's an achievement. Pixar has a good team. What makes them successful is their original concepts, not their All Renderman All the Time style. Monsters, Inc. would have worked as cel animation. Other technologies yield more realistic animation (see Stuart Little, which was done in Maya).

Re:Pixar

[Pseudonym]

Nobody, even Lassiter and Jobs, really expected that Pixar would end up being a better and more original storyteller than Disney. Yet they did. Most Disney work is derivative. From Snow White to Treasure Planet, the story came from elsewhere.

I think this is more than a little unfair. In the early days, Disney's films were highly original, because they had to basically invent the process upon which modern animation studios basically get a free ride. They had to deal with far more fundamental questions than Pixar does today, such as: Could you hold an audience's attention for 75+ minutes with a cartoon? Could you make an audience do anything but laugh with a cartoon? Could you, for example, make them cry? These are hard problems to solve, and nobody had tried it before.

As for originality, I'm not sure that Pixar's five (so far) films are a good sample. Shrek isn't an original story either, but it did extremely well at the box office. Besides, A Bug's Life isn't exactly the most original plot ever written.

Disney's problem, as I see it, is that they got complacent. They've decided that they're going to release two animated features a year, and that's too much creativity for their team, so they basically started turning their direct-to-video "cheapquels" into theatrical releases (Jungle Book 2 and Return to Never Land being two recent examples) and assumed that people would turn up to see them. If there's one thing that Disney has a long history of, it's producing filler material.

Nobody knows what kind of movie will work and what will not. The history of cinema is littered with highly original flops as well as highly derivative flops. However, there are certain things which are known not to work, and trying to sell a film on brand name alone is one of them.

Now to Pixar. They have a young, fresh team with lots of new ideas, and enough money in the bank to sit on a film until it's ready to be made. The big question is: How long can they sustain this? Only time will tell.

Re:Pixar

[Quarters]

Other technologies yield more realistic animation (see Stuart Little, which was done in Maya).

Yes yes, it's all about the technology and has nothing to do with the art direction. Monsters, Inc. doesn't look like it does because of the technology. It looks like it does because that is how Pixar wanted it to look.

Re:Pixar

[Remus Shepherd]

In the early days, Disney's films were highly original, because they had to basically invent the process upon which modern animation studios basically get a free ride.

When where Disney's films highly original? Do you mean their remaking of traditional fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Pinnochio and Jungle Book? Bambi and Fantasia are the only 'original' full-length Disney films I can think of from their early days.

Disney has a reputation for Borg-like assimilation of traditional myth, and a reputation for horribly dumbing those myths down in the process. They've never been what anyone would call an avant garde company. Pixar is, and it would serve Pixar well to get away from the all-consuming mouse.

Pixar should go it alone

[Dachannien]

Quite honestly, Pixar doesn't need Disney at all. Pixar could easily get the capital necessary to build their own distribution house, especially considering that digital media are rapidly replacing film in theaters. If they did break off their relationship with Disney, it would provide Pixar the chance to offer some more serious fare, finally giving the US a studio to compete with some of the higher-budget anime of recent years (a la Ghost in the Shell or Final Fantasy).

Re:Pixar should go it alone

[ppanon]

Heck, if Pixar built their own distribution channel, they could probably compete with Disney for bringing over a lot of the better anime. I can't believe it took until the last few years for someone at Disney to decide to translate and distribute Miyazaki's work in North America. In fact, if I remember correctly that John Lasseter was a major factor in the Disney distribution of Miyaxaki's work, I could see Pixar taking over that distribution unless Disney already has those distribution rights under contract.

But I'm not sure if Jobs really wants to go that far. Is there really room for one more movie distribution company in N.A? Steve Jobs may want to keep to Pixar's core competencies. At one point in time Pixar was a software shop that sold Renderman and other CGI tools and John Lasseter's shorts were either skunkworks or funded to show off the capabilities of the company's software products. Now they seem to be primarily an animation house built around John Lasseter. While some diversification may be in order to not be completely dependent on Lasseter (Ifni forbid he ever be hit by a bus!), movie distribution may not be the best alternative.

If you've been following John Lasseter's work since Luxo Jr. and Red's Dream, then it shouldn't come as a big surprise that Pixar's recent features have done better than most of Disney's. John is not only a CGI pioneer, but also an incredible storyteller.

Re:Pixar should go it alone

[mirko]

Holding hands and chanting to crystal spirits won't get you anywhere.

Funny bit.
I am however sure movies are much too expensive nowadays and most masterpieces are ignored because of too much commercial noise from the big blockbusting factories.
Is it what you call "holding hands and chanting to crystal" ?

Nothing New...

[jasonripp]

Disney has been using CG in their "traditional" animation for some time. My kids were watching "The Emperor's New Groove" the other day and I watched the behind-the-scenes portion in which they showed how many elements (such as the wagon pulled by the John Goodman character) were CG and combined with traditional animation for the characters. It looks just like the cel-based animation, since they use shaders that make the 3D objects look hand-drawn. If I recall correctly, they also used a good bit of CG in even older productions, such as "Beauty and the Beast."

This is also a trend that goes beyond Disney- DreamWorks used lots and lots of CG in "Spirit- Stallion of the Cimmeron" (the extras on the DVD are worth watching).

The thing to remember in all this is that the move to CG doesn't mean you won't have Disney features that look hand-drawn. Not all CG looks like work from Pixar or "Shrek." Use the right shaders and picking out the CG from hand-drawn gets very difficult indeed.

It's not the medium...

[Masem]

..it's the plot, characters, and other parts of the presentation. The last several Disney movies ( Atlantis, Treasure Island) have suffered from being overly casted by big names but lacking any plot, and while trying to be serious, they through in characters that are to be lovable and huggable. This has been going on ever since Lion King, as they struggle to try to recreate the formula that Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, the Little Mermaid, and Alladin were about to do.

On the other hand, the story writing and characters created by Pixar in the their last several movies could have easily been able to be done with traditional animation, assuming a good animation studio was behind it. The 3d CGI adds the right amount of sparkle to an already top-notch story, but the writing is so good, that the 3d is not necessary.

What Disney needs is to rethink their approach to their 'animated' features. Lilo and Stitch *was* funny and was a good movie, and beautiful to look at with the watercolor backgrounds. If it was done in 3d, it actually may have actually lost something in the final presenation. But the key improvement was the writing where they turned back to their past talent and got them to do their thing, and didn't muck about in making it family friendly. As such, it's a very witty movie. But when the management gets too deep in the details to make a movie more appealing to the very young crowd, it suffers drastically (such as Treasure Planet did).

Fortunately, I don't think Dreamworks is giving up their feature animation department. Sure, Sinbad didn't do so well, but they have had a few good shots with that and with The Road to El Diablo. (If anything, Dreamworks fault lies in too much 2D/3D overlap). WB has disbanded it's feature animation department (The new LT movie is not much as aniamted as it is live), and FOX killed it's line after Titan AE failed. It's a shame that people think that 3d is the only way that people will appreicate an animated movie. The only reason that every Pixar movie has worked is that every Pixar movie has great writing behind it, not just a bunch of render farms.

Pressures of the market, my fanny

[jht]

Lilo and Stitch wasn't a success becuse it was hand-drawn, it was a success because the story was interesting, the characters were fun, and the movie well-made. And Dinosaur wasn't a flop because it was a CG film, it was a flop because it sucked.

CG lets you do cool stuff that's not readily feasible by hand, but it's no substitute for a good story. The marketplace isn't pressuring Disney to abandon hand-drawing, it's pressuring Disney to make good films. They've just made a decision that they're better off producing them via CG instead of hand animation. Right now, though, Disney's good animated films are all coming from Pixar - who happen to be an all-CG shop.

Does CG only mean 3d ?

[zymano]

Can CG do high quality artistic caliber 2d drawings ?

When I am watching a movie i almost don't care if it's 2d or 3d as long as it's good.

Re:Does CG only mean 3d ?

[Tokerat]

If you've ever watched Futurama and seen the spaceship they fly around in, you've seen 3D CG with a cartoon-ish shader at work. That can be really useful in some aspects of cartooning.

...And if you've ever seen more than perhaps the very first episode (season?) of South Park, you've seen 2D CG at work, which is pretty much Flash on steroids. Of course, that doesn't mean all 2D CG will appear like South Park, of course. Regular cartoons can easily be created as well.

Why 3D? Why not computer based 2D?

[enkidu]

Why are they insisting on 3D? It seems to me that there's plenty of opportunity and market for well drawn, intersting 2D animation with good stories. The problem with Disney's latest offerings (aside from the mentioned Lilo and Stitch) has been an appalling lack of creativity in story and plot. If you look at the anime coming out of Japan, the large majority of it is still 2D and a lot of it is completely awesome. A couple of the more recent ones which got limited theatrical releases here in the U.S. were Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and Cowboy Bebop: the Movie. Both were 2D animation with great visual and story quality. Of course, Spirited Away was also mostly 2D (with some 3D affects and scenes added) also. There's still plenty of life left in 2D, why try to teach people who have been great at it for so many years to switch? Why abandon all of the expertise and skills you've built up?

Of course, that doesn't mean that they should abandon the 3D animation arena to Dreamworks and Pixar. Developing talent and capabilities in the 3D arena are clearly needed (and could be melded into existing 2D techniques ala the ballroom scene in "Beauty and the Beast"). Still concluding that 2D is dead seems a bit premature to me.

Re:Aladdin

[Trillian_1138]

Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991 and used CG in the ballroom scene, well before Aladdin. It's considered Disney's first use of CG: when Belle and Beast are dancing around. The camera zooms in on them dancing (actually drawn) and pulls out on a CG ballroom.

-Trillian

Re:Walt loved technology, yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

uh no, that's just an urban legend.

Poor summary

[Kevan_moran]

May's summary seems rather poor to me.

Walt Disney Feature Animation is in the process of halting all work on traditionally-animated features and going completely CG.

Article says-

Stainton, who took over as animation chief earlier this year, insists the press obituaries for 2-D are premature. "It is a bit of a media creation to say 2-D is dead.

Supposedly, all of their animators-- even staunch traditionalists such as Glenn Keane-- are being trained on 3D computer animation techniques.

Article says -

"We will always do whatever fits the story best," Cook assures. "We've gone on a concerted effort to train and re-train artists. But we will keep our great sensibility."

The last hand-drawn high-budget Disney feature scheduled for release is Home on the Range, which is due out next April.

Article says -

continues with the computer/hand-drawn hybrid A Few Good Ghosts in '06 as well as the spoof Rapunzel Unbraided in '07.

Re:Aladdin

[Nexzus]

According to IMDB, it was the The Rescuers Down Under, made in 1990.

It's about creativity and art

[snStarter]

What Pixar has brought to its animation is a respect for its audience, high quality animation, and artistic integrity. And they have consistantly done something that other studios seem to do only by accident: create characters a wide spectrum of audiences can actually CARE about.

I'm happy Pixar is out there because their stories aren't cynical. They reflect an integrity that comes from imbuing their characters with a fundamental humanity we all can relate to. It's good for children. It's good for everyone.

I'm hoping they push up the rating scale and make more complex stories as well. If Pixar starts to write stories about ambiguous characters they can truly re-invent American animation.

Luddites!

[Nathdot]

There seems to be a whole buncha people complaining that this is the death of art, blah blah blah, as we know it.

CG does not mean that all animation will be 3D/look the same. It's just a new set of tools, practices allowing the artist to work with greater efficiency and a better palette.

Maybe we should go back to filming flip-book drawings if this advancement is so universally reviled.

Remember, "CG" Doesn't mean 3D

[Aqua OS X]

Remember, just because Disney is moving to all CG, does not mean that every Disney movie is going to look like a Pixar flick. A lot of folks here seem to have that impression.

Most Disney movies already incorporate a lot of CG (ie Treasure Planet). However, Disney still choses to use a lot of design principles that people typically identify with older hand drawn Disney cartoons.

(ohh and on a side note... South Park is nearly 100% CG, and that looks nothing like a pixar flick ;) )

Italian Wedding

[Graymalkin]

Disney's been heading into the CG arena for quite a few years now. While cels are still hand drawn they all end up scanned into a computer and colored and composited digitally. Drawing directly on the computer instead of scanning cels simply cuts out a rather pricey step in the animation process. They also get to leverage the computer's innate ability to do really tedious jobs quickly.

If they made some software that would take something drawn on a tablet and convert it into NURBS and let the animator define relationships easily they could save a lot of time animating. They could adopt interpolation techniques used in 3D animation to flat 2D animation. It also isn't terribly difficult to adapt 3D animation to look like cel drawings. Disney's been doing that for years, ever since the antilope scene in Kimb^H^H^H^HLion King. The milling crowds in the Hunchback of Notre Dame were animated using a similar technique.

Regardless of how Disney makes their films I just want them to hire some decent writers. Their movies aren't flops because of the animation techniques, they flops because they're crappy movies. I had really high hopes for Atlantis. It looked like it might be an interesting flick from the previews. Titan AE despite its suckiness was a much better animated action flick. Emperor's New Groove however was pretty funny and is one of if not the best animated disney flick made in the past several years. Treasure Planet was as boring and uninspired as Atlantis. Hercules however was pretty funny and kept my interest. Lilo & Stitch so didn't live up to my expectations. It needed way more Stitch hilarity and less whining about being a family.

Disney production method not the problem

[PotatoHead]

Disney needs to learn a few lessons from Pixar regarding respect for their viewers.

Disney DVD:

Too damn many previews, lame plots, good characters, One disk for movie, other disk for special features, lots of stickers on the side to peel off.

Pixar DVD:

Almost the opposite. You get two discs containing the movie, one wide and one full pan & scan. So, one for the kids to thrash and one to keep for later, or give to a friend. No forced previews, and one security sticker.

Frankly, the Pixar packaging and presentation value is easily 2X that of Disney and that does not even count the movie. Which has been more lame than usual these days.

Pixar is making new stories instead of pillaging the public domain as Disney tends to do often. Sure, there are new stories from Disney, but they have not been as good as those produced by Pixar.

Given all the crap Disney does behind the scenes regarding copyright issues plus their overly pushy presentation and packaging issues, I believe many people are more than willing to look at other options.

Disney can retool their production house all they want, but they are going to lose big in the DVD market as long as they keep releasing the way they do.

I can't wait to see Pixar go once they can do what they want.

I have to say...

[SuuSt]

It's a bit ironic that as Disney switches from the cell shaded look to the 3D, many video games are switching from the 3D look to cell shaded.

Re:Walt loved technology, yes.

[SuuSt]

I always thought the idea of freezing yourself after death with the idea that future technology can cure whatever ails you was a touch silly. After all, you're not so much waiting for a day when they can cure a given disease, you're waiting for the day when they can re-animate the dead.

Even if you're frozen moments before death, the body they unfreeze will be so over ridden with cancer (or whatever) they're going to have a hard time keeping you alive long enough for the cure to even work.

No, your best bet is to get frozen a good 6 months prior to when you are likely to die, and have a poison capsule stuck in your teeth just in case you get woken up in a future George Bush XXVI is president (rim-shot).

Disney Digital? Dangerous.

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

'Dotters discuss Disney.

Disney ditching drawing? Digital Disney? Dumb.

Donald Duck doesn't do dimensions. Dumbo doesn't. Dalmations don't. Drawings darling. Drawings delight.

Dinosaur dimensionful -- Dinosaur dumb. Duh.

Disney's dangerous decision dooms Disney's deliverables! Defines Disney's decay, death.

Don't deify dimensionality. Deceptive.

- Dominic

Already censored by Disney?

[eMartin]

Pixar's 1986 short film Knick Knack that was played with Finding Nemo and included on the DVD has been modified to remove "adult" content.

Was this at Disney's request?

It's the scripts, stupid.

[Hanno]

Disney's 2D department is in limbo because recent scripts were weak. Their animators are still great!

Cynical businessmen have looted the Disney legacy, with classy projects such as "Peter Pan 2", "Hunchback 2", "Cinderella 2", "Aladdin: The Series" etc.

Disney dug its own grave, believing in their homemade "sure" formula for success. The formula is deader than dead. The audience didn't want to be fooled any longer and chose the better films: Those made by Pixar, where you can still see the spark and joy of the people creating these films.

If you're looking for what modern Disney could be, look for the films of Miyazaki. It's still a mystery to me why the old films from the back catalog of Ghibli is still being ignored by Europeans and Americans.

Emperor's New Groove had plenty of CG

[Mewf]

Emperor's new groove has a lot more CG in it than most people realise. I mean, the makority of people realise that the big log falling down the waterfall was quite obvious 3D art, but there were a lot of little things that went by unnoticed: The cart that Pacha pulls around when he goes to see the Emperor, for example, or the bag that Kuzco is dropped in.

Disney seem to have foudn a method of generatign a 3D model, and animate it in a way that looks cartoony. At the very least, the 3D models were used as rough sketches form which to draw the cartoony bits.

Also, Emperor's new groove was coloured entirely digitally.

(I'm getting all this from the second DVD in the special edition of the film, BTW.)

Pushy nothing - Pixar's been getting shorted

[silentbozo]

The contract Pixar signed with Disney basically said this:

Make 5 movies for us. We (Disney) will own all the franchise rights. Once your 5 movies are up, we'll let you out of the contract.

Pixar makes Toy Story. Disney makes millions. Pixar makes A Bugs Life. Disney makes millions. Pixar makes Toy Story 2, originally for direct to video, but its so good, Disney decides to put it in theatres.

Pixar asks, will Toy Story 2 count toward our 5 picture obligation? Disney says, hell no - it's not a new franchise. You still owe us three new films. Pixar makes Finding Nemo, Disney makes millions, etc.

At this point Pixar is asking, why are we busting our butts for the mouse and letting them rake in all the money? Disney has had it good... way too good.

This is just normal negotiations, now that Pixar is in a better position. Disney needs that cash flow (since they're doing a lousy job at generating decent stories in-house), but Pixar also benefits from the awesome distribution and promotion arm that Disney wields. I figure Disney will sign Pixar, but will shortly try and cut them loose if and when their own in-house 3d department makes good.

Too bad for Disney (I think laying off most of Feature Animation was a mistake), but that's what happens when the accountants and lawyers are running the asylum...

Some problems and oversights..

[ovadose]

The French Disney studio was closed because France was always too expensive to do animation in. The studio was only created to appease the French government to get Eurodisney through.

The Japanese studio closing is a sad thing. Disney don't have enough quality product to feed their studios, so it came down to Australia and Japan, and Japan got the arse for whatever reason. There is still an active studio in Australia producing 2D stuff, most of which goes direct to video but there is some film work. A lot of the crappier TV/direct to video stuff is done by contractors in the philipines. So 2D, hand drawn animation still does exist at Disney.

One of the biggest changes a move to an entirely computer based system presents is it takes away your training school for new animators. Traditionally, animators start out as inbetweeners, doing all the grunt work to get a film through. The inbetweeners with talent are soon picked up and moved through the various departments before they become proper animators and eventually senior animators if they are good enough. Moving to an entirely digital platform means the inbetweeners and cleanup artists suddenly don't exist anymore. Where do the animators come from in this new model? It's a pretty big change.

That said, most animation at Disney has been mostly computer based for years. While most of the 2D frames are still drawn on paper, they're scanned and painted and composited entirely on computer. It speeds the process up and improves the quality significantly, while still preserving the feel of hand drawn animation, which is a good thing imho.

3D gives you 2D

[G4from128k]

3D animation is a great medium, but unless Disney can develop some kind of style for it, they're screwed. They're throwing out their 2D style, which is absolutely unique, and jumping into 3D which they're not going to be able to brand anywhere near as easily.

Good point, but.....3D modelling gives you 2D automatically when a 3D scene is rendered for a frame. The trick for Disney is to create their own 3D modeling and 3D-to-2D rendering algorithms that replicate that Disney 2D animation style. Although many see photorealism as the Holy Grail for 3D, nothing is stopping clever programmers from rendering a 3D scenes as a series of flat "cartoon-like" objects or adding in embellishments like object distortion with speed or "whoosh" lines.

Technology is only part of it...

[artemis67]

The fact is that Pixar knows how to tell a great story. The CG is meaningless without that. There are lots of CG movies and TV shows flooding the market these days, but Pixar is still able to make a name for themselves because it's about the story first and the technology second.

what of Gainax and Ghibli?

[DirkGently]

The article cites that, among other things, traditional 2D takes too long, and somehow looks dated. Hrm. Someone should inform Hiyo Miazaki that Priness Mononoke & Spirited Away are behind the times. There's something to be said about goddamn moving paintings . They also state that Brother Bear was hand drawn for a warm, organic feel. It's a shame they're in such a hurry to lose that.

Why not a mix of the two technologies? In keeping with the times, the 6-episode anime "FLCL" by Gainax was an entirely digital creation, while still being cell-based. No shortage of cutting edge techniques employed there. Made for a gorgeous DVD transfer, to boot.

Maybe this isn't a such bad thing. Maybe this will make room for other talented 2D cell artists to tread where the Mouse no longer fears to go. I've got my fingers crossed.

Not surprising

[stylee]

considering that every Pixar film has been a huge success, and the last animated cartoon Disney has put out that came close to any Pixar film was Aladin.

Of course, Disney films will continue to suck, CGI or not as long as they continue to do unoriginal, unimaginitive work. The reason Pixar has been successful is not because they do CGI, but because they don't rehash the same theme endlessly and they don't follow formulaic storytelling.

This decision won't last long

[Zed2K]

Disney will come out and have a press release stating they are doing away with hand drawn 2d animation and switching to all computer generated animation. People will ooo and ahh. Then their first movie under this change will come out and people will not like it and not go to see it. Disney will lose a ton of money and realize there is a time and place for everything and switch back to using a mix of hand drawn and computer generated like they do now.

Re:3d is limitless

[AJWM]

You're assuming limitations of software that aren't inherent. Oh, they may be inherent to specific packages, but this is why the big studios have hordes of programmers to develop or customize software as needed.

Want to pull a sight gag like the classic Wile E. Coyote drawing a picture of a tunnel on a rock and having the RoadRunner go through it? Simple, first model the rock with a pixmap of the tunnel picture rendered on the surface (ditto when the coyote tries to run through it). For the roadrunner scene, substitute a model of the rock with an actual tunnel cut into it. No big deal. (Alternatively, model the real tunnel all along but put an invisible wall across it for the coyote to smack into.) Just keep the camera POV fixed.

Fox in "Ice Age" did a number of classic Looney Tunes-like character morphs, particularly of Scrat (the saber-tooth squirrel-rat), e.g. eyeballs bulging when it gets squeezed in the glacier, arms stretching ridiculously when it tries to pull the acorn from the ice, etc.

In a series of short clips Pixar did for the Disney Channel (IIRC), there are a couple with Woody and Buzz casting optically impossible (but funny!) shadows (in the light from, of course, a Luxo lamp).

Don't forget that you can not only change the camera parameters from frame to frame, but also the models (indeed, you have to do that to get motion) and your rules of model motion don't have to match the laws of physics. Even where they do, you can cheat. The scene in "Toy Story" where the toy soldiers parachute from the upper floor is faked -- there's a brief period where the soldiers are out of view as they go over the side and the "camera" follows; the animators set this up to have the original toys "hide" under the floor while two others with opening parachutes appear in their place (I forget why they had to do this, but it simplified something else).

Sure, there's probably a class of 2D sight gags that just aren't as funny in 3D. But there are also things you can pull off in 3D (or even CG 2D) because of the computerization that would just be way too labor-intensive in conventional 2D.

(For great examples of some other effects, see what happens when the modelling/rendering software glitches as in the "errors" reel from "Shrek" on the DVD.)

Re:3d is limitless

[AJWM]

Well, in 3D it's also true that if you can draw it, you can do it. The thing is that creating 3D models is a bigger PITA than simply sketching something, so you really want to leverage that by animating the model rather than creating a new, slightly different model for each frame. (Or rather, you want to let the computer create that new model rather than creating it manually.)

OTOH, once you've developed the algorithms (and maybe, acquired a fast enough computer) to generate a certain kind of model effect, you can re-use it again and again. (E.g., modelling how clothing reacts to motion.)

Of course, that depends on how close the computer simulation matches the real world vs taking shortcuts that render okay but are situation-specific.

Just Like 'New Coke'

[taradfong]

Coke introduced 'New Coke', people hated it and grew nostalgic for 'Old Coke'. So Coke brilliantly re-introduced 'Coke Classic'. Turns out 'Coke Classic' sales beat pre-'New Coke' sales. People still debate whether Coke created a conspiracy here or got lucky. And there's even room for more future mystique harvesting - people still think the 'Old Coke' tasted better than 'Coke Classic', so someday Coke could release 'Coke Old Fashioned' or something and make more money selling unhealthy water crammed with as much sugar (12 teaspoons) as science will allow.

Anyway, Disney's doing the same thing. People will long for the good old days of hand drawn animation now long gone. Pretty soon, Disney will designate movies as '100% hand drawn' and artificially add value and mystique to the same old thing they've been doing before.