3D CG in Rebuild [split]

[NAveryW]

The slight imperfections make it more interesting, though.

I can see where you're coming from if you like to watch movies and think of them as movies, but I prefer to think of them as events which are occurring as I watch them.

The main issue I see with heavy CGI use in animation is that the high smoothness actually becomes distracting, as it makes it stand out from everything else.

That can be distracting too, yes, especially when you can see the tangents where the polygons intersect... which does happen in NME; it's especially noticeable on the shading.

I've sometimes wondered how well it would work out if it were possible for the animation software to 'fake' some of the subtle limitations of hand-drawn animation.

It would look like rotoscoping.

That shot is beautiful, btw.

I'd find it beautiful if the errors and lack of detail weren't so obvious, but it was the first thing I noticed about the shot when it came up in the movie.

By the way, about Unit 01 looking like a toy in that distant shot, we now have this translation thanks to FUNimation:

SCALE MODEL FEEL
One of the things Prelude aimed for was reproducing the "miniature" flavor to the scenery that special effects productions have while transplanting it into CG. Specifically, things like the construction sites in the special effects movie Gorath (1962) about a large-scale project to build a rocket base at the South Pole and move the Earth, as well as the crowded buildings of the TV special effects movie Ultraman Taro (1973), were used as the basis for the images; then emphasis was placed on the "panorama feeling" of the scenery spreading out on a vast scale. The private vehicles in the city were also "minicar" in feel, with the CG engineers being surprised to hear often that "it's okay for them to seem miniature!" even though their movements didn't have any weight to them.

Put more simply, Anno felt nostalgic for bad special effects in old tokusatsu productions and decided he wanted to make his movie look similarly unrealistic. Yeah.

[ALKENO]

I'm not a big fan of CGI in the anime I watch (I don't watch much though). I wish that they would only use it for the Angels though. Gives them a feeling of otherworldliness and that they shouldn't exist in our state of reality. Come on Anno, make Lovecraft proud!

[NAveryW]

I'm not a big fan of CGI in the anime I watch (I don't watch much though). I wish that they would only use it for the Angels though. Gives them a feeling of otherworldliness and that they shouldn't exist in our state of reality.

Is adding a feeling of otherworldliness worth taking away most of the detail and dynamism present in the rest of the movie? Also, Bokurano and Gurren Lagann.

Come on Anno, make Lovecraft proud!

Have you seen Okama's unused Angel designs? They're... Lovecraft would probably love them. Unless he'd feel the same way about Japanese people as he felt about blacks.

[Azathoth]

They're... Lovecraft would probably love them. Unless he'd feel the same way about Japanese people as he felt about blacks.

Lovecraft figured that all the whites would get wiped out by the Yellow Menace and then they would get screwed up by the Deep Ones or something. More the point, most of his racism was related more to a general misanthropy coupled with a strong distaste for the urban poor; I doubt he had much of a problem with Japanese as long as they weren't being immigrants distracting him from the squalidity of his glorious garret shithole.

If he were alive today, however, you know he'd be a hilarious racist weeaboo.

[sephirotic]

I think it's ok to use CGI in animation in a moderate way on background, cars and some buildings, but i definetely prefer draws of the Evas and characters by hand. Conventional animation is much more organic and artistic...

Everytime i see a pedestrian i clearly note that they 3d shaded, and that simply gives me a bad impression.

It was a good thing that some battle sequences were back to tradition animation (like mari vs zeruel), but in the other hand, "The Beast" Mode of eva 02 i tought was to much sketchy and poorly drawed...

Lots of fans liked the reanimation of the sahaquiel sequence, however the evas running in 3d, with some very artificil motion blur effects, and those Toy-like building cityscape didn´t convinced me, while in the other hand, in 1.0 i tought the whole sequence of the Ramiel was eyecandy and all the 3d were well used...

TLDR: Overral i think the two movies are well balanced in CGI vs Convetional Animation, but still there are some entire sequences that get a little odd, including toy/game-like-3d or even sometimes badly hand-drawed animation.