Oh, for fuck's sake

[yvannairie]

So, yay, the internet wheedled a promise out of the director of the Sonic movie that they'll "fix" his model, and everyone is jumping out of the woodwork to convince everyone else that This Is Good, Actually, b/c with 3D animation you can just port motion over from one rig to another and do "minimal fixes" to get it looking right again.

And, sure, as far as lighting goes, that's valid; as far as texturing goes, it's mostly valid -- but as far as the actual animation of the thing, "minimal fixes" is gonna mean "retiming the entire thing, which can take anywhere from half the time to just as long as the original animation", depending on just how different the new rig is. Even if they just change his face, they're gonna either have to try to recapture the performance, or ship a flat-at-best-uncanny-at-worst unpolished animation.

Not to mention, redoing effects, redoing compositing (yeah fancy that, if they change his shape and dimensions they're gonna have to change the way he's drawn into a scene) and redoing various simulations to make them match his new mass, or make him look like he's either made of lead or filled with helium.

And people are treating this as a good thing.

"But the movie looks kinda dumb!" Yeah no shit, it's a Sonic film. Take it up with the script or the concept! I thought the trailer looked fucking fun. Appeal is subjective!! Who knew???!?!

Comments

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

To be fair, my coworker's theory was that they used a different, uglier model for just the trailer, and that the movie as it will be released has been as it is the whole time, so there's no actual extra labor going on right now, and that the whole "the animators are going to fix it" was a planned publicity stunt, and that the ugly model was meant to drum up public outrage and disgust.

[yvannairie]

I'd honestly be happy if this was just a publicity stunt that will undoubtedly create a bad precedent. I'm still prolly gonna Remain Mad about the "as an animator" takes (yeah, no shit they can do that, but whether they should is another matter and hey, you can't prebake compositing like that) and also, just... I do not like the precedent this sets. I do not.