[monitron]

It's interesting that they used the Planet Express building from Futurama as one of their examples of 3D-inconsistency, because I'm pretty sure the exteriors are in fact computer-generated from a 3D model. Watch the show and you can see the establishing shots usually involve a smooth complex camera move around the building.

[manifoldgeo]

Agreed, most or all shots of the Planet Express building and Planet Express ship are 3D renderings, even in the original first few seasons. Beyond that, even some shots of Bender in Space are 3D renderings, especially in cases where a complex and continuous shift in perspective is required.

Non-photo-realistic (NPR) 3D art goes back a surprisingly long way in animations. I rewatched the 1988 Disney cartoon "Oliver and Company" recently, and I was surprised to see that the cars and buildings were "cel-shaded" 3D models. I assumed that the movie had been remastered, but when I looked it up, I found out that it was the first Disney movie ever to make heavy use of CGI[0] and that what I was seeing was in the original. The page I found says:

"This was the first Disney movie to make heavy use of computer animation. CGI effects were used for making the skyscrapers, the cars, trains, Fagin's scooter-cart and the climactic Subway chase. It was also the first Disney film to have a department created specifically for computer animation."

References ----------

0: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Oliver_%26_Company

[Eduard]

> "This was the first Disney movie to make heavy use of computer animation. [...]"

Tron came out 1982, six years before Oliver & Company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron

[interroboink]

I guess it depends on the definition of "heavy use." I know in Tron a few scenes were CG, and there were a few CG+live-action bits, but the majority was filmed on normal physical sets in high-contrast, then painstakingly hand-processed[1] to add the neon "glow".

[1] https://filmschoolrejects.com/tron-costumes-glowing-effect/ Thanks legions of Taiwanese animators (:

[croes]

From your link: >The 1982 Disney movie is privy to a remarkable number of firsts: the first feature-length film to combine CGI and live-action; the first talking and moving CGI character; the first film to combine a CGI character and a live-action one; the first fully CGI backgrounds… The list goes on and on.

Sounds pretty heavy to me.

[croes]

And the film OP mentioned Oliver & Company:

>Eleven minutes of the film used "computer-assisted imagery" such as the skyscrapers, the taxi cabs, trains, Fagin's scooter-cart, and the climactic subway chase

I think Tron wins in terms of CGI

[nicklecompte]

But Disney financed and distributed Tron. It wasn't made by a Disney Studio, and most of the animation was outsourced to a Taiwanese studio because Disney wouldn't lend any of their own talent. So I think it's fair to say that Oliver & Company is the first Disney-made film to use CGI.

[mrob]

The Great Mouse Detective (1986) was earlier and the ending sequence is CG (printed out and traced onto cels so traditional 2D characters could be drawn on top).

[nicklecompte]

That's a good point. What's funny is that "The Great Mouse Detective" was actually the film I was thinking of this whole time - I believe the ending sequence took place in Big Ben, and it looks quite good by 2024 standards. But I forgot the name of the movie and assumed it was "Oliver & Company" because Oliver is a plausible name for an English mouse :)

[RF_Savage]

And large amounts of the "computer" graphics in Tron are hand drawn.

[croes]

Still lots of CGI.

[loloquwowndueo]

Probably meant “Disney animated feature”.

[a1o]

Found a pretty cool wireframe video of Oliver and Company.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mix9rStOqoI

Now I am curious to watch it

[justsomehnguy]

The Rescuers Down Under comes to mind as the one close (1990)

https://youtu.be/P5hHV2torG0?t=126

https://youtu.be/sGxLWXtt6EQ?t=73

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rescuers_Down_Under

[fennecbutt]

Cel shaded 3d models?

Wait, you're telling me that computers have enabled us to have fewer artists and thereby replacing artists for a long time now?!

Just like pretty much every industry out there?!

And that it's widely accepted so long as people get their cheap plastic goods from China?!

And that the current outrage won't even be remembered in 20 years?!

[numpad0]

Kind of, it hasn't replaced anyone though. 3DCG just became good-enough basis for artists to build on, what AI bros have been fantasizing and advocating for couple years by now, yet completely ignored and mocked over.

Which tells, AI hatred don't necessary come from what pro-AI thinks where it comes from, people potentially just find AI art rage inducing.

Like, not even specific technical aspect of AI is bad or could use improvements. It just sits at the wrong side of the uncanny valley, and arguments clump around that.

That's the real problem with generative AI.

[zoeysmithe]

Isn't a lot of 3D in shows and games "faked" to look good to the viewer?

I remember seeing this blog write up on what 3D animators do to make things look acceptable. Like make a character 9 feet tall because when the camera panned them, they looked too short at their "real" in-system height. Or archway doors that are huge but at the perspective shot, look "normal" to us. Or having a short character stand on an out-of-scene blue box to make them having a conversation with a tall character not look silly due to an extreme height difference? Or a hallway that in real life would be 1,000 feet long but looks about 100 in-world because of how the camera passes past it, and how each door on that 1,000 foot hallway is 18 feet high, etc.

I wonder if shows like Futurama used those tricks as well, so when you sort of re-create the 3D space the animators were working in by reverse engineering like this, then you see the giant doors and 9 foot people and non-Euclidian hallways, etc. Just because it looks smooth as the camera passes it, doesn't mean that actual 3D model makes sense at other perspectives.

[Tallain]

I don't have a ton of experience in this realm but from what I've seen it does happen a lot -- looking good is often better than being right. A great example of this is the way they tilted the models for Zelda's A Link Between Worlds[0]. Basically everything in the world is tilted back so it looks better for the camera angle, which is designed to mimic the feel of A Link to the Past.

[0]: https://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/11/20/the-t...

[Natsu]

I saw some video on A Difficult Game About Climbing a while back. The things they did to make the guy appear to grip the rocks and suck normally make the hands utterly bizarre when seen from the side.

[Jarmsy]

Indeed many animated shows that don't look 3d animated have a 3d model somewhere in their pipeline these days. Even if there's not a digital 3d model, there might be a physical model of the main locations in the studio for animators to refer to.

[jsheard]

Yeah, Futurama used composited 3D elements from the very first episode in 1999. The vehicles are nearly always 3D.

[fasa99]

the exteriors aren't generated from a 3D model, they are generated from many 3d model(s), of the same thing, that perhaps changed over time or changed between scenes, like the models on the star trek enterprise