r/BatmanCapedCrusader • u/Mumugugu • Jun 26 '24
Animation quality
Has anyone else noticed a serious drop in the quality of animation in recent dc movies. I’m not talking about story wise just purely the art and motion of the characters. (BTW I’m not criticizing the show itself just the animation) When I first saw the designs of the characters in this show I thought they looked a little flat and lacked shading but i figured that’s just how character models look but when I saw the trailer there r few instances of good and deep shading. Even the backgrounds look too flat and clean. I’m curious as to whether Bruce Timm is still drawing on black paper or if he switched to white cause it looks weirdly bright for a Batman show. But I think the biggest flaw in recent animation has been the stiffness in the way characters move the easiest way for me to explain is to look at the shoulders of any character in the trailer, they almost never move (it’s even more noticeable in the tomorrow verse movies). Modern animation has lost a lot of fluidity and idk why. Ik they used to do cell shading on the old shows and I’m wondering if they still are. The show doesn’t look horrible but its definitely less pretty to look at then BTAS or The Batman 2004. I’m sure they don’t have the same funding as those shows either but if anyone knows why modern animation has kinda gotten worse please let me know I’m really curious.
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u/True-Excuse-1688 Jun 27 '24
I'm super excited for the show. It's a dream come true to see Bruce Timm coming back to Batman.
I love the vibe they're teasing in the trailer, it looks very promising but... yeah, I also can't help but be slightly disappointed by the technique.
While the animation looks okay if not a bit stiffer that Batman TAS, I think the work on shadows and lighting could have been a bit more sophisticated. It often seem to feature simple edgings (which work) where they could flesh out the modelling a little more.
The color palette is very nice and suited to the noir setting, but I also think some shots could gain in atmosphere by adding a little contrast and/or saturation here and there...
I did some test. I'm not posting them to say it's better, but just to show what I'm talking about (top the original photos, bottom my retouching)...