The State of CGI
For those who haven’t seen this blog before, I provide music links that are from the anime in question, because it’s nice. hell yea.
CGI has historically been looked down upon in Japanese animation, an animation style usually dominated by 2-D animation. While most anime nowadays will use CGI in the anime-making process, not many can pull off using all or even mostly CGI. It’s associated with cutting costs on background crowds, stiff and jerky animation. Just look at Berserk 2016’s horrid animation:
i can't believe this is real pic.twitter.com/DM68EI9WDf
— pahchi (@dodonpahchi) June 1, 2017
On the other hand, CGI can be incorporated quite well if done correctly, as can be seen in ufotable’s Fate stay/night: Unlimited Blade Works:
This scene uses a lot of CGI in order to make it work, but with proper color usage and direction it looks amazing.
Purely CGI works are few and far between in Japan, and ones that make a splash in the pool of seasonal anime are even rarer indeed. Polygon Pictures is one studio that has received some praise for its total CGI animation, working on anime such as Blame!, Knights of Sidonia, and Ajin. However, even for a studio greatly experienced with CG, the facial expressions and animations can still look stiff or off in many ways.
Netflix’s Blame! Trailer:
Land of the Lustrous – mixing 3D and 2D
Land of the Lustrous, or Houseki no Kuni, is a Fall 2017 anime by Studio Orange about anthropomorphic gems living on an island where they are regularly attacked by Lunarians, seemingly hivemind beings that destroy the gems and kidnap them to the Moon. These gems, dressed perpetually in black mourning clothes, can only be identified physically by their facial structure and hair design.
A lot of thought went into the CG of this anime, with hand drawn components leading the proper creation of the CG. 2D animation was used in the instances where CG could not be effectively used to portray nuance and feeling, such as in most closeup shots. However normal movement was predominantly CG, as was the all-important hair lighting and motion.
The combination of 2D and 3D worked extremely well to show the character’s emotions and feelings, often heightening the sense of drama or comedy in the scene.
Additionally 2D was used in order to guarantee that the show’s most important moments were done correctly, with some of the industry’s best called in to make the initial 2D animation that the 3D CGI was then based upon.
In my opinion the most impressive parts in Land of the Lustrous is its cinematography, constantly putting the characters in dynamic scenarios and using the camera to the show’s advantage. This is where I feel like the use of CGI shined through and made the animation really special. I’ve taken a few moments from the show as an example.
What it could have been
A trailer for Land of the Lustrous was released long before the actual anime and it gives us some insight into what it could have looked like.
Some interesting notes are how the hair is animated in 2D vs. 3D – in 2D the gem’s hair is much mor simplistic, with the simple white highlights defining the light. Additionally, the 2D animation feels the need to constantly add sparkling accents on their hair – they are gems after all. Also, the way that the gems look when they are damaged (when the powder that they use wears off or their arm breaks off or the like) looks incredibly different from the CGI version. Sakugabooru took the most interesting clips from the full trailer which can be found here.
Other Art Stuff
The color usage in Land of the Lustrous is additionally really on point, with the colors of the halls changing as the characters pass by.
(Heliodor to Phosphophyllite to Diamond)
The background art of Houseki no Kuni is also excellent, showcasing the different landscapes of the island and the “school” that they live in. This can be seen most in the endcards that appear at the end of each episode.
All endcards: https://imgur.com/gallery/nYAX2
Land of the Lustrous can be legally streamed with Amazon Prime.
Credits/More Stuff:
Sakugabooru is an amazing resource for those interested in animation – there are cuts for every anime and animation production posts as well.
More on the production of the anime and the directors behind it:
How Land of the Lustrous made its characters:
it’s nice to see a blog about Anime! I’ve been apprehensive about shows using mainly CGI, but BLAME! does seem intriguing. I’ll have to give CGI another chance.
I’ve never been that involved with computers or animation techniques, but I’m always interested in becoming more well-rounded as computers are the future. Well done!
Hi, Andrew. This is super cool! Not gonna lie, I know absolutely nothing about anime, so reading this was very enlightening into how much effort is put into the production of such works. I really like all of your comparisons, it definitely helped me to better understand what good animation actually looks like. Great job and thanks for sharing!
this is really cool! I also don’t know basically anything about anime so this was really interesting and new to read!
Do you know what type of program they used?
Sorry, don’t have an idea on what specific program they used to create the 3d/2d effect.