Animation Discussion

Sorry for interrupting the regular state-of-hobby-devving but I feel I must share this Twitter conversation with anyone who cares about the animation industry(w/c needs help!), which is the fandom that eventually showed me manga, JRPGs, VNs, and doujinshi.

@crazynabe Just wondering why more anime studios dont go full paperless and use Flash/Harmony?
— DaFool (@GDIdoujins) May 20, 2014

@crazynabe I mean for lighthearted and comedy / hijinks type of shows. I know some shorts were made in Flash.
— DaFool (@GDIdoujins) May 20, 2014

@crazynabe Obviously things like Mushishi should remain lovingly handpainted.
— DaFool (@GDIdoujins) May 20, 2014

@crazynabe Maybe its just my bias, since I'm a Harmony network sysadmin, but I spoke to the Toon Boom guys and they say after current crop..
— DaFool (@GDIdoujins) May 20, 2014

@crazynabe .. of hand-drawn animation in Korea finishes, a lot of people who hadnt made switch to paperless would have a hard time.
— DaFool (@GDIdoujins) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins many studios don't have the budget to make the switch is one thing and another is that there aren't many people keen to switch.
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins for the first reason, there are many funds and aids to make a project but there is almost nothing to help invest in facilities.
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins for 2nd, many skilled animator are past middle 30s and because I their 10-15 year experience they think they can't handle change
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins currently company such as Wacom is working hard to promote the switch to studios and seems this year they began something
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins young animators before early 30s have been developing flash integration in modern Japanese animation. Such as Shingo Yashita
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins as of this year Toon Boom has been able to get official agents in Japan to distribute
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins but honestly these agents don't have experience or trust with the frontline studios so they will need sometime to penetrate
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins as you can see with "knight of Sidnia," and "Arpegio," the 3d animation has been able to accomplish the Japanese animation feel
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins so there is a high chance that Japan may go down the 3d animation instead of further developing flash/harmony
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins due to limited animation Japan has developed a different view of frame by frame from the west.
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins some said that even with limited animation,the mind is able to put together a movement by persistence in vision/afterimage
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins however there is an interesting new study. In this study I theorizes that in limited animation you can see moment from two...
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins distinct images because your mind pulls out a similar memory and fills in the movement.
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins although my knowledge is based on the middle class studios such as Madhouse, Mappa, and PAWorks.
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins giant studios such as TOEI has a completely different way of thought (eg they have Wacom tablets for in betweens) and...
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins IG is slightly more open to new technology. XAPA has plenty of budget so may change rapidly...
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

@GDIdoujins Trigger is young and energetic with a larger group companies they can go to so in this next few years things should change rapid
— yoshihiro watanabe (@crazynabe) May 20, 2014

Now why on earth would I advocate Flash style animation? Ever since western animation adapted the paperless/cut-out/Flash approach, they have been outsourcing less and been able to produce more content in-house at a more consistent quality. The production environment resembles a sweatshop less and is more like a 3D studio -- which uses the same production routines such as assembling character builds, adding bones, meshes, and tweening, -- but with less intensive 2D renders (in fact, Harmony itself is a 3D program).

Now let's ignore 3D for a moment. For me, I don't mind cel-shaded anime if the story is good enough, though there are those who are still bothered by it regardless of how far 3D cel-shading has come. Let's focus on 2D. Since western 2D animation rarely uses hand-drawn frames nowadays (at most they use Wacom-drawn frames) and are now almost fully cut-out... the major change-over started around 2007 or so... one way to make better East-West collaborations is to adapt a common production technique, especially one where you can send character builds and assemblies over and an animator across the pond can immediately start animating.

Painstakingly hand-drawing every frame of animation is fine and is actually recommended if you're creating Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. But doing the same for Mangaka-san to Assistant-san? Why not just pull a Nyaruko: Crawling With Love. Sure the purists will whine and complain, but just like with modern mobile F2P touch-screen games with microtransactions, the new generation can grow up knowing nothing else, while the old generation can be smug about remembering when animation and games were superior - once upon a time.

I mean, THIS is Flash animation. You can get used to it.
If still in doubt just look at Live2D. The character builds are very similar to Harmony builds (or Flash builds but with full textures). You just need the mesh deform and the movements can be very convincing. What Live2D brings to the table is realtime bone manipulation that a game engine can use, but otherwise it's EXACTLY the same animation principle being used for Flash and Harmony.