Is the animation even good at all?

[My_Illuminati_hottie 11]

 Hey, guys. This is my first time posting in this forum. I am not a brony, nor do I have a problem with whatever you're doing. I just see Brony/Anti-Brony arguments popping up a lot and whenever I do, bronies claim that the show has merit because of it's good animation.

 

So my question is why do you guys actually believe the show is well-animated? It's not. The cartoon doesn't have terrible animation, but the quality of animation is nothing to start a fandom over. Anyone who believes the animation in mlp is "great" has obviously never watched a well-animated show.

 

The entire basis of it's style is copy-and-pasting the same images over and over and moving them around, an animation technique referred to as “tweening.” It requires little to no talent and only look decent when the images being used are of great quality. Have you guys even seen shows like “Superjail,” “Futurama,” and “Black Dynamite?”

 

You know how it's easy to see how little effort it takes to animate mlp. A constant influx of youtubers have copied the style semi-perfectly. The animators for mlp use an entire crew to copy-and-paste things; yet, teenagers in their basement have mimicked the style without by themselves, in flash. Anyone can use this style.

 

As someone who has spent a lot of time animating, I hate seeing animation as mundane as this used as justification for an entire fandom.

[NotoriousSMALL 1,984]

it's not the justification for the entire fandom. and when they say it's well animated, theyre comparing to gen 3 and gen 3.5, which were substantially worse. And on top of it, it's not painful to look at like a lot of ugly cartoons. And the fan animations I've seen are few in number (as in how many one person has created), and usually don't last a whole 23 minutes, and also took them ages to create.

 

The fandom was not started because the animation was good, there's a lot more to it than that.

Edited January 14, 2015 by NotoriousSMALL

[Banul 3,831]

So my question is why do you guys actually believe the show is well-animated?

 

Because my eye holes enjoy looking at it. 

 

I don't think anybody would argue that MLP is worth watching based completely on animation, there are a lot more factors than that. Its more likely that people want to assure potential viewers that Hasbro didn't settle for super shitty animation because its a kids show. Your right in that its not the most spectacular animation I've ever seen, but it is at least pleasant to watch and I suspect that its not as talentless as you are suggesting. 

[Silver Letter 1,832]

The animation is not a justification for enjoying the show but a perk that we enjoy. Trying to ridicule our enjoyment of it through such trivialization will not be appreciated and I recommend that you no longer continue this and find your amusement somewhere else. I will not rationalize being a fan to you.

[GenderIsAnIllusion 2,177]

It's very decent.... But it's not even the main reason people like the show.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,162]

Hello @My_Illuminati_hottie!

 

As your topic has more to do with the show than the fandom itself it has been moved to Show Discussion. In the future please keep in the the proper placement of your topics as anything dealing with the show goes in Show Discussion while any topic discussing the fandom goes in Sugarcube Corner.

 

As for my opinion, while it not the singular reason why the show has merit in itself (that's pretty subjective any who), nor is it the main reason why most fans of the show love it, I do count myself as a fan of the animation.

 

Why is that? It's not dealing with how detailed it is nor how complex the animation might be in itself; it's dealing with the use of colors that help fit in with the theme of the show. It's colorful, soft, but also allowing itself flexibility in it's scenes & all.

 

Really, there's more than one reason to love or dislike the animation; it's all dependent on the person.

[Sunny Shimmer 259]

Yes Futurama is good but I don't watch or like it because of the animation. I go and watch Futurama for a quick joke and laugh.

 

There is so much more why this fandom started than just silly animations.

[MechanicalDoom 300]

I think the animation is pretty good myself, but like every else said, it's not the only thing that makes us like the show. I didn't even think about how good or bad the animation was when I became a brony. I just thought the show was entertaining.

[hawkflame 3,310]

If you think that the sole reason behind why people like the show is the animation, you have been misled.  Strong writing and likable characters come before that.  Hell, I'd even rate the music as a bigger draw for me than the animation.

[My_Illuminati_hottie 11]

ridicule our enjoyment

Yeah. God forbid someone criticizes the show in any way. That might actually cause discussion. 

[Shanks 10,816]

It is very good when you compare it to previous generations, I think when most people cite animation they are not trying to say that it is ground breaking but merely that it is pleasing to look at which it indeed is. But it is not the only reason why people are into ponies myself included. I haven't seen animation quality cited nearly as often though as the fact that the characters are viewed as entertaining and relatable, having good lessons without being preachy and with an ability to appeal to adults as well as children along with a few other reasons given.

[Thrashy 2,800]

The entire basis of it's style is copy-and-pasting the same images over and over and moving them around, an animation technique referred to as “tweening.” It requires little to no talent and only look decent when the images being used are of great quality. Have you guys even seen shows like “Superjail,” “Futurama,” and “Black Dynamite?”

 

Were you appointed arbiter of what constitutes talent by some official authority? If not, I'm gonna have to go out on a limb and say that you're thrusting your subjective preferences for animation upon others, which is...ill-advised.

[[NULL] 907]

@@My_Illuminati_hottie, 

As an animation student whose word you should trust because I said so, I declare MLP's animation: Really good.

 

On a serious note, the YouTubers who properly copied the animation style already understood the principles of animation, which are used in pretty much every animated show or movie. The only things that get copied and pasted are the fan-made flash assets. Anyone can copy and paste. However, without knowledge and experience with animation, you get crap like this:

 

 

As opposed to this:

 

If you want to see someone break down what goes into animating MLP, Grant Beaudette has a good selection of videos, if you're interested.

 

Moving on from my animation lecture of which I'm totally qualified to give, most people don't solely watch the show for the animation. I would recommend it to you, assuming you can endure some groan-inducing moments mostly present in the first season, and have the patience to make it to the second season.

That, or you may end up enjoying the first season more than I did. Who knows?

Edited January 14, 2015 by Sugar Cube
Edited out quotation of a removed post.

[Dulset Tarn 441]

Nope, the show is not particularly well animated and the animation is more or less irrelevant to the experience.

So many people say the animation is better in the later seasons, or the movies, but honestly I question anyone who even focuses on that.

[Koukatsu 5,899]

the quality of animation is nothing to start a fandom over. Anyone who believes the animation in mlp is "great" has obviously never watched a well-animated show.

I've never heard anypone say they are a fan purely because of the animation. I also can't imagine that argument from an adult fan.

Is the animation GREAT? No. But it's also not terrible. Even if it was terrible, I could listen to the story without actually watching.

It is better than previous generations, but it's rather par the course for the cartoons of today.

The story brings out emotion. THAT'S what makes it a good show, for me at least.

 

 

 

@@My_Illuminati_hottie, 

As an animation student whose word you should trust because I said so, I declare MLP's animation: Really good.

 

On a serious note, the YouTubers who properly copied the animation style already understood the principles of animation, which are used in pretty much every animated show or movie. The only things that get copied and pasted are the fan-made flash assets. Anyone can copy and paste. However, without knowledge and experience with animation, you get crap like this:

 

 

As opposed to this:

 

If you want to see someone break down what goes into animating MLP, Grant Beaudette has a good amount of videos if you're interested.

 

Moving on from my animation lecture of which I'm totally qualified to give, most people don't solely watch the show for the animation. I would recommend it to you, assuming you can endure some groan-inducing moments mostly present in the first season, and have the patience to make it to the second season.

That, or you may end up enjoying the first season more than I did. Who knows?

You impress me, SpaceOnion. <_<

[Mesme Rize 15,687]

If you're expecting Hayao Miyazaki style animation, you watch the wrong show.

[dekutree64 713]

Sure it doesn't require as much skill as some other styles, but the results are good. Actually, it's quite amazing how good it looks considering the shortcuts they take, like using the same body model for most of the cast.

 

But perhaps more than the quality, it's the style that I like. It's actually cute! Smooth, natural curves and shapes that make sense in 3 dimensions for the most part. So many other cartoons have sharp corners and perfect circles/ellipses all over, which only make sense from certain angles, and look harsh and unnatural. Not that such styles shouldn't be done, but I don't like it, and it's especially rare to see anything else in Flash since it's particularly well suited to geometric shapes. And even in non-Flash shows, ever since Simpsons and all the Nicktoons took off in the early 90's, most cartoons seem to have a deliberate ugliness to them.

 

I disagree on the excessive tweening point. Even though a lot of motions (especially walk cycles) are created by deforming the models rather than drawing new frames, they're not just rotating and scaling rigid shapes. The motions look smooth and natural, and have more weight and momentum to them than a lot of cartoons. And whenever something moves very far, they do switch to a new frame, so the stretching/tweening never becomes obtrusive.

 

And I'll also disagree with the people who say "at least it's better than previous generations". Anyone who has Netflix, watch the G3 episode "Dancing int he Clouds". I'd say the animation is at least on par with G4, and the music is great as well. Not that interesting of a story, but there's only so much you can do in a short standalone episode. The long term continuity of G4 is one of the things that makes it so great.

Edited January 14, 2015 by dekutree64

[zombienixon 330]

Making an assumption to the character of any fandom from youtube comments is like judging a country's people by visiting it's insane asylums.

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I'm not an expert on animation or animation styles, and I certainly don't notice subtleties in animation like some people do, but I like the art style in FiM. I suppose that as someone who can't really tell the difference between the animation in the two vids posted above, my opinion doesn't hold much weight, but FiM is pleasing to look at, and that's good enough for me. As others have said though, that is not the reason why people like the show. I enjoy the characters, the music and the overall tone and atmosphere of the series which I think the animation style adequately reflects. The backgrounds may not be the most highly detailed ever and the same can be said about the characters, but for the type of show that it is, I don't think they need to be. In fact something may seem a little off if everything was too detailed, such as seeing the fur on everypony in greater detail.

[Sunny Fox 5,952]

 

If you're going to base an opinion of any group of people on a small set of examples, youtube comments are manifestly NOT the best place to start looking for said examples. 

 

I like this post, at least it shows you actually have a question and are willing to consider the answers you get and let them inform your opinion of bronies, rather than just pretending interest with the aim of causing annoyance. (More commonly known as trolling!) I daresay if you stayed around this particular forum for a while, you might end up being one of us. (One of us, one of us!)

 

For myself, I like the animation a lot, and particularly in the later seasons, they've really made an effort to give us a visual feast as well as intriguing characters and an ever-expanding mythos. Although I have to say, the animation errors are one of the things that really do bug me sometimes, since it seems like they should have been caught and corrected by some kind of quality control before the show actually hits the air. That said, I will freely admit I know next to nothing about animation and the process the show staff uses, so my opinion on it is largely uninformed. Feel free to ignore it. -_-

 

I just seems like some things slip through that really shouldn't have.

[Celli 4,341]

If you're going to base an opinion of any group of people on a small set of examples, youtube comments are manifestly NOT the best place to start looking for said examples. 

This. Youtube comments are almost as toxic and vile as nasty old 4chan. I wouldn't look there for insight. You get insulted there everywhere. We're a lot more lax(aside from a few bad eggs). 

 

OT: I find the animation fluid and easy on the eyes. It's not perfect, but it's definitely colorful and the models are good for flash.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Celli

[Tameless 979]

I think it is very well animated, though I'm no expert of the different programs.

[Misty Rose 3,216]

I've seen lots of people who were impressed by the show's animation after learning it was Flash, but it wasn't enough to completely draw them into the show. The animation is just one aspect that we like about the show and the fandom itself was made to appreciate ALL the show has to offer To me personally, the animation is really neat, but I do like other things more.

 

Also you compare this to a show like Futurama. Well if you think about it, that's not that great of a comparison. That's a show made for adults so obviously it has to have better animation to please the viewers. However in MLP's case, it's a kids show, so they can easily slack off and do something with a little less quality because kids won't know the difference Yet we all appreciate how much effort is put into MLP to make it look great compared to other shows in its demographic. It's a show made for little girls, it shouldn't have to have epic DBZ style fights, cool lighting and shadow effects, and many other things. But it does and we're thankful for that

[Frostgage 7,977]

Well you obviously know more about the subject than me so there's not much point in arguing, but I think you need to realize that simple ≠ bad. If it pleases the eyes that's all that's really important, at least IMO.

 

Also, while it is a major factor, I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to like the show solely because of the animation.

[Derplight Sperkle 1,016]

Animation was not the sole reason I or othe people have gotten into this show. Sure it is pleasing to look at or is cute, but the fact that the writing is better than other cartoons we see coming on networks like Cartoon Network, Uncle Grampa comes to mind.

 

Add to the fact this show was designed for little girls, that they put so much effort into it for captivating stories and morals is a big plus. Faust could have gone down the Dora the Explorer route with the constant silences asking the audience obvious questions. They could have gone down the lack of conflict, everything is pretty route that previous generations have done. Instead we have the show that many people know and love to this day.