Animation style for G5

[Plonkett 345]

Once G5 does eventually come into play, how would you like the animation style to be? Personally, instead of being all CGI, I'd like it to have 2d animation with much greater quality than FiM. While G4 was drawn in flash, G5 could be done in much more high end animation software like Toon Boom.

[MAIKUN 262]

I prefer the same Flash animation like in MLP:FiM, I meant Generation 4.

[Scootaloodle 1,623]

I don’t know, I’m open minded to Hasbro doing something new and different with the long running MLP franchise once G4 has officially concluded which I hope is a long way off all the same since I’m loving G4. 

[null123456 759]

I doubt they would change too much from G4. It's a cheap, efficient animation style and it still manages to look good.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,165]

I'm not too picky on this aspect; actually. Granted I've always had an affinity for hand-drawn stuff, but FiM has pretty much opened my mind in regards to flash-based animation. ^^

[Lucia 100]

2D animation all the way. G1 style? Shit, yeah! Oh my gosh that would be heaven.

 

One thing I dislike about FiM is the flash animation. It's so awesome they actually don't rely on stock expressions & animation cycles, but flash is just so... cheap. There's dozens of cartoons that look all alike.

[Unlikeable Pony 2,700]

2d. I feel that getting fancy or going 3d always tends to have a bad effect on franchises.
That being said, I'd really like to see them contract some outside animation and get FIM done in an anime style; I really like seeing the characters drawn like  that, and the images in RR's credits had a slight anime vibe to them too.

[HereComesTom 2,271]

I'd like them to try something much more realistic; anime could work, but so could 3D CGI.

 

If I had to pick what they'd do for G5, it'd have far fewer (if any) fantasy elements, with the ponies acting much more like real-life horses.  Maybe the pilot would be the main characters being herded from Chinkoteague Island or the like, getting purchased, and adjusting to life under human owners---but with one little girl who can "speak pony" and can do so simply because she's spent a lot of time around horses and seen how they communicate.  (That's actually a pretty realistic way that a human being gets better at horsemanship and better at getting horses to do what (s)he wants them to.)

 

If they went with a realistic approach like that, then a more realistic style like some CGI or anime would help drive the realism home.  Of course, they might not want to go that direction for G5, but it's a thought.

[Jeric 46,885]

I'm fine with any style personally, but if somehow a magical time saving spell was cast on DHX and they could go with any stylistic approach ... 

 

 

THIS

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/HSxJkKiHXbw

[biologypony 43]

I really enjoy the G4 style. It's so simplistic and yet the animators can do so much with it. If they went a 3D direction, it'd take some adjustment (and I mean A LOT of adjustment) for me to like it. 

[The Awesome One 1,316]

There is something about the animation style of G4 that I really like and I would really like it if they did something like what was done for Legend of Korra. Same animation as the avatar but it is a new show.

[Trixio 443]

I'm fine with any style personally, but if somehow a magical time saving spell was cast on DHX and they could go with any stylistic approach ... 

 

 

THIS

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/HSxJkKiHXbw

yeah this is..just...much "rarityzed"?? 

 However I think that the current animation style is nice and right for the type of show.The important thing, however, is that they don't regress the content and characters..

[GuillermoGage 246]

I'm fine with any style personally, but if somehow a magical time saving spell was cast on DHX and they could go with any stylistic approach ... 

 

 

THIS

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/HSxJkKiHXbw

You want G5 to look like the 2012 animated short film Paperman?

 

...I'm looking forward to full-length animated features that use the technique used in Paperman (which is essentially rotoscoping/tracing over unpolished CG one frame at a time as far as I know.)

 

But Paperman doesn't have any animal characters....So we'd hafta kinda guess at how animals would look like in that setting. How would the ponies look? In a similar style to that style presented in Paperman?

 

I didn't see any people walking any dogs or anything in that.. (I'll watch it again).

 

I honestly think that G5 is.... it should be a long time from now, possibly many years after G4 "ends". It definitely won't practically end from a business standpoint even when MLP:FiM eventually has a series finale (if our show does end up formally having an ending)

 

MLP isn't Pokémon Or video game consoles. It wasn't a pop culture phenomenon designed to have new entries every few years in an inevitable cycle. If there is a "G5", it will be the first Gen that will be anticipated by anyone other than mostly adult women toy collectors (because little girls didn't really follow the previous gen changes being announced before the products officially "launched" and then go to comment on them on the Internet on My Little Pony Trading Post or whatever other overall MLP brand centric communities)

 

As for the topic title.... It might as well be anything. Thw exact same art style, something different.

 

I'd prefer something more realistically-proportioned equine.

 

But that doesn't mean I need G5 now. I actually want other people to make shows about talking equines. Maybe that Bella Sara series of illustrated cards.

[Jeric 46,885]

 

 

You want G5 to look like the 2012 animated short film Paperman?

 

 

I would love to see pony using the hybrid technology featured in Paperman. 

[GuillermoGage 246]

I would love to see pony using the hybrid technology featured in Paperman.

 

I wonder how it would look then? If they went with a similar Disney-like art style as Paperman, then... well, simply imagine the Manhattan setting of Paperman. The focus of that story was on people, but I'm sure we can imagine pretty well what horses would look like in that setting, people sometimes ride horse carriages on the streets of Manhattan to this day, and probably also in the 1940s-1950s setting of Paperman. And ponies probably also exist in that universe.

 

Perhaps a Paperman-hybrid techniqued MLP would resemble the unicorn and pegasus scenes from Fantasia, except with less donkey-like muzzle colorations (back in the 1940s donkeys or equines with donkey-like features were very popular and were considered to be cute)

 

So... apparently the advantage of Paperman hybrid technology is.... that the animation can look more fluid or have more depth and roundness?

 

That's kinda the takeaway I got from watching Paperman. If they attempted to make that film solely hand-drawn, all thw wind blowing and hair-flapping and rotating camera would've been toned down it the point where the film wouldn't be anything special animation-wise. Even the best, most hard-working frame-by-frame animators ever have limits when to comes to drawing hair blowing, since it's such a random, unpredictable series of movement, so a lot of times hand-drawn animators just have to settle for it looking as smooth as possible, but the end result is usually that stuff like hair moves generically in an obvious pattern. That's why animators need some sort of reference material for more precise stuff.

 

In some older Disney movies, they rotoscoped over footage of people acting out the script. The people who did that stuff were actually really into the process and even wore costumes that closely resembled the animated characters.

 

http://www.visualnews.com/2013/05/01/1950s-disney-live-models-combined-with-cartoon/

 

But those were human models/actors during a time when human Disney characters were somewhat realistically proportioned and the rotoscopers didn't have to adjust their tracing over the actual reference footage too much.

 

The Paperman characters were very stylized and moved in a stylized manner and were set in a more dynamic setting, so the had to use CG puppets. And talking ponies are not the type of thing you can reenact with real animals or props.

 

So... yeah, if they made a new incarnation of My Little Pony with the Paperman technique... the biggest improvement would be that characters wouldn't look like flat vector images in quiet or tense scenes where the ponies are just standing around. Intelligent physics engines (or just experienced CG model puppeteers) would allow the ponies to subtly shuffle or something instead of being stock still.

 

And speaking of Manhattan, they could probably make settings like Manehatten look more real and like the buidlings are not just made up of flat Flash assets that you can pick up with a tweezers and throw away like playing cards or cardboard structures.

 

I wonder how well mouth movements look with this technique. Not a lot of them in Paperman.

Edited April 20, 2015 by GuillermoGage

[Unlikeable Pony 2,700]

On the note of G5...

 

I'd very much like it if instead of going for a completely new generation, they went the transformers route and rebooted the universe instead. Same basic concepts (the mane six, exploring the world of equestria) but with a new look and idea for the world, like how each transformers reboot is both similiar and different at the same time.

[Megas 28,181]

I'll be surprised if they don't try to emulate the G4 style for G5 given it's success(despite how redundant that'd be).

[colt_following 169]

This makes me sooo very nervous. I don't want G4 to end!!

[Firedog 321]

I would think they would want Gen 5 to be as much like Gen 4 as they can, just cuz its like a huge success

[Unlikeable Pony 2,700]

This makes me sooo very nervous. I don't want G4 to end!!

that's kind of why I hope they go the reboot route. Whenever a Transformers series ends, I'm not sad; its hard to see it go, but I know I'll see them again no matter what.

kind of the same feel here: If I knew that they'd re-explore FIM in a new universe each time, like how EQG is functioning as an alternate continuity thing right now, I'd be fine with FIM ending. The ride never ends as it were.

 

 

 

I would think they would want Gen 5 to be as much like Gen 4 as they can, just cuz its like a huge success

 

Indeed; this is probably the first MLP with lots and lots of recognizable lore that they know fans have grown attached to. I don't think they'd be in any hurry to throw that away.

[cmarston1 5,965]

As long as it isn't ugly who cares what style it is.

Hopefully it wouldn't be low budget cgi nor would the characters have the uncanny valleyness that the humans in the new transformers cartoon have.  But besides that I don't really mind what style it would be too much (though 2d animation whether it be flash, hand drawn or toon boom is my favorite style.) as I would just want it to look pleasing to the eye or at least to an extent.

[colt_following 169]

Agreed! My biggest hope is beyond just keepin the lore of Equestria alive though... I really hope they retain to level of gender ambiguity the show currently has. They're just general lessons and it mostly doesn't seem to sway very far into being "girly", except on occasion, and not so much lately.

 

I'm not sure I would dig 3d animation that much. I always seem to think shows like Jimmy neutron and Kung Fu Panda whose TV animation I don't really like so much.

[Silver Letter 1,832]

I just hope a future show looks good. It has to be different too or else there would be no point in making a new show if it more or less looks the same.