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The Mike Toole Show - Done with Computers

This article is missing out on the greatest CG animation of them all - Cat Shit One. That is epic and thats coming from a big Appleseed fan.

Wasn't the Galerians OVA mostly just the cutscenes from the game put together as a film? I haven't played it in ages so I don't remember, but once thing I definitely recall is how much the cutscenes of the game were advertised. They looked really great at the time compared to other ps1 games.

Starship Troopers: Invasion has nudity, does that make it the first all CGI animated movie to have nudity I wonder? is this the medium's answer to Heavy Metal?

I think the key problem with 3D CG anime is best summed up as follows: as I read this article, I felt inclined to go back and read my own writeup on the subject from back in 2008, when it dawned on me that...it's been 4 years and they still have many of the same problems that they've had 8 years ago, which were the same as 10 years ago, and so on.

I can boil it down to two things. The first is that when it comes to integrating 3D CG with "regular" animation, many anime production companies still don't seem to understand that having a "full animation" (24-30 frames per second) CG model in a "limited animation" world makes it jut out and look totally out of place. We're about to get a new Initial D anime, and something tells me that after all these years they still aren't going to remedy this. I'm sure "it's a feature, not a bug" syndrome has crept in on that one by now, but to most people here that aren't already fans it just makes the animation look bad.

Still, I feel as though feature-length 3D CG anime is by and large way behind even what is getting done as far as all-CG US TV productions are concerned, and I'm not sure if anyone over there realizes it's because of flaws inherent to their execution instead of thinking "that's just because we don't have the budget of Disney/Dreamworks/Lucasfilm/etc."

Just dropped in to say that I simple adored Titan AE and I watched it like twenty times and still remains one of my favorites even now. It pains me to even think that it bombed badly even though it was amazing.

But the impression you get with this is very unnatural even though, ironically it's more realistic. That's because you'll notice in real life, when you see someone casually speak, your mental impression as you look at them casually from mostly frontal view, filters out small movements. Your impression filters out the jaw bone and major muscle moving up and down and the constant facial muscle movements. Only for larger, more expressive expressions do we register those facial muscle changes.

That technique in 2D anime is also plenty present in 2D western and US animation as well.

I liked Titan AE the way I like most on Don Bluth's films; I have an overwhelming respect for its visual personality and technical accomplishment, I just wish he'd find someone besides Gary Goldman to handle the storytelling duties.

I don't know if all-CG fare is that rare any more, it's just not as apparent: There's a block of anime on Saturday mornings on TV Tokyo that's entirely all-CG, albeit it's all sequels of franchises that aren't as popular in Japan as they used to be, so they only get 15-minute episodes, like Duel Masters and Bakugan. There's also the all-CG remake of Mysterious Cities of Gold, which is still being animated by Studio Pierrot, plus the recent all-CG One Piece movie.

Joe Carpenter wrote:

Starship Troopers: Invasion has nudity, does that make it the first all CGI animated movie to have nudity I wonder? is this the medium's answer to Heavy Metal?

Not if you're willing to look into blatantly hardcore works. And if you treasure your sanity... don't..