Clone Wars Animation - Characters, Lighting, Scenery and everything else!

This thread is for discussing the actual animation of The Clone Wars, discuss whatever you want about it, here's some ideas:

Character animation

• Which characters you think look the best and the worst, by looking at the overall look of the character models and rendering.
• Which characters had the most impressive and least impressive animation, which can include the way they were used in fight scenes.
• Flaws in the characters animation and what you think could improve them.

Lighting

• Which scenes had the best lighting, by looking at how it effected the overall look and feel of the scenes.
• How the glow of a lightsaber was used, the most effective use of a lightsaber glow would be in a darker area, like a cave.
• Flaws in the lighting and what you think could improve it.

Scenery

• Which scenes and episodes you thought had the best overall look because of the scenery, the scenery can include anything like mountains, the sky, water, lava and pretty much anything else that sets the scene.
• How the scenery effected the look and feel of the scenes and episodes.
• Flaws in the scenery and what you think could improve it.

Everything else

• This can include anything from the ships, the weapons, explosions and even the use of Embo's hat!

And of course, which scenes and episodes you thought had the overall best animation, considering all of the above points.

I think that most impressive looking characters are:
-General Grievous, when he gets out all four of his lightsabers and starts swinging them around, it just looks amazing. Any fight scene that grievous is in, is always the highlight of the episode for me, because it just looks so amazing.
-Darth Maul, I don't know what it is about Maul, but whenever he's on screen I think he looks really impressive, probably because of the bright red skin, but his metal legs looked impressive too.
-Bossk, probably because I've been a fan of him for such a long time, but I think the team did a fantastic job changing the original Bossk into an animated version.
-Embo, whenever he uses his hat, it just looks awesome! especially in 'Bounty Hunters', where he blocks all of the blaster fire and jumps up in the air and throws his hat at the pirate, the moment where he's in the air and the light's shining behind him, that was the highlight of that episode for me.
-Kit Fisto, the way they animated him in the Mon Cala arc was great, especially his tentacles floating in the water.
-Shaak Ti, I reckon she looked great in the Kamino episodes, again like Darth Maul, her bright red skin makes her stand out and look more impressive.

I think that two of the most impressive episodes, animation wise are:
-The Lawless, the whole episode just looked visually stunning, and the duel at the end, wow! I think Darth Sidious was definitely the best animation character in that episode, because the way he fought was just so amazing. The four red lightsabers looked great, and then the darksaber looked great as well.
-The Wrong Jedi, I think that the lighting in this episode was fantastic, especially in the Jedi Temple, I reckon that the Jedi Temple looked really cool in the Ahsoka arc, and was probably one of the best looking settings in the entire series. The lightsaber duel between Anakin and Barriss also looked amazing.

As someone who knows about CGI and 3D modeling, i can tell you that there are no flaws in TCW. Joel Aron and his crew do a fantastic job. They have access to ILM knowledge. Thats the holy grale of Visual FX.

The only flaws are writers works and Filonis sometimes weird decisions.

Ahsoka's, Barriss', Ventress' and a few others eyes need to be scaled down a bit... They are just too large.

Ventress and Padme, Bariss are all at the limit, but Ahsokas eyes are the real problem..

They are ridicoulos big.


but thats stylistic choice, not a failure of the GGI Team. Thats Filonis fault. His decision.

Women need big gorgeus eyes but Ahsokas Eyes are just grotesk and OVERSTRETCHED.

I hate the huge eyelashes on female characters.

I know right? I feel like I can paint something with Ahsoka's lashes.


I think the character that improved the most model-wise is Kit Fisto. To be honest he looked silly in the PT... His eyes were too big. But they maintained his smile!

I think the big eyes is just kind of a reference to Anime really... But if you look at Saese Tin (or however the heck you spell his name), look how small his eyes are on his new model. I'm going to guess that if everyone gets new character models that their eyes will be smaller.

Regarding the eyes, there were also times throughout this season when I felt like Anakin's and Obi-Wan's eyes were kind of different. Right when Satine died, Obi's eyes reminded me of that of a Xbox/Wii avatar. Maybe that's just me i don't know...

What? Did you not watch the first season? Back then, character animation was extremely rigid, something that should be very noticeable to someone who knows 3D. Not to mention just how blocky everything was back then. They've since vastly improved in both areas, but watch the movie and tell me the animation isn't bad. It's not like their 3D program, Maya, was some new thing. Quite the opposite. I don't know how to explain it. I find it hard to believe they'd hire crappy animators, and I also think it's doubtful that they were "stretching their legs", or still getting used to the software, 'cause that's a load of BS. If they had access to ILM back then, they certainly squandered the opportunity, at least in regards to animating characters.

Now don't get me wrong, I love the animation of TCW. Even in the first season there was some really great stuff. Mystery of A Thousand Moons was certainly a pretty episode and had top-notch animation. But those damn character movements. *shudders*

You're definitely right on that count, though.

Yeah the first season and the movie's animation weren't nearly as good as the animation is now, but practice makes perfect right? I reckon from now doing five seasons of TCW that they're animations are perfect, and the development of technology over the years would've played a big part in this. I think I'm going to watch an episode from season one followed by an episode from season five just to see how much of an improvement the team has made over the years.

They thought they were being quirky and unique with the puppet-like animation. I recall reading that they specifically tried to evoke the style of Thunderbirds and Team America: World Police. Unfortunately, considering that TCW was supposed to be much more than just a "so bad it's good" puppetry series, it just came across to audiences and critics as exactly what it was: bad animation. They tried to combine "Americanime," microseries and standard CGI design styles, to mixed reactions. Some of the S1 episodes had good enough writing to make up for this, but even they suffered from the animation.

Fortunately, things improved a lot for S2 and have been trending upward since. They've managed to retain their unique style while ditching all the attributes of bad animation.

I reckon Ahsoka has made the best improvement out of any character, animation wise, I mean look how much better she looks now compared to the movie and season one. And the lighting on the last image looks really impressive.

I was really impressed with the Mortis episodes for "scenery" and pretty much all else since.

Walking is still awkward-looking - not sure if it's in the hips or knees.

Ahsoka's eyes: what I always think of is that most mammal young have oversized paws and eyes for their body, which trigger an "oh, aw, cute" response in humans. Ahsoka is partially so appealing visually because of those eyes. I've yet to see a human made up as Ahsoka with normal sized human eyes really look near so appealing in the face no matter how cute said female may be.

I'd like to see someone talented take an Ahsoka picture and downsize the eyes - nothing else, well maybe thin her lips? as well and see what impact that has.

Mace and Shaak Ti and Dooku need new models.

Dem gauntlets...

Ugh, everything is wrongly proportioned.

Dat beard is lethal.

I'll post some of the models I like later.

Mace definitely needs a new character model. His is pretty much completely unchanged since the TCW film. The scene at the end of Sabotage was rather shocking due to how his appearance clashed with Anakin and Ahsoka (both far more sophisticated updated designs).

There are two Ahsoka images in the Essential Guide to Warfare where she's drawn fairly realistically. I'd post them but I'm on my iTouch.

Ah yes. Man face Ahsoka?

I gave it a go, I made her eyes smaller and her lips thinner, but I reckon she looks better with bigger eye and lips.

Edited:


Original:

Now cover up that boob hole...

She looks like a cat in the second image.

Lessee... I'll steal from Wikipedia. We got this creepy one:



And this not-so-creepy one:


And this quasi-realistic one:


EDIT: Also note her lips are ginormous in any of these like they are on the show.

wow what a huge difference. Amazing work by Lucasfilm Animation for season 5, it almost looks like two different shows.

The best looking character in my opinion is Anakin. In battle he always looks like the warrior type--with quick, fluid motions and noticeable strength. Out of all the characters, I've enjoyed his facial expressions the most. When he's pained, he really looks the part and makes it believable. When he's pissed he looks scary and badass at the same time. I think Anakin also get's the best fight scenes. He's a great duelist and it really shows throughout the show. He shows determination in battle and is a better fighter than most.

To help prove my point I picked out this great video which shows off some cool Anakin scenes:

Enjoy =)

But honestly, I think the animation on all of the characters is quite great. Major props to the animation team!

Yeah, @BC, those are pretty much what I was talking about, plus one more that the Wook doesn't seem to have from Warfare.