Animation has gotten better over last 2 episodes

Don't know if it's just me, but the animation seemingly got better over the last two episodes. In particular, the biggest area you notice the improvement is when characters use their lightsaber. It is a clear improvement over the movies, but even the way Anakin and Ahsoka have been using their lightsaber against the droids seems smoother even compared to Episode 4: Destroy malevolence - the movements aren't as sharp, when they take cuts, it flows more smoothly. This really became noticeable in the Ahsoka/Grievous fight, because this was the first "real" lightsaber duel we've seen since TCW movie.

I guess they'll continue to refine the animations over the course of the series. It'll be interesting also to see how they handle 2 vs 1 situations in a lightsaber duel to make it believable that one person can hold off the other two or defeat them and also how grievous will animate using all 4 sabers.

 

I think you're right! The duels in the latest episode look a lot more fluid, kinda like the trilogy movies now, when a lot of the duels in the movie (particularly Anakin versus Dooku, in my opinion) seemed a little jerky. I hope they keep up this quality of animation!

Not sure about what else was improved, though, haven't quite noticed graphical or textural changes...I'm a horrible fan that way. XD

 

Completely agree. You can definitely see a vast improvement compared to the movie.

And it's not just the lightsaber duels. I think the faces are lot more expressive and everything looks a lot more natural and less CGI-ish. The lighting is really good too.

 

I disagree, IMHO no other episode has been close to the Destroy malevolence quality of animation. "Duel of the Droids" had a lot better animation than "Downfall of a Droid" though.

 

The best animation, IMHO has been the latest espisode Duel of the Droids! The facial animation Ahsoka during her fall, when confronting grievous when he try to kill Rex, was very good. They seem to be moving away from the wooden facial animation and gradually getting more realistic. Lipsync is awful. But the clones animation and the lightsaber battle with grevious beat everything in the movie.

The staging was better. And the poses were much stronger and more dramatic. If I have time, I will post some examples. This episode will permanently reside in my PSP for my 1 1/2 hour commute to work. Kudos to the Singapore animators!

 

I agree. The series is starting to look more realistic.

 

if you guys check the end credits you'll see which production(animation/lighting/compositing) studio worked on each episode.
this was Singapore studio(LAS)'s 2nd episode.
1st being "Downfall of the droid" and I believe Yoda's ep was their 3rd.
the rest you've seen so far including the feature came from CGCG(Taiwan).
trained eyes can notice the difference in 'look' of the episodes coming from the 2 production studios and hopefully it'll become less noticable as both studios improve over time.
cheers!

 

Interesting.

Knew there had to be something more than production numbers behind the different look of the Droid Duology. Gotta say I prefer Singapore's more dynamic feel as it stands, but both studios are obviously just going to get better and better as time goes on.

 

If season 1 looks this good I can?t imagine how amazing s5 must be when it arrives.

 

I wouldn't go THAT far, but it was very good lightsaber duel and an extremely fun episode, overall.

 

Downfall of a droid was produced before the 2nd & 3rd episodes of the movie.

 

Funny story...

The last two episodes were actually the first in production after the movie. The Yoda episode (the first to air) was actually somewhere around the ninth to eleventh story to be developed (I'm not 100% certain) So it's all kind of a subjective opinion.

 

For me (and I am an animator) the worst animation so far was in Destroy Malevolence (horrible weightless jumps, wooden acting, movements with no dynamics) and the best was in Duel of the Droids (incredible poses, interesting facial quirks, flowing lightsaber moves, though if you frame-by-frame it you'll notice Grievous actually slices Ahsoka's leg a couple of times...). I don't know if that's due to production order, which studio did if it just plain happened, but I'm confident it will only improve.