Stop motion vs. CGI survey

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Stop motion vs. CGI survey

Post by Jass » May 1st, 2007, 9:09 am

Hi all,

I'm working on a survey about stop motion. My general question is this: what makes stop motion a strong form of animation. Or maybe better; what are the characteristics that makes stop motion different from CGI?

My question for you: What are your thoughts about this? Is it the texture, the models, the lightening or the animation itself? I hope you have some thoughts about this so I can use it for my survey.

Greetings to you all from Holland and thanks

Jasper

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Post by Ben » May 1st, 2007, 9:15 am

Very quickly, but my own view is that stop-motion is <I>real</I>.

Yes, all the things you mentioned are factors, but the sense that someone had to build and create the characters, move them frame by frame, light the set and achieve all this without the aid of trickery (for the most part) is what makes stop-motion appealing for me.

The hand-crafted approach adds tons of unspoken layers to a stop-motion shot, whereas CGI, for all the many wonders it can bring to animation, lacks this extra layer that good stop-motion brings.


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Post by Jeroen » May 1st, 2007, 9:16 am

Welcome to the forum Jasper!!
( en om het in uw taal te zeggen: Welkom bij de forum "buurman" :) )

I pretty much agree with everything Ben just wrote.
It's all really there, I can almost feel the objects when I watch certain stop-motion films.
Especially Nightmare Before Christmas, I love the sort of roughness that is present in that film.

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Post by YCougar » May 2nd, 2007, 12:35 am

Both obviously have great qualities. But yeah, one of the things about stop-motion animation that impresses me the most is it's straight ahead animation, all the way. There's no opportunity for keyframing like in CGI or even hand-drawn animation. And that obviously requires a good sense of motion on the animators' parts, and probably a whole lot of practice. I have nothing but respect.

Of course, there are still some things that stop motion still can't do, and CGI can be good for these and more. The flexibility of the medium can make for some awesome visual experiences, but there is a constant struggle to keep it feeling "real" enough for emotional investment.

I don't really discriminate... if it's done well, then I like it - regardless of the medium. But of course each has its strengths that I can enjoy. :)
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Post by Meg » May 2nd, 2007, 7:03 am

Well put YCougar!

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