The Big Picture: The Collar

[-Dragmire-]

Heh, it's a good thing nobody does this any more. I mean, can you imagine how distracting it would be if you suddenly realised that none of the characters in one your favourite games had necks attached to their heads?

Spoiler: Oh...

Spoiler: Wait...

Yeah. My mum ruined Mass Effect for me when she pointed that out...

Ah, texture seams. Once you see it, you can't unsee it, and therefore, you hide it.

Depending on the model, the head might not be attached to the body and you have to hide the missing/penetrating geometry or if it is attached, you still have to hide the texture seam.

I think the models in your examples are just hiding the texture seam, though I'd need the source model file to be sure.

OT: The comics/hollywood stuff was alright but this is more in my field of interest. I'm really looking forward to the next show.

 

[ace_of_something]

Maaaan, you're from new england. 'Drawring.'

Also, that was a neat thing to find about. So is the fact that robots are just easier to animate.

 

[uberhippy]

Typical Animation vs real live!

If I walked down the street with nothing on but a collar & tie, then attempted to steal food from people in park, people would be less than approving!! (damn double standards)

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

Wow, i'm an animation student and i never knew that. Thanks Bob!

 

[TWEWER]

Isn't gundam and voltron japanese animation and one of the more older franchises no less? What do you consider early anime huh?

He started out by showing Gigantor, which was made in the early 60's, and Mazinger Z, which was made later in the early 70's. The original Mobile Suit Gundam came out in the later 70's and Voltron came even later. Those two anime came out much later, comparably speaking.

 

[Nimcha]

Now I know why the quality of the Tom and Jerry shorts declined so much in the 60s when compared to the 40s and 50s (besides the fact Hanna and Barbera weren't making them anymore).

 

[The Random One]

This was the most interesting thing I've ever seen on this show which recently covered one century's worth of movie history.

 

[Saltyk]

While I have noticed the things like repeating backgrounds, I never noticed the issue with the heads. That's both interesting and amazing that they came up with such an innovative and simple solution.

Good show, Bob!
What's on the schedule for next week? Jabberjaw? Hong Kong Fuey?

 

[GarouX]

Heh, it's a good thing nobody does this any more. I mean, can you imagine how distracting it would be if you suddenly realised that none of the characters in one your favourite games had necks attached to their heads?

Yeah. My mum ruined Mass Effect for me when she pointed that out...

That's what I was going to say, but since you beat me to it, I guess I'll just add that it's MUCH easier to see when your texture quality is lower, because their torsos are all pixelated and their faces aren't.

 

[Craazhy]

Holy crap, Bob. Ho... ly... Crap.

You are the geek to end all geeks.

 

[Seamus8]

Preceded by means something cam first, followed by is what you're aiming for there I think... either that or I missed the point of that block.

 

[SFR]

And this, Mr. Bob, is why you have two shows.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

At first I was like "ugh, this is gonna be a stinker". Then... I was pleasantly surprised. Good work as always Bob.

 

[DustyDrB]

Bob...it's taken a while, but I'm warming up to you. This was damn interesting. You had my rapt attention, and not just because I still (at 24 years old as of last week) love many of those old cartoons.

 

[Akexi]

Pretty awesome, Bob.

 

[Zeraki]

Well this completely blew my mind. After watching this video I told everyone I know about it... and nobody seemed to share my enthusiasm.

but in the 90s Hanna-Barbara cut the funding for a great show the "swat kats" which only last 1 1/2 seasons and forced on Johnny Quest instead.

I miss Swat Kats. Twas an awesome show.

[youtube=H0IQBWWabuU

 

[pearcinator]

I always like to know how things are made and knowing about the collar is awesome!
also I got something to tell people
The Lip thing is not that odd to me for some reason.
and now I know where the idea of the above cartoon comes from.

Ninja'd by the 1st comment! GODDAM! How funny is the commentary version with Mr. Incredible and Frozone talking about how bad it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R44MvXeEQw[/youtube]

 

[maximara]

The creepy lips were not the only shortcut they used. Some early episodes of The Marvel Super Heroes (1966) were nothing more than panels cut from the comics and moved in front of the camera with later episodes being equivalent to modern motion comics.

Though it you really want to see limited animation pushed to the limits look at Hanna-Barbera's "Jonny Quest" (1964)

 

[Typhian]

Hey Bob,

I usually watch your show over my husband's shoulder, which means I don't get counted as a viewer. So I thought I'd pop on this once to let you know I like this episode, and most others I watch from week to week. Thanks for making them. Best.

 

[maximara]

Heh when I was a kid watching H&B movies, I was always laughing at the crude animation, especially the really oddly-placed HANDS and fingers and how just about everyone looked the same (those hands again), from the bossy cat (forgot his name) through the Flintstones to the Jetsons or Wacky Races. I was wondering how many unique frames they actually had to draw for each episode. Not many for sure. I didn't know about economy and cost-cutting back then; I thought they're just lazy hehe.

Yeah, Warner Bros had so much better animation it's ridiculous, but they also had like 1/100 of the content and characters. And true enough, while WB cartoons were often better, they had to make with 5 minutes or so, while H&B could make 20-minute shows.

You have to remember that WB cartoons were originally made for movie theaters for their weekend Matinée presentations (a coming attraction, a cartoon or live action comedy short, a newsreel, an episode of a serial, and a feature movie) and that they effectively closed their short division in 1969 around the same time as TV animation shifted from prime time to Saturday morning. So WB had no pressure to make 20-minute cartoons that were rapidly consumed during their heyday. It also didn't help that a sizable chunk of the WB cartoon library (around 1,000 shorts) was either in black and white, had a WWII slant, had references to popular at the time but likely unknown to later TV Kids characters or worst of all had been sold to someone else over the years. On top of this was the problems that Saturday morning effectively got its own version of the Hayes code that resulted in what WB could show looking like Freddy Krugger had been the editor.


Hanna-Barbera on the other hand had geared itself to the consumption level required by Saturday morning and could easily make material that fitted into the requirements. But even HB couldn't keep up with TV and rapidly Saturday morning itself slowly become the undead thing that would not freaking die with reruns of 1970s stuff or poorly thought out reworkings of classics (Scrappy Doo? Ugh, stop the pain)