I was wondering what are your thoughts on this…
As an example , do you know this cartoon series :
It as been adapted in CG like this :
I’ve heard many people finding this adaptation was lame, and it’s not uncommon when going from 2D to 3D.
what do you guys think and how in your opinion this could have been made better ? Is it possible to succeed in an adaptation in general ? ( I found agent 327 great, but I doesn’t know the comic before).
What are the pitfalls to avoid ?
I’ve got a few ideas , but I’d like to know what you guys think first…
I think a lot depends on the budget and the skill of the artists, and the delivery time, however many 2D animated tv series are totally crappy and this often happens with 3D cartoons.
Here’s a particularly successful adaptation but the project is in development hell.
An emotional atmosphere is lacking because of a poor shading, poor lightning, probably re-used assets from other productions instead of assets build for the story or adapted.
There are more details of the drawn version than in the 3D one.
Characters are all smoothed. Their designs, their goals, their motivations, their reactions.
The bad guy is not frightening at all. He looks like a toy.
During half of story, gadget is not present. When he is in, it is half of its body that is out of the frame.
So, capture of visual gags is poor as their amount.
Most of the scenes are indoors instead of outdoor scenes, as a result, kids are more encouraged to destroy interior of their house instead of remembering adventures that they lived doing sports at the park.
Makers of this did not have difficulties to respect atmosphere, basics of the story. They just did not try to list them.
“Made better” usually means “Larger budget” and related “More hours”.
There’s also the target market. Yeah, they could have done a whole lot more in terms of detail, lighting, script, etc. but let’s face it - Gadget is still more cult following than mainstream like, for instance, TMNT. Higher expenses would have likely pushed it over projected returns.
Hey, thanks a lot for your answers !
I was not aware of the Popeye’s adaptation and it’s indeed very great !
It’s indeed true that budget influence the result a lot. But it’s also some artistic decisions, even if both can be linked it’s not always the case.
I’m interested in what are the artistic decisions that make the viewer says “this should have been done in 2D rather than 3D”.
I agree with Zeauro that “an emotional atmosphere is lacking” , everything look very smoothed/washed out compared to the original. This can be bring by many ways (animation, layout, story…) .
think it’s first the lighting, shading, grading that makes the CG version look a bit cold compared to the original.