I just think you are being way too apologetic. This just encourages their laziness.

I think he is just being pragmatic in his analysis. He is not making excuses for anything, just analysing why things may have been done the way we are speculating they have been done.

There is no amount of intellectualising why something is the way it is that will convince anyone that doesn't like it to think it's good. So it can't encourage laziness. It can only add to our understanding of how things were done. It will never change opinions on if it is good or not.

Nobody at Lucasarts is going to say "well a lot of people don't like the art, but we can just give out this detailed explanation of why it looks that way. People will understand and buy it anyway (and we can continue being lazy)".

If you want that ugly 3D modeled Guybrush face flying at your screen when he is fired out of a cannon, then fine, but I have higher standards. You want to leave it at that, please?

Again his explanation of why it may have been done like that does not suggest he want's it done like that (at least that's now how it seemed to me). And the hand drawn Guybrush flying at the screen looked like crap too. :D

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/guybrush-ugly2.jpg)
http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/GB-ugly.png)

If it was my call I would have gone for something more akin to Tiller's work in Monkey 3 too. Even though I don't like Guybrush's sprite in MI3. But I am pretty happy with this art style too (not including that hideous thing above, or the poster GB face).

Never show that 3D pic ever again. EVER.

Never show that 3D pic ever again. EVER.

LOL, I know. Put's into perspective what is truly bad though doesn't it? :thmbup1:

What I also don't like about the new Guybrush are his pointy earrs.

Well if anything, it all looks much nicer than EMI ever did, which I have finished multiple time, even though I hear some MI fans struggled to ever get a quarter of the way through.

EDIT: I now realise you were not addressing this point. However I will leave my post as originally posted, my second paragraph addresses your post correctly.

Oh don't get me wrong, Guybrush's sprite in CMI "looks" awesome as in the quality of the artwork. It just didn't look like Guybrush to me. He looks younger than he did in 2. 2 is my favourite and the Guybrush in CMI did not seem to match up with the Guybrush in MI2, in either style or writing. I love CMI, and I got used to Guybrush in it. But I have to say that I love that Tales seems more of a true continuation of MI2 Guybrush than CMI.

But yeah, EMI was not the best looking game, in fact it was kinda ugly. I have finished it twice and regret the second playthrough (last week) because I forgot how bad the last act was. Act 1&2 are fine to me (although they are not very funny).

But anyway we are getting derailed again, sorry. Back on track...

What does everyone think of the new Elaine? Animation side because I agree she looks stiff (not enough bend in her legs when she walks). I think she's cute. And I would presume she would not change in MI2:SE because they used the same sprite in MI1 VGA as MI2.

I'm not apologetic. I'm just pragmatic.
There is a reason Disney stopped doing traditional 2D animation and it ain't cause noone wants to see it anymore. It's just a lot cheaper and easier to find people to work in 3D, especially when you have your studio set up the American way (which is lot's and lot's of departments and cheap newcomers)
I know it's Monkey Island and they should've spared no expenses, but we are still talking a niche audience game coming out in the current market reality here.

Even ILM has laid off Technical Directors that had worked there for over 7 years. The current policy is hire and fire and don't keep too many on staff.
Outsourcing to "Cheapistan" countries is a fact, I don't like it either.
All this considered, i still think it's quite nicely done and there is nothing in there that screams "cheap Indian/Singapore/Chinese plastic". If the majority of the work was done in Singapore, it's rather good, I've seen way worse **** coming from overseas.

Might the stiffness of the Elaine Marley sprites/the sprites overall have something to do with the fact that the walking animations need to conform to a bounding box of some sort? If her legs would move too much to the side it might look weird at a wall or something.

I haven't seen her walk extensively, but her arms seem to suffer the same stubbiness as LeChuck's although not so much, but this is sort of alleviated by her having what appears to be a very short torso. Otherwise she looks good.

I think her arms are perfect anatomically. The arm on the right in the face forward one looks a little weird but that's because it's bent back in the elbow and hard to see.

And with LeChuck. I agree sis arms are no doubt a little short, not a lot mind. His hands are too big and that makes it look worse, but that's a style choice. They made him look stocky in the SE, which he never did in the original (just fat). The arms don't bother me though, deformed proportions can be a style choice (see anime/manga) and are suitable for his character anyway.

Might the stiffness of the Elaine Marley sprites/the sprites overall have something to do with the fact that the walking animations need to conform to a bounding box of some sort? If her legs would move too much to the side it might look weird at a wall or something.

I don't think so. I think they they made her legs too straight as she walks so she looks lady-like. I mean it looks fine to me, but a little stiff no doubt.

Also her arms don't bend at all which doesn't help. But I think it would look pretty good if it was twice as many frames (filling in 1 frame between all existing frames).

Here I made a GIF real quick.

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-walk.gif)

Alo I now see whoever made this original walk anim, he placed Elaine at the wrong height for some of the frames. The floor doesn't match her feet in some of these frames. She would step through the floor. Let me see if I have time to fix that, it is only 6 frames :)

That's all very debatable and I don't want to get into it. There's multiple reasons and 3D is only a part of the factor. Whether it's completely cheaper is debatable as well,

I don't think it's debatable at all.
With 3d you can have multiple copies of a character. Lot's and lot's of animators can work with it
That suits the American studio model, where a small senior team does all the work on the design and then the animators just ape the style of the animation director.
With 3D you can easily change the camera angles and other stuff after the animation is done. (which shouldn't be done, I know, but it's a fact)
Theoretically you can achieve much greater image fidelity, animation sophistication or fluid animations in 3D. (try animating an Octopuss with 8 tentacles in 2D with 24fps)
You can easily go 3D stereoscopic etc...
You can reuse your sets and assets easily for a sequel, promotional artwork or games.
There is just tons and tons of reasons for 3D. Couple that with the lack of traditional 2D animation talent willing to work for today's salaries and it was natural to go 3D.
I still love 2D, don't get me wrong, but it has been a sidelines thing for a couple of years now. Just like theaters vs. movies.

I don't think it's debatable at all.
With 3d you can have multiple copies of a character. Lot's and lot's of animators can work with it
That suits the American studio model, where a small senior team does all the work on the design and then the animators just ape the style of the animation director.
With 3D you can easily change the camera angles and other stuff after the animation is done. (which shouldn't be done, I know, but it's a fact)
Theoretically you can achieve much greater image fidelity, animation sophistication or fluid animations in 3D. (try animating an Octopuss with 8 tentacles in 2D with 24fps)
You can easily go 3D stereoscopic etc...
You can reuse your sets and assets easily for a sequel, promotional artwork or games.
There is just tons and tons of reasons for 3D. Couple that with the lack of traditional 2D animation talent willing to work for today's salaries and it was natural to go 3D.
I still love 2D, don't get me wrong, but it has been a sidelines thing for a couple of years now. Just like theaters vs. movies.

OK let's agree to disagree and move on huh? Don't want this thread to turn into a debate on this issue.

What I am looking forward to is really good cell shaded 3D. So it looks hand drawn. I would prefer Tales was cell shaded too.

Cell shading ages better too. Look at Zelda Wind Waker and Twighlight Princess. I think Windwaker still looks nicer!

EDIT: I love this screen from Tales for instance. Looks cell shaded -

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/06/monkey-island-sphere.jpg)
Ignore the stupid X on her head. It's from Joystiq saying Tales will probably head to XBLA later (obvious much?).

Let's get in some more comparison photos.

I don't think so. I think they they made her legs too straight as she walks so she looks lady-like. I mean it looks fine to me, but a little stiff no doubt.

Also her arms don't bend at all which doesn't help. But I think it would look pretty good if it was twice as many frames (filling in 1 frame between all existing frames).

Here I made a GIF real quick.

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-walk.gif)

Alo I now see whoever made this original walk anim, he placed Elaine at the wrong height for some of the frames. The floor doesn't match her feet in some of these frames. She would step through the floor. Let me see if I have time to fix that, it is only 6 frames :)


You're right...there are some height differences...really wouldn't have noticed if you didn't tell me though...

I wonder if it would even look better if Elaine would have secondary and follow-through animations. If her arms would swing nicely and her legs make a smooth "reggae" walk it might look better in a still frame but in a 6fps animation cycle?
Were DOTT's animations still 6fps or 12fps? cause Hoagie's walkcycle looked very fluid back in the day.

OK so I fixed Elaine's walk. Seems the guy that did the SWF didn't realise that her distant foot would not hit the floor at the same point as the close foot. unless the floor was seen side on with no perspective. So in his original her distant foot would actually go through the floor as she stepped forward.

EDIT: I just improved the fixed one some more. Because I'm an anal animator :-D

FIXED
http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-walk-fixed.gif)

ORIGINAL
http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-walk.gif)

I'm going to presume it is correct in the actual game!

Lol me neither :)

You just need to look at it from a company's viewpoint:
With 3d, even with all the complicated rigging, UV mapping, rendering etc... you can always compartmentlize. You can build on your expertise. You can write scripts, make a pipeline that always works the same.
You can even build blendshapes and facial expressions, lyp synching that the animators just have to enable.

Basically: You don't have to start from scratch again with each project and the suits love it when all this stuff becomes more calculable.

With 2D you are very dependent on the talent working at your company. If the lead animator leaves on a 2D project, it is way more noticeable than if a 3d lead animator leaves.

I didn't want to focus on Disney as I don't have inside knowledge about them nor do I particularly care. I just wanted to point out that what Pixar does with 3D now, comes close to the sheer level of artistry of the 2D Disney animations in their haydays in 1930-1940. So it's not a case wether one is better than the other, just how you use and master it.

Posting this again because I just wasted 15 minutes fixing her foot placement even more :D

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-walk-fixed.gif)

I can only presume this is more accurate as to how it will look in game. I think it looks pretty good now. Not as stiff as I thought. Pay attention to the feet. On the old one her furthest away foot would fall through the ground as it hit the floor (because thhey animated her like she was walking on a 2D plain where both feet would hit the same level or ground.).

thanks for clearing that up. But you are still bound to 6 frames you can play with. Secondary bounce animations like her hair going up and down reacting to her walking costs time, maybe it would look silly in 6 frames. But I admit I'm not a real expert on this.

EDIT: am i imagining things or does she have a slight hair bouncing?

thanks for clearing that up. But you are still bound to 6 frames you can play with. Secondary bounce animations like her hair going up and down reacting to her walking costs time, maybe it would look silly in 6 frames. But I admit I'm not a real expert on this.

EDIT: am i imagining things or does she have a slight hair bouncing?

Nope she has a slight hair bounce :-D

I took a look at it frame by frame in flash. Didn't notice until you pointed it out. I still think characters with this much fidelity need more than 6 walking frames to look nice and smooth.

Posting this again because I just wasted 15 minutes fixing her foot placement even more :D

Parabolee!

You're throwing your life away. :p

Parabolee!

You're throwing your life away. :p

LOL, don't know about that but I'm certainly wasting too much time at work :-D

Another comparison shot a grabbed from somewhere else -

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/09/june/monkeynew2.jpg)

Here's a good test. I converted the new Elaine to the same amount of pixels as the original sprite!

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-walk-low-res.gif)

No doubt this one is a little stiff when seen at this resolution. But again I have to say, it still looks like a decent animation to me. Pretty sure the stiffness is an attempt by the animator to make her walk lady-like, thus less bend in her knees.

I think I'll do this with Guybrush too! Gimme a few ;)

In animation, characters with short legs work better at a low framerate than characters with long legs.

Here we go, Guybrush SE walking animation.It's also worth noting that I had to fix this too, had the same distant leg perspective issue as the Elaine one. Pretty confident it's just the flash animator that sucks, not whoever did the in-game version. I also had to splice two frames together to make his turn right, but only because I didn't have the missing frame with his head facing the right way (doubt anyone can see it though). Also his earing switches sides because I am just mirroring the frames :-

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Guybrush-walk.gif)

And here it is converted to the same height of pixels as the original game :D. Which shows pretty conclusively IMO, that 6 frames is fine for 47 pixels high, but 317 could use at least 12 I think.

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Guybrush-walk-low-res.gif)

EDIT: Fixed

Different version of Guybrush walk to show him walking further.

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Guybrush-walk2.gif)

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Guybrush-walk2-low-res.gif)

Thanks everyone who has contributed to this and the OP I love this sort of stuff

here is a gif I made

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/3505/guybrush.gif)

I dunno, none of you guys will prolly care but... I made a Cobb comparison, in Loom he had bumps on his face cuz he was the "hideous Cob" and in SMI he still had some bumps on his face, but in the SE he has no bumps on his face... he must have got some high powered acne medication.

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/8149/cobbcomparison.jpg)

I never completed loom and had no idea cobb was in it.. Interesting stuff.

I dunno, none of you guys will prolly care but... I made a Cobb comparison, in Loom he had bumps on his face cuz he was the "hideous Cob" and in SMI he still had some bumps on his face, but in the SE he has no bumps on his face... he must have got some high powered acne medication.


Very interesting! Guess they didn't notice the bumps in the low res image. They also missed his moustache. And they probably had no idea he was from Loom.

I wish they had fixed the spelling of Cob in the Special Edition.

And they probably had no idea he was from Loom.

Probably not, judging from the fact that they wanted to replace his Loom advertisement. (http://www.lucasforums.com/showpost.php?p=2633404&postcount=1)

I like the new Cobb though. Maybe they didn't want him to look so much like he had a mental problem?

Surely that was part of the joke? :raise:

I do like the new Cobb, though.

I wish they had fixed the spelling of Cob in the Special Edition.

I think thats part of the joke actually... he's just supposed to resemble Cob not actually be Cob.

I do like the new Cobb, though.

Yeah me too, I think out of the 3 close up pirates in the SCUMM :) Bar he looks the most like the VGA version of himself... the other 2 (re Estevan/One-eyed Frank and Mancomb Seepgood) look like they got a total reworking of their faces.

Wow. I had no idea he was in Loom. Makes the Loom ad gag make a lot more sense now...

You know on closer examination, after slowing that Guybrush animation down. I see I have not done it right, he seems to lunge forward after the apex of his stride. That's what happens when you do this stuff at work. I'll fix it tomorrow. He doesn't do that in the HD videos I watched. He does look stiffer than his VGA counterpart though, his posture is too perfect for how awesomely dorky he looks. :D

No doubt the LucasArts flash guy made a real mess of it though!

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/3505/guybrush.gif)
That reminds me of my wet-dream Monkey Island art style: Purcell and Tiller working together. Blending the Purcell Monkey cover art with a little exaggerated Tiller greatness. All in 1080p with fluid framerate and lots of atmospheric fx.... ah a man can dream. I hope that TMI isn't too bland looking 3d-ish. I'd love to get a real feeling for the environments again...you know smell the sand of the caribbean beaches...

Because I'm an anal animator :-D


I wouldn't have thought there would be much demand for that sort of thing... but I guess these days nothing should surprise me.

Elaine Marley

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-SE.png)

Don't like how Elaine looks on the poster (too manly) but I think she looks pretty cute here. Although her walk animation is a little stiff. Good job we hardly see it in the game.

New Elaine's face is too symmetrical (looks like someone just flipped it for the other half of her face) and her eyes are too close together. Her left arm is completely messed up, it looks like it's just extremely short. They really should have made it as long as they other one with a bend in it. Crappy MS painting what I mean (the thing in the top left is how she looks with a totally symmetrical face):
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/kralex/balaa.jpg)
Her other arm isn't much better really, it's more noticeable from the side but her arms really look like they need extending.

Also totally agree with SyntheticGerbil, the reason the animations look so stiff is definitely because they have been drawn stiff. Bill Plympton is a great example of fantastic animation on a low frame rate.

Elaine seems to have short arms.

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/151/reviews/960369_20090601_790screen001.jpg)
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/151/reviews/960369_20090601_790screen002.jpg)
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/151/reviews/960369_20090601_790screen014.jpg)
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/151/reviews/960369_20090601_790screen015.jpg)

Her forearm is huge compared to her upper arm in that side on view.

he must have got some high powered acne medication.And colored contact lenses.

I don't like the posture of Bob.

Some pretty interesting stuff in here! I didn't realise 'Cobb' was in Loom either, having never played it.

I don't think you need to feel obligated to fix those Flash mess-ups though, parabolee. :D

those wooden planks at the harbor bay are a really nice example of actual improvement of the original artwork. The original looked a little bland and like copy & paste. The new exaggerated style fits better with the rest of Melee town.

I know I'm annoying, but considering their relationship (ie. Elaine being the dominant one) I don't like the fact that she's been changed to being shorter than Guybrush. (Another Nitpick.)

Her left arm is completely messed up, it looks like it's just extremely short. They really should have made it as long as they other one with a bend in it.

Her other arm isn't much better really, it's more noticeable from the side but her arms really look like they need extending.

The issue with her arm is more an issue of style. I'm not saying it could not be improved, because it could. However this is not a simple case of the anatomical measurements being wrong because we are looking at a style that is very intentionally anatomically incorrect. Which is not uncommon in animation at all Allow me to clarify what I am trying to say with this image...

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-anatomy.jpg)

Anatomically speaking Elaine's head is massively out of proportion to the rest of her body, that is a design style choice and not a anatomical mistake. Following on from this she also has the very common issue with drawn women, in that her legs are far longer than her upper torso. Check almost any comic book to see this same issue. Now these are style choices that most people actually like, go see a top ten list of popular comic artists and then check the anatomy of their women.

Now this leaves the artist with the issue we are all seeing with the arms. A better artist would be able to hide this, but obviously this person has made a few mistakes and left it more obvious.

The issue I am talking about is this. With such a small torso compared to the arms, with what part of the body does the artists match the arm length? If you match it will the entire height of the person then the arms will stretch far too low on the legs. If her wrists started to approach her knees she would begin to look like a gorilla. What the artists has don is what most would do (although he could probably have gone a little lower) and that is left her arm stretch to the point in the legs that a regular arm would (as you can see form the anatomical model). This prevents her from looking like an ape, but can leave you with stubby looking arms. I think the artist should have gone a little further as I have done below (extending her arms only 7 pixels), but if you go to far you get the issue on the right (extending her arms only 16 pixels).

http://amphomepage.com/temp/lee/Elaine-anatomy2.jpg)

Also totally agree with SyntheticGerbil, the reason the animations look so stiff is definitely because they have been drawn stiff. Bill Plympton is a great example of fantastic animation on a low frame rate.

Don't think anyone disagrees that the drawn frames are a little stiff, and that causes the slight stiffness in the animations. I have said so myself many times above.

However they are also pretty choppy, an issue with the increased resolution and that was what my point was regarding, at this fidelity the animations would really benefit from more frames than the originals and would look choppy not matter how well the frames were drawn. As we have clarified elsewhere these are different issue's all together.

Well, you should still get appealing ratios in check.

Agreed, I said as much in my post.

I seriously wouldn't use any top ten modern comic book artists, especially the popular ones who no doubt work for the big two bull**** comic corps, as any kind of standard for good artwork or appealing anatomy.

Yeah I agree, but my point was what people like, style-wise. So going off popularity is what is important in that regards not what we as critical artists value as "good" art, which is far too subjective anyway.

I think you will probably find the exact same proportional differences in almost any popular hand drawn art. Especially manga/anime.

And I don't know about you, but I like slightly deformed proportions for cartoon esque style characters. For instance, Ren & Stimpy (as something I both know we like) -

http://www.robotskirts.com/images/wp/johnk.jpg)

She has most of the same deformed proportions, however the artist is clearly much better (although the style is different and more apt for deformity, proportion-wise).

Thanks, I don't feel like such a nut case now! :)

Nah, your still a nut case :thmbup1:

Those aren't the same deformed proportions though, are they? That's a really well done drawing with the proportions being exaggerated with a much more masterful intention and appeal.

Here's another good example of doing it right: http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation30-big.jpg)

...range from highly informative and revealing to weird bitter rants from a grumpy old man who likes hitting on young female animators.



Speaking of which... Skadi is one of the most delightful web comics running at the moment: http://dummcomics.com/index?sid=286) There's another example of appealingly exaggerated cartoony ladies for you.

Why isn't the Monkey Island special edition using a resurrected Preston Blair zombie and Katie Rice as their art team?

Those aren't the same deformed proportions though, are they? That's a really well done drawing with the proportions being exaggerated with a much more masterful intention and appeal.

Here's another good example of doing it right: http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation30-big.jpg)

It has many of the same deformed proportions I mention in my post, huge head, shorter torso, long legs and arms shorter than height of body would indicate.

However I 100% agree it is a far more masterful drawn image, whcih is partially my point. Plus he at least got the elbow in the right place. One of the Elaine images biggest issues is the forearm being longer than the shoulder part of the arm. Also her hands are too big, which annoys me more than the length issue.

So again let me clarify I am agreeing the arm should be longer and looks a little stubby. My point is just it's not as simple as being anatomically incorrect.

I also think Elaine's arm looks much better when it is in motion in the walking animation.