Was 3D Worth It?
 

As was only natural, when this show was announced to be CGI and when people saw the earlier renders, many were skeptical. Now that the show is fully rendered and out, there aren't many complaints about the appearance itself, but the creators have admitted the 3d duties limit how many environments they can create and show. Many have complained about the human characters being less developed than in past shows, and a big part of that is the show doesn't show much of the human world. The lack of incidentals on the street has also been a gripe, though lately there's been more of those. A particularly poignant example was the Turtles doing an episode somewhat similar to Superquest in the 4Kids series, but this new episode took place entirely in an ugly, near-featureless dungeon.

So was 3d worth it? I'm edging towards no, but what do you think?

I really don't why but the decision was to make gold from a small pile of straw and hey so....yeah.


Animation is far from bad. It's pretty great. It's just design of backgrounds are so basic. All in all, if I were to make a budget cut between either a good and well animated characters to a detail lush background, I would probably made the same decision. They got to look good for the toys, right?

100% worth it

the action scenes look incredible, at a calibur i dont think can be reached with normal animation. also with the cg models, the characters look more real. if one is in the background, in traditional animation, they tend to stand static. with the cg, just small movements added or slight shifting just makes them feel so much more realistic. add in that i think the cg can capture emotions better.

as far as sets: i actually dont mind them reusing the same sets. the turtles live in the same place, alot of the places they go are probably the same a large part of the time. seeing them go over the movie theater or the dragon bridge thing just makes it seem accurate. while yeah, sometimes you can tell they had to reuse a set where a new one may have worked better (a lot of the season 2 fights have been at the park, for example) its easy to get over. and even though they have limited sets, we still get a new one every couple of episodes, so its not like they are fighting in the same alley every scene. theyve been able to flesh out a decent amount of sewer tunnels, subway tunnels, city streets, city alleys and rooftops. plus, were getting woods in season 3.

as far as humans: yeah ok, new york is never that empty. but theyre obviously not in the hugely overly populated section of the city. so only having a few citizens out, especially since its mostly at night, isnt completely inaccurate. during th day they have more, like the first rat king episode, plenty of people out. and theyve definitely added more as the episodes have progressed.

and the background: this really doesnt bother me. you see it in the distance, no its not fleshed out, but it still looks good. sure, an episode of them going to some of the extremely tall skyscrapers would be awesome, but its honestly fine the way it is.

again, i think cg was a great choice. to me its one of the best parts of the show. i watch the show for the characters and story, not the backgrounds and sets

My only gripes with the CG is it limits them to what they can do. They can't introduce countless characters like cartoons can, and they can't take them out of NYC without building more, "sets."

It's amazing how cartoons can draw different backgrounds so easily set in space, Japan, underground, castle's, etc. yet CG can't do that

Yeah, this is how I feel too. Aside from how it has limited the show scene/model wise, it looks fantastic & I totally love it.

I'm probably a biased because it's an art form I really like - and think those who get to be a part of that show are terribly lucky - but I think it's a really good choice for this series. Was a little iffy on some of the hard edges to the character design, but have gotten used to it. The environments ("sets") are really well done in terms of look and detail.

Really the only thing that probably limits it is that, from what I understand, it is an expensive show to make. A lot more time and effort and paychecks to put into all that. Although on the plus side, once you have it you have it, thankfully don't have to keep remaking it.

This my only issue with the CG stuff. Other than I don't mind so much. Still wish there were more people, though or costume changes.

The only thing that bothers me is the limiting of things like Character Models or backgrounds.

I have to admit that I really like how they design some of the mutants in this show. They all have a very animalistic and almost alien look to them instead of boring anthropomorphism of an animal head sticking on a human body like in the 80's cartoon.

I don't like CG much at all. Almost every CG animated show/movie I watch would have looked so much better traditionally animated. CG ages poorly, costs more, and limits what you can do if you're on a budget. And I just don't like the look of humans in this style of animation.

I think this show's relatively ugly, and this is the top contributor to it. I'd be complaining a lot less if it had been traditionally animated.

I assume the CGI sets are limited because they're expensive to make. Animation can draw whatever, and whenever you need something else, just draw it. CGI requires so much work with extra detail, shading, lighting, all that stuff, that if you're bother spending all time and money to make a good background set, you better re-use to make up for it. It would probably cost them way beyond the effort of creating a fight at some shopping mall background that would only be used in that one episode.

I have no problems with the CG. I have liked both animated like the old toon and 2k3, live action (except for Next Mutation) and the CG (like 2007 and Nick)

I gotta say, NYC feels like a ghost town in this show.

There is literally no one there! :o

Maybe in that universe it's just a less populated version of NYC? ;)

Or the people there really are mindful of bedtimes... or have a crazy curfew imposed on them?

Or the Turtles secretly eat humans and their local area is getting scarce.

I think it was totally worth it to use CGI. Sure, there's limits to what they can use due to budget, but at the end of the day, the finished product looks awesome. Plus the Turtles can do more moves and things in CGI, too. I'm all for it and I can't wait to see more from this show.

So much for being the city that "never sleeps"!

I like this theory.

Although I prefer traditional animation over CG, I think the animation for this show is really great, I love it. It stinks that there are limitations, though.