The movements in the cybertron opening scene flowed so smooth. The scene where Optimus is running after that seeker was superb. I can't tell if it was because the camera angles were different this time. Or it was just done so well.

The last knight had a scene where Optimus was running with the humans. Hound, Bee and Hotrod too. Right before the final battle. The animation on Optimus was clumsy and heavy. It didn't move right.

(Refer to the TF1 scene below)

(@ 4:55)

I couldn't find the video to compare the last knight with, but his movements were more realistic. It could also be due to the humans needed to be in the same shot running next to the autobots. That wasn't a good idea.

Now for BB scene;

(@ 3:00)

It was a quick scene, but Optimus' movements reminded me of his scenes from TF1-TF3.
Anyway I'd love to know if ILM animated the cybertron scene too. Despite the aesthetic choices for the characters, it sure left quite the impression for many that have seen the new cybertron.

 

i'd say a mix of both

 

The character models being less overly complicated is probably less of a headache for the animators and allows them to make each transformation look less nonsensical.

There's nothing wrong with complexity, but with so many moving parts and so many things to account for, they're bound to cut corners here and there because at the end of the day they're only human.

 

I'll say a skillful balance of both. . .

 

I think there was a lot of attention on that scene, or maybe it was easier because it was all cgi rather than cgi in a 'real world environment'. I enjoyed Bumblebee, but the effects in some scenes really looked like they were on a smaller budget (which they probably were, I suppose). The scene where Bee puts Charlie in the dumpster comes to mind.

 

according to an interview about making bee expressive they actually said the opposite, while their not as many parts animators had to do more with textures

ex: instead of maybe having 6 pieces with individual textures you'd have on big piece with a texture 6x as complicated than their used to making

 

That makes sense.

 

Personally, I'm of the opinion that simple designs look more realistic than the Bayverse designs. I honestly find it weird that so many people see those as realistic. I mean, just look around at real-life technology. Does anything really have that many individual exposed parts? The simple, blocky designs better mirror real-world robotics and machines, which we can relate to. You can make an argument that Transformers are supposed to look alien, but that's kind of a moot point since we don't know what alien tech looks like. If you go by 1950s standards, alien tech should look like shiny UFOs. Since the only thing we have is our own tech, that should be the standard for realism.

I mean, they're all stylized to an extent. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of Transformers media present them in a truly realistic style. Maybe Sqweeks, honestly. I just think the Bumblebee designs look a lot more plausible than the Bayverse ones.

 

It's been 10 years, the computer power and software available to make BB is a lot better than what they would have been using in Movie 1.

 

You

You forget the aspect of scale, with a larger surface area you need more material, thus more detail.

 

Detailing can be added with things like paint scratches, metal texture, chips, tear & wear, dust or mud. Things don't need to be ridiculously overcomplicated or multiparted for this.

 

Does allow for more movement though, considering that they are made from rigid material, meaning lots of parts.

 

Really? Because how many additional surface parts a humanoid silhouette has has absolutely no meaning to its posing ability and overall articulation. For this only joints on limbs and torso will count, same as on a much simpler robot. Bayformers had far, far too many additional surface effects added just for the sake of being there. I didn't see robots in Pacific Rim or Bumblebee being stiff in their movements at all...

Also, adding unneeded geometry makes scenes and animations actually harder to render or arrange.

 

These need to be able to turn into cars as well.

 

*vehicles

 

The animation is more goofy and cartoony at times, but fast pasted and fluid in scenes where the characters are fighting. My favorite fight scene in the film was when Bumblebee was fighting Dropkick, because they used their transformation ability nicely.
For Bumblebee anyway.

I think the first Transformers film had the best animation, with my favorite being when Jazz was fighting Brawl. But the rest looks too slow after the first movie.

 

My personal opinion is the resolution movies are shot in these days don't leave room for mistakes. Everything is crystal clear - there's not much to hide behind. The CGI in older movies just seems to hold up better. The CGI in LoTR vs The Hobbit comes to mind.

 

Ye, agreed.

 

I think there might be two factors.

Factor one with scaling back the budget they seem to have tossed out this idea of hey lets slap on bits just to be slapping on bits. They used to brag about Ironhide's gun having 10,000 parts but you can make a mighty cool looking gun with far less parts. There is a limit to just how many moving bits we can focus on at once so they could easily cut back on the number of parts for each robot and still have some cool looking robots.

The other factor you can't leave out is the director. Travis Knight comes from stop motion so his whole life in film has been about how to make things look like they are moving in a natural way. Watch his movie Kubo and the Two Strings to see just how good he is with motion.

 

What codes as realistic to a human eye is what has imperfection. CGI often goes too far in the other direction, being far too clean.

(That's superlative but you know what I mean...)