Sonic the Hedgehog

Gary Caelum

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Gary Caelum
Wow that's kinda impressive that they're gonna change it. Lol internet outrage and mockery being used for something good.

But why on earth did it take them this long to hear the opinion that it looks awful? They must have had a crazy echo-chamber of fake positivity around the project.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
I wonder how much they could really improve it. You can't really change his height or the proportions of his limbs without having to reanimate everything. They could change the face, which God knows it needs, but is only part of the problem...
There's also the matter of if they thought the current iteration was good, do I have any faith that they would change it to something good?
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
did they not hear the reactions when those images from publicity materials leaked? those were pretty bad.

i'm seeing people raise concerns about the cgi/effects team and how they will be treated with the extra work of redesigning and rendering/compositing that into the film. so i hope they get paid well for dealing with this.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
Honestly I feel like he should have gotten the message sooner but glad they're open to change

I know, right??

But then watch. They'll make it worst. I just have no faith in Paramount or Sega at this point.

But at least, they finally got the initial clue.

Yes. This naked blue abomination with human teeth is wrong and needs to be returned to the underworld whence it came.
 

Dashell

SMILE!
AKA
Sonique, Quexinos, Pinkie Pie, Derpy Hooves

This is kind of a cool video about past Sonic movies that didn't make it. Obviously I knew about Ben Hurst's attempt, but the first one... the Seven Wonders... uh.. wow. Sounds really... corny but at the same time I think it would have made a really good kids movie. Well maybe not REALLY GOOD but...

Anyways, as usual #fuckKenPenders
 

looneymoon

they/them
AKA
Rishi

though from what I've heard from people who are savvy to 3D/mo-cap, the design change won't be too difficult so long as the proportions remain the same. still, I think this is good commentary.
 

looneymoon

they/them
AKA
Rishi
Theres that, and from what ive seen there is a lot of opportunity to take advantage of creatives? Like, people praise Andy Serkis as this huge revolutionary of mo-cap acting, but there it's pretty niche circles that understand the animators contribute equally to the performance. Studios have more incentive to offer an extra $1million to secure a celebrity actor, rather than adding a couple of thousand dollars onto the contracts for the crew.

On paper, the wages seem decent enough. However, the cities that are the VFX/animation hubs for mainstream TV&Film (LA, NYC, Vancouver, etc) tend to have a pretty high living cost, so it kinda cuts into the wage, unless you are lucky enough to be able to freelance and work remotely. Typically revisions don't count toward quota, and your aren't paid extra if your quota keeps you in the studio for longer than 8 hours a day. Which is what the video I posted above was getting into. Films and TV have tight release schedules that are planned way in advance, so the deadlines have to be met. It's the most important part of the job. That's not limited to animators - animation/vfx is just a particularly gruelling part of production.

This can sometimes create a dynamic where senior staff are choosing the shots/projects that allow them to meet quota easily, and the middle staff suffer by picking up the brunt of what juniors can't do and what seniors don't want to do. That is, If you work at a place where the employees are particularly jaded. I haven't seen this myself, but I have heard this from others.

In the case of the Sonic movie, I don't see them pushing the release date back because I doubt they want to compete with Frozen 2, which is coming out later that month. Overhauling such a big thing like the design of the main character seems like a huge undertaking if the movie is due to release in less than 6 months. I'm not a motion capture expert though, so I can't say for sure myself. A friend of a friend of mine is on this project, and they said it shouldn't be too bad, but I've also read a bunch on the internet saying otherwise.
 
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Dashell

SMILE!
AKA
Sonique, Quexinos, Pinkie Pie, Derpy Hooves
A friend of a friend of mine is on this project, and they said it shouldn't be too bad, but I've also read a bunch on the internet saying otherwise.

wait really?... did they say what the changes are? Not to miss the point of your post but...
 

looneymoon

they/them
AKA
Rishi
I don't know. I haven't spoken to this person myself. A friend/coworker of mine met them at a party within the last few months, after that first teaser poster came out. All I know is that even then they said that design wasn't final, so there's a chance they've been working on changing it since before the recent announcement?

I have read some stuff on the reddit posts that have said similar stuff. But really, I don't have any concrete knowledge about anything.
 

Gary Caelum

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Gary Caelum
I wonder how much they could really improve it. You can't really change his height or the proportions of his limbs without having to reanimate everything.

It is possible to store animations in different formats to do this. If you want to change the proportions of a body, you can simply convert an animation into relative bone rotations, as those are the same no matter what the length of your leg is (for the most part).

If you couldn't do that, it would be kinda hard to have Andy Serkis do the motion capture for Gollum. He doesn't have the same body proportions at all.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Yes, but everyone and everything he interacts with is already acted and animated based on his current proportions. For example, the missiles he grabs in the trailer. You could just make his arms shorter or longer, as that would change where the missiles have to be and where/how they move after he's grabbed them.
 

Gary Caelum

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Gary Caelum
Yeah that's true, but that's really easy to change when it involves other animated things, like the missiles. That's only a big issue when it comes to him interacting with people.
 

Dashell

SMILE!
AKA
Sonique, Quexinos, Pinkie Pie, Derpy Hooves
https://io9.gizmodo.com/vfx-artists-explain-what-it-would-actually-take-to-redo-1834653108

So this is an interesting article where a few CGI artists who've worked on movies such as Paddington talk about what they believe it will take to "fix" Sonic. They talk about what it all takes to put a CGI character into an IRL film and some of it is kind of interesting. If you don't feel like reading, here's a video about it:


I don't know how much they can change. I've heard they don't plan to change much but I feel like at this point, they kind of have to. To show us that monstrosity and get the backlash they did, even from Sonic's original creators, only to say "Oh we're gonna fix it" and give us the same shit back... that would pretty much screw them in the ass pretty hard

EDIT
there's also apparently a leaked storyboard image which I believe to be real, given it was a detail that someone in a test audience described. I'll spoiler it though just in case

0gytl1htfmy21.png


What is it with Sonic movies and owls? :monster:
 
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