Animation has experienced a mixed output in 2024.
Fans often speculate why certain shows receive more visual acclaim than others.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Castlevania: Nocturne. © Netflix/Powerhouse Animation
WhatIsCompositing In Animation?
So I wanted to ask you guys, what is the actual difference between animation and compositing?
Everything has to have compositing.
Thanks again to our fans and partners for the love and support!
There are a lot of overlapping factors.
The level of compositing that each show has varies wildly.
Demon Slayeris heavily composited.
[Ufotable is] doing tons of polishing on the backend.
Ill just be the first to say theyre both really good at Ufotable.
Absolutely shook the anime community.
Theres no way around it.
Its gonna come down to each project.
A show like the newRanma 1/2has a much lighter composite with some diffusion and stuff like that.
I dont think you would makeRanma1/2with a heavier composite like some other shows.
been meaning to post abt this, but i love the stylistic choices in ranma 1/2.
Samuel Deats:Those decisions were also happening back in the cell animation days.
Its just evoking a vibe.
But thats a style choice they get away with all the time.
It looks dope, [but] are there times its too much?
But, generally speaking, it looks awesome.
The reality is you dont even wanna notice the light wrap.
You want it to be just enough that it takes the edge off with a backlight on the character.
If you are noticing that theres a light, theres a problem.
Is there a reason most of Netflix’s animated shows look so flat/dull?
(Perhaps this is just what people want nowadays but I just have zero interest in watching this stuff.
Adam Deats:All of the above.
Samuel Deats:Some of these things are style decisions that are occasionally made for us.
Someone will come to us and say, Hey, we wanna make this.
Can you guys make it look like that but a little different?
Other times, it is the availability of staff.
The team we have around for character designers and stuff like that.
Its a bit of a push and pull on why you might see similar styles in our studio.
And then we have some that are slightly more Western in design.
For example, many studios have slowly shifted to digital animation cleanup pipelines.
Line quality is still really important for the animation process, which is why theyve been doing that.
Every cleanup studio that Western animation studios use is reliant on South Korean pipelines to animate the actual shows.
This has been going on for decades.
Those South Korean studios outsource to other studios when working on the same show.
We outsource to them, and they outsource to other studios internally.
We dont know who theyre outsourcing to, so you get various cleanup options.
We adopt whatever compositing pipeline they use, Adobe After Effects, for years.
Overall, every show has problems with consistency issues.
Theres always the episode that drops in quality.
Theyre just doing a lot and its hard to manage that perfectly with ultimate precision.
And I tell you, Ufotable does it better than most.
Theyre doing a great job at it, but every team has problems.
Its just the way it goes.
David Howe:I also feel like there are just people who copy other peoples styles, too.
Naturally, things evolve, and people see what they like and do similar things.
Adam Deats:Yeah,Castlevaniais very anime-influenced.
I think the American industry has been pretty anime-influenced for the last several years.
David Howe:Yeah.
Not just shows, but all of [American] culture as well.
Adam Deats:All of the culture, yeah.
I mean, the amount of times thatJ.J.
Abrams has been taking shots fromNausicaaor other shows and being influenced by that is pretty intense.
Castlevania: Nocturneseason two premieres on Netflix January 2025.
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