Golden Eggs/ Toon-shading

[J.sharp]

I've tried posting this mail already three times, but for some reason it
keeps
getting returned to me, so third time lucky!


First, regarding Golden Eggs, according to Wikipedia it seems that the
characters might be being used in various English language schools - for
example, Nova, Berlitz, as well as high schools, universities etc. At the
very least, they seem to be endorsed by the Japan-English Teaching
Association.
Also, watching the youtube films, some fo the the comedy seems to be making
some sort of ironic comment about learning foreign languages in Japan
(the English subtitles seem to be included in the original MTV Japan
broadcasts). I was wondering if there are any eikaiwa teachers on this list
who might know about this. I'm also wondering if anyone found them as funny
as
I did, and if perhaps the humour is something that people not familiar with
Japan might get too.


As for Toon Shading, it is the same as Cel-Shading, but the actual software
plug-in used is called a Toon Shader.

More details are given here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel-shaded_animation

Basically, Toon shaders are plug-ins provided with the Soft Image/XSI 3d
modelling package that make the more exact, hard 3d rendered models look
more
like traditional hand-drawn animation. In Princess Mononoke for example, the
tentacles of the boar on the opening attack were actually animated as 3d
wireframe worms, and then toon-shading was applied to them to make them
blend with the hand drawn animation. This sort of 'cheat' technique has been
used a few times with Ghibli - for example, the animated flags in the
cbackgrounds of Howls Moving Castle were originally designed as 3d models
and toon-shaded to look like they'd been drawn by hand (animating around 10
flapping
flags in the backgrounds would have taken ages). The technique was also
used in DreamWork's Prince of Egypt, the second time after Princess
Mononoke.

As I mention, the most obvious example is in Appleseed, which is covered in
some detail (in Japanese) on the Softimage site:

www.softimage.jp/user_case/appleseed/index.html

The whole film, like Final Fantasy, is computer created - but the
characters, unlike the backgrounds, are toon-shaded to give them that
traditional anime look as opposed to the stiff cinerealistic CGI avatars
that basically proved Final Fantasy's downfall.

I've written quite a bit about this technique's applications in various
issues of the technical magazine 3d World. It is very interesting for me
because whereas American animation (of the big studio variety) seems to
be concerned with perfecting and refining 3d CG modelling techniques, if not
creating a mimesis of cinematic reality, then at least attempting to make a
realistic mimesis of a 3d puppet show, Japanese animation is combing 3D CG
technology with handdrawn for use within the 2d aesthetic,adopting
experimental with different modes of representation. Its the reason I've
given up going to see the latest Pixar animations, yet still get very
excited to see what folks like Mamoru Oshii and Michael Arias at Studio 4c
are up to.

Jasper
--
Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
www.midnighteye.com

===

Available now in bookstores everywhere:
The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (Stone Bridge Press)
by Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/midnighteye_guide.shtml
"Easily one of the most important books on Japanese cinema ever released in
English."
- Newtype USA




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