The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk III

[halo1000]

I expect nothing with the pronunciation of names etc... between productions ever since Char pronounced Titans as 'tee-tarns'.

[G-Slayer]

I expect nothing with the pronunciation of names etc... between productions ever since Char pronounced Titans as 'tee-tarns'.

And how Char's name is pronounced as Shaar instead of ˈchär.

[toysdream]

And how Char's name is pronounced as Shaar instead of ˈchär.

Hate to break it to you, dude, but you're saying it wrong.

-- Mark

[DuelGundam2099]

So Ple's name basically means "El-People". Is that supposed to be bad Spanish or something?

As for the trailer, well, those are bad dubs. I am one of the few people o Earth that'll take dubs over subs in MOST situations as long as what I'm watching isn't butchered up. Even I found it bleh. Oh well, at least there's action to look forward to.

[Kenji]

So Ple's name basically means "El-People". Is that supposed to be bad Spanish or something?

"L People," Lemon People, a lolicon magazine.

A fitting reference, given what Ple is, I suppose.

[Dark Duel]

So Ple's name basically means "El-People". Is that supposed to be bad Spanish or something?

"L People," Lemon People, a lolicon magazine.

A fitting reference, given what Ple is, I suppose.

That right there...that is AWESOME. Even more awesome than Michel calling Ozma "Captain Siscon" in the Macross Frontier movie. (Not to his face, obviously)

[TetraVaal]

anyone know if there are HD versions of the new trailer?

[nkande4208]

why did they bring full frontal as char? the man already died I think they dint have to right him back into the story.... or the idea of him...

[Dark Duel]

Why? In short, psychological warfare: Because even nearly twenty years after the OYW, the words "it's the Red Comet!" combined with the sight of an appropriately colored, stupidly fast mobile suit still causes the average Feddie grunt to piss his pants with fear.
And because he's a useful propaganda tool for keeping what's left of the remains of Zeon in line.
And if you absolutely must know...

Spoiler

It's not really him.

[TetraVaal]

Now, I know anime films tend to keep raising the bar for animation, as I'm assuming they receive larger funding than mecha-oriented anime shows, but being the FX obsessed freak that I am, I decided to start doing some comparisons with the art style and animation of Gundam Unicorn with recent entries in the Gundam world, as well as the current state of mecha anime, to see if Gundam could once again revolutionize a genre, at least visually this time around. Well, upon doing some studying with the two OAVs of Unicorn and comparing them to recent mecha OAVs like Break Blade, television shows like Code Geass, Macross Frontier, Gurren Lagann, the rebuild Evangelion movies, etc, etc. The conclusion that I came to is yes, visually, Gundam Unicorn will raise the bar with mecha anime, or to be more specific, at least when it comes to OAVs. The reason I draw this conclusion is, I've seen a plethora of mecha-related shows over the past year or two, especially ones that supposedly had higher budgets than your typical mech shows, and Gundam Unicorn has become the first show to do two things in new ways: beam lasers and beam swords.

Lighting animation has never come this far for mecha anime when it comes to these two elements, especially for Gundam. The wispy trails of glowing particles that stem from the clash as the sabers hit each other, the vibrant and fluid colors of the beam rifles, as well as the trails of flames from the jetpacks from mobile suits, all seamlessly blend in with their enviornments in ways that haven't been done prior to this. Here are some screencaps I took to give you an example (potential SPOILERS if you haven't seen either volume of Gundam Unicorn):

http://i56.tinypic.com/ic0prd.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/2e1y77m.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/23jllw4.png
http://i53.tinypic.com/b8mi52.png
http://i56.tinypic.com/2wc34sm.png
http://i56.tinypic.com/2cqi1id.png
http://i54.tinypic.com/2utm3pu.png
http://i53.tinypic.com/2j4225k.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/2466h4x.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/14awgzq.png
http://i54.tinypic.com/21etbpt.png
http://i55.tinypic.com/2r20t1t.png - LOVE this shot.
http://i54.tinypic.com/2zqztc3.png

Then there's also the enviornmental scenery, which creates a radiant field of depth at times, as well as having rough, detailed steel textures. In fact, there are even specific scenes with several layers of moving background images, which creates a 3 dimensional landscape, which I've yet to see in a mecha anime... at least to the photoreal extent of Unicorn, it's very immersive. Here are a couple quick examples:

http://i53.tinypic.com/rc3rcm.png
http://i52.tinypic.com/30lmr9c.png
http://i51.tinypic.com/2zztgn6.png
http://i55.tinypic.com/k36izb.png

You also have the mech battles themselves, which is the best part of Unicorn when it comes to the animation, IMO. See, when it comes to film making, stuff like Transformers or anything that contains CGI robots, one of the main problems that remained up until Avatar, was motion artificialness (the motion-captured mechas in Avatar erased this problem, permanantly), but in anime, I always considered jarring motions to be equivalent to the motion artifacts you find in the aforementioned Transformers... but Unicorn doesn't have that problem. There's so much detail and hard work put into the battles, that the movement of the mobile suits are so fluid and agile to the point that you want to replay each sequence over and over, here's a quick cap from vol. 2:

http://i56.tinypic.com/2czrrmb.png

here's a couple quick character shots that I thought were pretty cool:

http://i56.tinypic.com/jjo9w4.png
http://i51.tinypic.com/n5push.png
http://i55.tinypic.com/2e2o6ev.png

I'll be capping a lot more from both episodes 1 and 2... but yeah, I don't mean to use the word revolutionary loosely, as I'm not saying that Unicorn is revolutionizing the entire medium of anime from a visual perspective, but from a genre standpoint, especially for mecha, I think it is a bit of a bar raiser.

[nkande4208]

wow those are some nice pics.. Im soo glad they went back to animation rather than full CGI, but what they did with a computer they did right... now only if they could maybe remake mobile suit gundam using this tech

[Amadi Akintunde]

Well, when they were making Endless Waltz, the team brought in some execs from Disney to make sure they were doing everything right. The Disney guys were actually quite surprised that the Wing team could animate 'mechanical' feathers as if they were real.

I will agree about some of the points you've brought about with Unicorn though. A lot of its visuals are stunning indeed.

[radioactive28]

Haven't quite been able to distinguish which of the nice lightings have been done by CG or by hand, but the attention to technical details has been nothing short of impressive, for the most part.

In the Kshatriya v. Jegan battle, if you slow the framerate to a quarter(!) or less, the bits actually have the correct thrust nozzles firing in relation to their motion. The cockpit displays for Kshatriya and the Stark Jegan were pretty well done as well. Ditto for thrust/motion co-ordination exhibited by Unicorn&Kshatriya, when they break out of the colony at the end of episode 1, and for the Unicorn v. Sinanju battle (a good bit of it, anyway, I think) in episode 2.

That said, while I do think Unicorn raises the bar for real robot series, I'm not sure if it matters for shows like Gurren Lagann and most recently, Star Driver. I quite suspect the latter two can get away with something loud and stylish rather than being visually impressive in the sense of Unicorn and the Evangelion Rebuild movies.

[Dark Duel]

In the Kshatriya v. Jegan battle, if you slow the framerate to a quarter(!) or less, the bits actually have the correct thrust nozzles firing in relation to their motion.

*appreciative whistle*
Now THAT is some serious attention to detail - not that it suprises me in the least - that they not only have the funnels animated beautifully, but they even went so far as to pay attention to what thrust nozzle would be firing relative to their movement.

[TetraVaal]

In the Kshatriya v. Jegan battle, if you slow the framerate to a quarter(!) or less, the bits actually have the correct thrust nozzles firing in relation to their motion.

*appreciative whistle*
Now THAT is some serious attention to detail - not that it suprises me in the least - that they not only have the funnels animated beautifully, but they even went so far as to pay attention to what thrust nozzle would be firing relative to their movement.

I just did what he told me to do and he's absolutely, 100% correct, that is down right fucking SICK in terms of attention to detail, as well as aiming for realism.

also, in regards to the team animating Endless Waltz, as well as realistically animating mechanical wings, that really doesn't surprise me, despite how cool it is. One of the reasons I've come to appreciate Gundam so much from a visual level, is that their mechas and generally their weaponry, always make sense from a mechanical standpoint, as well as being accurately animated and believable enough to where they'd work in a real life environment. For instance, if you look at the photos I provided for the RX-0 and the Quad-Wig, even in action, all of the gears, arm flaps, and even minor details all appear to move within a logical formation and design. It's awesome.

[DeltasTaii]

It's very nice but it doesn't really do anything Eva 1.0 didn't. The remade Operation Yashima rather set the benchmark it operates according to. Unicorn does get the chance to show off bright lights in dark areas more though.

[TetraVaal]

It's very nice but it doesn't really do anything Eva 1.0 didn't. The remade Operation Yashima rather set the benchmark it operates according to. Unicorn does get the chance to show off bright lights in dark areas more though.

I'm a huge Evangelion fan, but I'm gonna have to disagree. The rebuild films have probably twice the budget of the OAVs for Unicorn, yet you can clearly distinguish what is digitally animated and what isn't (not saying that's a bad thing, but the rebuild series does it for cheaper costs). I also think that with the exception of the opening sequence in 2.0 with Mari piloting the EVA-06 or w/e it was, the Gundam's in Unicorn have a much more complex mechanical design, so to animate them fluidly while retaining a logical design during these movements, is far more impressive, IMO. Plus, factor in what you said about agreeing with the big step forward in the way that the beam sabers/rifles seamlessly integrate with the space environment, and I'd say Gundam is a bit more impressive.

Overall, I'd say Unicorn gets more out of its resources than what the current Rebuild of Evangelion does, but I'm not discrediting the current work on Evangelion in any way.

[LightningCount]

(Based on Volume 1) I think Unicorn is very nicely animated...but, really, much of the detail, articulation, and lighting isn't any better than given scenes from 08th MS Team, 0080, 0083, F-91, or Endless Waltz. Unicorn is "cleaner," using sharper/brighter images with less line-work and less color piecing overall, which can take away from the idea of worn usage and grit on humans, machines, and environments (not to say it can't be appealing, but it does take away from texture and realism somewhat. For instance, sometimes the mecha come across more as moving plastic model kits: http://i53.tinypic.com/2j4225k.png <--spit-shined with no sign of usage via lines or color-implied texture). (vs: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hEUsTirZU9Y/S ... s+gouf.jpg) And with the humans, you probably won't be seeing this kind of detail: http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm21 ... nalCry.jpg.

Also, while Unicorn does an effective job hiding its digital, I can still see it. I will say the cockpit digital readouts, by and large, are probably more modern and interesting than in most, if not all Gundams, however. Unicorn is PRETTY, regardless. But is cleaner ultimately mean better/a clear evolution? Probably not. After all, the CE SEED series are clean (Unicorn is better than those, however, in terms of designs and animation). I see Unicorn as a solid OVA entry right now, and that's about it. For a clear-cut example of what I'm talking about, think about the intro or helicopter scenes to Patlabor The Movie 2. Is Unicorn really more jaw-dropping detailed than that?

In the end, though, if animation looks good, it looks good. There are varying techniques, and all are capable of eliciting strong feelings. Sometimes the smallest things like shading and color/saturation usage in scene to scene can make all the difference. Or the movement of a scene, too. So, I'm not trying to put down anything. I applaud Unicorn; I just don't know that it's leaps and bounds above everything before, despite having modern technologies to use for neat things here and there.

[Chris]

Unicorn animation topic merged into the main thread.

[TetraVaal]

but, really, much of the detail, articulation, and lighting isn't any better than given scenes from 08th MS Team, 0080, 0083, F-91, or Endless Waltz.

I've only seen 08th MS Team, War in the Pocket, and Stardust Memory from that list, but I can assure you the lighting and integration in Unicorn is vastly superior to those shows, due to the glowing lines amidst battles and the shade differentiation from space to the contrasting, vibrant colors emulated during each strike or thrust. To have that many layers of colors seamlessly blend into the dark space environment, is easily a major step up in this series.

Unicorn is "cleaner," using sharper/brighter images with less line-work and less color piecing overall, which can take away from the idea of worn usage and grit on humans, machines, and environments

I disagree, in this photo: http://i55.tinypic.com/k36izb.png you get more than enough detail when it comes to "grit" or wear and tear, especially in the chest and kneecap regions.

http://i53.tinypic.com/2j4225k.png <--spit-shined with no sign of usage via lines or color-implied texture

but for what it lacks in damaged surfaces or reflective lighting, it more than makes up for with its bold, elegant design to its rich shadows and detailed color-palette. Plus, keep in mind that in that specific scene I capped, Marida's Quad had yet to be damaged by an opposing mecha. I am willing to sacrifice minor details in the Gouf for the realism in shadowing and integration alone. However, this seems to be more of a preference from yourself and not necessarily opposing to the idea that Unicorn has raised the bar for animation in mecha anime.

And with the humans, you probably won't be seeing this kind of detail: http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm21 ... nalCry.jpg.

I'll have to revisit more sequences in Unicorn with more expressive features, but lack of small details like that don't bother me. And again, this seems to be more of a preference you're referring to, like how you said cleaner isn't always better... that's entirely subjective, but not one I'm really going to disagree with, as I happen to usually share the same sentiments. Just not in this regard.

while Unicorn does an effective job hiding its digital, I can still see it.

oh, definitely... but the thing is, I don't think Unicorn really tries to hide its digital animation. In fact, I think more than 60% of Unicorn is digitally animated, but the thing is, in this series, it's been nothing short of spectacular so far. This series is one instance where they're showcasing how to properly use digital animation without sacrificing detail or to a better extent, using it to make every richer, photoreal, and almost 3 dimensional.

But is cleaner ultimately mean better/a clear evolution? Probably not.

but in this case, it really does... even if you're right about the lack of scruffy textures, that could be made up for by the more fluid movement in characters and more specifically, the mechas... which are CLEARLY very agile and clean, no jarring what-so-ever, and that is pretty huge considering how much I like to nitpick at anything VFX related. So for what this "newer" technology may lack in the details you'd like to see, perhaps you could also appreciate it for continuing to advance character/mecha movements, to the point that where they almost look roto-animated. I'd say that's pretty damn cool. Also, to do a minor comparison real quick... Break Blade received a pretty good amount of funding and for the most part, its animation is top notch, but if you get the chance to compare the mech battles between the two series, Unicorn is night and day better than Break Blade in that regards, and really, that's the only series that's currently rivaling Unicorn from an animation standpoint, for the mecha genre, that is.

think about the intro or helicopter scenes to Patlabor The Movie 2. Is Unicorn really more jaw-dropping detailed than that?

Mamorou Oshii does no wrong and Production IG is by far, one of the best, if not THE best animation studio working today (it certainly was for that time). But honestly, if you'd as Oshii if he could use the technology being used on Unicorn for a new Patlabor film, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts he'd jump at the bit (just look at his obsession with digital animation since GItS: Innocence). Now. that's not to say that Unicorn is far and above the opening sequence in Patlabor, or the film in general... but honestly (THIS IS A SPOILER FOR THE SECOND OAV OF UNICORN, SO YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ IT, BUT IT'S NOT VERY SPOILERISH): I think the battle between Full Frontal and Banagher is better than any sequence in either Patlabor films, and could arguably be the best anime mech battle I've seen so far, in terms of visual spectacle. As radioactive28 pointed out, the thrust/motion co-ordination between the RX-0 and Sinanju in that scene is unbelievable, and it's not til' you slow down the framerate that you truly appreciate how much hard work had gone into it, especially for a realism perspective. Honestly, that battle sequence is probably my favorite mech battle out of every mecha anime I've watched so far (just thinking about it really makes me salivate for

Spoiler

the battle between the RX-0 and Sinanju where they're trying to re-enter the atmosphere, which will happen in the third OAV, and it looks completely INSANE.

I just don't know that it's leaps and bounds above everything before, despite having modern technologies to use for neat things here and there.

I respect your thoughts, and you have every right to feel that way. I just respectfully disagree. I would say it's "leaps and bounds" above everything, but I think it's a very significant step in showcasing how to PROPERLY use digital animation, especially for this genre.