The Potential and Limitations of 3D Modelling and Animation Technologies and Techniques: Part 4

Okay I've talked about Pixar before and where they went wrong in the past, now I want to talk about their future. Pixar as an animation studio have done an incredible job at combining realism with fiction. For example the textures and landscapes have only become more evolved over the years becoming more and more visually stunning and realistic. Whereas the characters have remained at a visually unrealistic level. Now my fear about upcoming Pixar films is that as the technology evolves and the worlds these characters live in look more an more realistic, the characters themselves could end up sticking out like a sore thumb. At the moment with their last film Inside Out I feel we are at a really nice level...



So the textures of the clothes the characters wear looks incredibly realistic as does their hair and surroundings yet their physicality is unrealistic...



Riley's head is hugely out of proportion as are her eyes for example. But that's fine because that disconnect between reality and fiction is an essential part of ever Pixar film's appeal.

But I did recently see the trailer for their upcoming film The Good Dinosaur...







Now the visual style did slightly worry me. For me I felt that although the landscapes in the trailer looked visually stunning, the characters didn't quite seem to fit in with the world their living in quite as easily as in past Pixar films. The dinosaur and the boy look almost too cartoony to fit in with the world, but that's where we reach a major conundrum. If the characters looked more realistic, e.g. more features and smaller eyes they might lose a bit of that connection with the audiences. From watching the trailer it was clear who we as the audience are going to root for due to the nice simple character design but then to me there's also a bit of a problem with them standing out too much.

I only watched a two minute trailer, it could be, and I truly hope that when it comes to watching the actual film I'll have forgotten about this within the first five minutes of the film and will have been completely emerged but right no this issue, that could just be my opinion alone in thinking it, does worry me.