Guyver II F Stop-Motion Film

[jerrygoodman]

Found this on YouTube, anyone else see this?

 

[durendal]

It's not as fluid as I'd expected since I've seen one youtuber doing a fantastic job making stop motion animation (involving Street Fighter characters), but this looks awesome nonetheless.

[Tora Tan]

wow! That is fantastic!!! I can't even imagine the kind of rigging they had to set up for that, especially the aerial battle parts. I loved the destruction of the box interior too, that was very cool and irreversible so it had to be done right first time! Some incredible talent there, the characters really emoted well and had a good weight to them.

[durendal]

Although unrelated to Guyver, this is by far the best stop motion animation I've seen since we're talking about stop motion.  The movements are just too smooth:

 

His channel also features the making of the videos.

[Tora Tan]

It's a different style, static camera and very simple movements. Also a number of moments where the character has no weight. Looks to me that they also simply mimicked the animation frames from the street fighter game in places which certainly makes it easier to get it smooth, this is kind of like rotoscoping.  Yes it looks smoother because of these factors, the guyver animation is unique camera movement and angles, which is really hard, and the characters have unique movement. I think it's unfair to look at that and suggest it's not as good. to be sure, we can all have our own likes and tastes and preferences, I'm just looking at that guyver animation and see some incredible skill and hard work.  It deserves high praise IMO.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Tora Tan

[durendal]

Well, I think FPS also is a big factor.  I saw a comparison video one done in 8 FPS and 24 FPS, and it makes a world of differences.  Obviously most of the videos he created was using 24 fps, hence the smoother quality.

You'll also note that both of them are using figma figures, so the articulation is the same.  I've also watch the other videos involving characters from other franchise and the smoothness is consistent.

To be clear, I'm not dissing the Guyver video, and I have to admit that a lot of hard work was indeed put into it.  Credit is definitely due for the effort alone.  I'm just merely saying that I prefer a smoother animation.  

[Tora Tan]

Yeah 24fps is certainly a lot more work than 8. Since they copied the animations from the videogame in points, they had to match whatever that is. For a longer freeform animation, it's really hard to use a high framerate.  I think we'd all love a smoother framerate to be honest, it's always more comforting to watch.

A note on the figures, it would be near impossible to get anywhere near smooth animation with standard figma, they also have to rebuild the joints and that does take experience to learn how to do it, so I imagine the streetfighter animation is more experienced in that regard?

[durendal]

If you're interested, here's another video from the same channel with behind the scenes look on how he was able to achieve such fluid animation.  He actually has a "making of" video of the one I posted above, but I feel that this video shows a lot more of the process involved in making a stop motion video (including video editing).  Besides, this one has the 8 fps vs 24 fps comparison.

 

 

[Tora Tan]

That is a very informative video. I'm a little bit dumbfounded that they produced such smoothness with the stock joints. Those things are generally not very user friendly in terms of getting them where you want and keeping the rest of the figure in the pose you want. I have a feeling there is more to it than just that, something going on behind the scenes, but I don't know what.

In any case, I have to hold my hands up, my animation degree was over a decade ago now and I didn't specialise in stop motion, my speciality is in game asset production. Whatever they do with it, is very impressive how smooth it is, they have a good process.

[Anxiety]

That video is awesome. Love it.