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INTEREST: Hayao Miyazaki Calls AI CG Animation 'An Insult to Life Itself'


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Fey Fey



Joined: 02 May 2015
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 1:54 am Reply with quote
wait they presented this yo Miyazaki in 2016?? are you serious? I had few friends in a senior project class in high school back in 2010 and they did something very similar if not the same with characters and ironically enough the actual zombies in the game they were making. yet that was a stupid and funny thing they did and said hey check this out and we laugh and they move on. Personally, I think Miyazaki reaction sums up most CG in Anime today. (not all but most from what I've seen)
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:17 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
Whether AI will ever be capable of stories like humans create, who knows? Assuming it became possible, companies who could afford the computing power would certainly replace humans in the process altogether.

My initial reaction to their answer was, "Why?" People need to create, but if machines can do it more cheaply, humans will no longer be funded to create and our concepts of what is a good story and what looks good on screen will change as the human-created content becomes fringe. It's already changed. And when it happens, otagirl, LoriasGS, AnimeLordLuis, TheAngryOtaku, grouwl and their contemporaries will be the grumpy old farts shaking their fists at the sky.


Since I'm a million years old (but not Hayao's ten million), the reason I'm laughing right now is the animators' gee-whizzery over "Look, AI can simulate human movement from theory, see how disturbing it is? It'll replace everything someday!"--and some of the secondhand gee-whizzery on the thread of those who believe it--sounds exactly...EXACTLY, to the words...what the industry was saying when it first saw the photo-realistic Squaresoft CGI characters in still shots from '99's "Final Fantasy" movie.
And then the movie came out. Erm....yyyyeah. Suddenly, nobody was talking anymore about whether computers would "replace live actors someday", and the conversation moved on. Laughing

Hayao likes being a grumpy old geezer, like any other ex-60's retiree who found out he hates gardening after all, but he does have some kind of a point underneath the grumpiness:
Whether it was FF:TSW's marionettes or these guys' weird zombies that frankly would be disturbing in a Resident Evil game, nothing is going to replace animation made by people who like doing it.
That does appear to be one of the main differences, when we're talking about Ghibli vs. other anime, or Pixar vs. Dreamworks, or Disney vs. Anybody Else.
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Chocoreto



Joined: 17 Feb 2016
Posts: 105
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 6:38 am Reply with quote
He is freakin' right! Right all the way about the CGI! It was bad enough when Disney started making 3D movies (who the hell, who the hell told them that they had better aesthetics than the 2D movies and this was a good idea??) but I have literally cried at the new Berserk series that I couldn't watch because of it, the new Sailor Moon Crystal transformations - which Thank God Almighty were fixed in the 3rd season -, not being able to watch shows like Knights of Sidonia and Ajin, and worst of all: Kingdom. Do you know how it feels like to read 30-40 volumes of quality manga in almost one go, then find out there is an anime of it, and proceed to find out that they turned it to... FULL CGI for 39 + 39 = 78 episodes? I literally cried! I loved the manga so much!

I understand using CGI in some scenes for budget reasons, but making the anime full CGI is absolutely abhorring, making me at least unable to watch even a mere minute of it. Who told people that "innovative" and "futuristic" meant "completely computer made"? IT UGLY!
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
Posts: 2476
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 8:49 am Reply with quote
I thought the CG motion looked pretty good. The presenter says pretty explicitly that it would primarily be useful for zombie-like creatures (or other critters that move without attending to pain causes by unnatural limb positioning/motion), and it looks like it would be pretty fantastic for that. Training a deep neural net or what-have-you to auto-generate motion like this also frees up CG artists to focus on elements of animation and/or game design that will benefit more from human attention to detail.

Chocereto wrote:
I have literally cried at the new Berserk series that I couldn't watch because of it


Berserk 2016's CGI was particularly bad, though - not a good example of the artform/medium as a whole. And general consensus in the thread about it, from memory, was that it actually got quite enjoyable by the end - may be worth pushing through the first few episodes to see if you like it by 5 or 6.


Last edited by NeverConvex on Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:31 am; edited 1 time in total
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shiranehito



Joined: 27 Dec 2011
Posts: 793
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:07 am Reply with quote
I think most people here are discussing about CGI animation in general instead of the AI CGI that should be the focus point. So talking about Berserk or Ajin or Pixar and new Disney stuff is unrelated. It's really not about the CGI since Miyazaki himself had worked with CG animation. It's about the AI CGI.

It's AI. Those people didn't create that odd and unnatural movements of the CGI. The artificial intelligence learned to move. Well, they learned to move head first, or arms first, so it looks unnatural. So that's creepy and grotesque, but as the presenter said, it would work on zombie games. But the AI will be learning much more in the experiment, so at some point it will create a natural lifelike movement, maybe. And ultimately the AI CGI will not replace human animators in near future, since most people still favors hand drawn animation no matter how underpaid and severely overworked the animators are.

But something tells me that this experiment might not be continued anymore.
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 9:34 am Reply with quote
shiranehito wrote:
I think most people here are discussing about CGI animation in general instead of the AI CGI that should be the focus point...
It's AI. Those people didn't create that odd and unnatural movements of the CGI. The artificial intelligence learned to move.


Yeah, I was going to mention this as well but forgot; the OP is primarily about artificial intelligence generated using (presumably) machine learning techniques. It is then applied to 3D models, of course, but the quality of the 3D models isn't the point.
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rtil



Joined: 22 May 2005
Posts: 93
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 2:24 pm Reply with quote
#825565 wrote:
MarshalBanana wrote:
I doubt when Miyazaki first went into the industry, he was any more talented than the people he is criticising. He's celebrated as a director and writer, I've never heard much about his work as a Key Animator, but the few things I've seen weren't anything spectacle, like the scenes you get from Yutaka Nakamura or Hideaki Anno.

Why can't he be more like Go Nagai, they are both from the same generation, but you never hear Nagai moan about anything.


Go Nagai is an absolute madman that innovated the entire industry with several genres.

Miyazaki just made mainstream movies that do nothing out the comfort zone.

Please don't compare them again, the contribution Nagai has to both manga and anime is bigger than anything Miyazaki has ever done.

how edgy do you have to be to say something so blatantly stupid? sounds like you've got a bone to pick with the most prolific director in Japanese history. are you one of the people in that board room he insulted in the video? did he hurt your feelings?
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6228
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 2:53 pm Reply with quote
Redlinks wrote:
He's absolutely right. People are becoming lazy by wanting machines to do work for them instead of appreciating the hard work they put forth into something. CGI animation is an example of how lazy people have gotten. It's sad to see that hand drawn animation is a dying art. Heck, I'm sure if Walt Disney saw what has become of animation today, he'd take action and go back to how cartoons should be, HAND DRAWN.


Considering how some of the stuff Walt directed/drew flopped which effected him emotionally I'd think he simply wouldn't care.

Animechic420 wrote:

Well he's not wrong...


You mean aside from the part about "loosing" ourselves?

Chocoreto wrote:
He is freakin' right! Right all the way about the CGI! It was bad enough when Disney started making 3D movies (who the hell, who the hell told them that they had better aesthetics than the 2D movies and this was a good idea??)


Probably the people that didn't like Treasure Planet, Atlantis The Lost Empire, and Home On The Range :S

Chocoreto wrote:
I literally cried!


No you didn't.


Chocoreto wrote:
IT UGLY!


Only to traditional minded people who think that 2D is the only dimension that matters.
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midori kou



Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 3:21 pm Reply with quote
Quote:

Calling it lazy is an insult to people who spend hundreds of hours rigging/coding/modeling for computer animations.


^This!

CGI and 2D are just two different mediums to convey an idea on screen as to oil paint and watercolor are. They have different skill sets and theories, but they still apply the basics of color, lighting, composition and so on.

As for adding an AI to the mix, again, it's another way to approach the art. It doesn't mean anything more than that.

I have no respect for Miyazaki, for he forgot that part of being an artist is to experiment with different mediums, even if it's out of your comfort zone.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:03 pm Reply with quote
Chocoreto wrote:
He is freakin' right! Right all the way about the CGI! It was bad enough when Disney started making 3D movies (who the hell, who the hell told them that they had better aesthetics than the 2D movies and this was a good idea??)


As shiranehito points out, Hayao wasn't talking about CGI, he was talking about the computer's AI attempt to "learn" human movement as "an insult to life itself" (nowww d'you get why he said that?...Sheesh!), and yes, the experiment will probably soon be discontinued for lack of an application or point.

BUT, since you did wander off-point to ask about Disney's use of CGI, the "who" was Michael Eisner, and I could go into six paragraphs of why he said that, but, to run through the highlights:
Everyone goes gaga over Shrek 2, and jumps on Katzenberg's "Disney is icky princesses" train, analysts don't know why all the Rugrats cable movies and dreary melodramatic 2D Dreamworks movies tank while Pixar and Finding Nemo cleans up in an empty summer; Katzenberg Alibi-Ikes that "maybe Sinbad would have been better" in 3D, and the analysts plaster "JK sez 2D is Dead!" across every industry headline.
Eisner is embarrassed at being made Shrek's scapegoat-patsy for all the "un-feminist" princess musicals, so he pulls Treasure Planet out of theaters and makes a big show of LOVING 3D CGI and HATING fairytale musicals, lest anyone should dare accuse him otherwise...

(Oh, and I already got through three or four paragraphs on another site about the several other reasons why Treasure Planet underperformed at the box office despite being the darn good movie that Atlantis and Range weren't, so I don't feel like going through all that again.
Let's just say it was the victim of a LOT of circumstances. Some of them due to horribly insane studio mis-marketing, like RKO gave to "Fantasia"--That's the "Walt felt bad" that BNB mentioned.)
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fanime99



Joined: 08 Mar 2010
Posts: 48
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:13 pm Reply with quote
LoriasGS wrote:
Everything I've learnt about Miyazaki is that he's a deeply unpleasant and bitter man and his opinions are not worth anyone's consideration, the only reason people humour them is because of his talent in filmmaking. He's the Alan Moore of the anime world.


If that's everything you've learned about this man, then you haven't learned much at all.

You should look at some of the extras on Ghibli discs. I was entertained by the video on From Up on Poppy Hill where they showed the finished film to the team that made it, and the first thing that happened was Hayao Miyazaki stood up and apologised to the team, saying the reason it was late was that he finished the script late. I think Toshio Suzuki was next, and he apologised saying the film was late because he failed (I forget how he took responsibility), ... (the real reason was blackouts due to the Tohoku earthquake)

It was all tongue in cheek (I believe), yet so very Japanese. It gave a different insight into these men. A bit like the extra on one of the bigger films (I think it was Mononoke-hime) which showed him cooking for the team because everyone was working overtime.

I think a more realistic interpretation is that Miyazaki is a highly skilled veteran of making animated films who has been asked to acclaim a barely-started attempt to replace the skill he has exercised all of his life, and he simply wasn't impressed. Reminds of the possibly apocryphal story of a press interview with Dustin Hoffman doing Marathon Man where he explained how (as part of his "method acting" approach) he'd being stressing himself so he could be the tortured character he depicts, at which point Lawrence Olivier (NOT a "method actor") asked "why don't you just act?".
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SkyDemonZoro



Joined: 17 Jul 2013
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 4:30 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
I doubt when Miyazaki first went into the industry, he was any more talented than the people he is criticising. He's celebrated as a director and writer, I've never heard much about his work as a Key Animator, but the few things I've seen weren't anything spectacle, like the scenes you get from Yutaka Nakamura or Hideaki Anno.

Why can't he be more like Go Nagai, they are both from the same generation, but you never hear Nagai moan about anything.


Then you obviously haven't seen much of his work.
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Ochinchinsama69



Joined: 29 Jun 2016
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:02 pm Reply with quote
Damn bruh, Hayao miyazaki is like the Gordon ramsay of Anime Anime hyper
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ParaChomp



Joined: 10 Dec 2010
Posts: 1018
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:33 pm Reply with quote
Ochinchinsama69 wrote:
Damn bruh, Hayao miyazaki is like the Gordon ramsay of Anime Anime hyper
What? No, Gordon Ramsay is the hippest dude on the block.

CG is easier to mess up and hand drawn animation is a dying art.

Miyazaki, you should listen to this song.
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JDude042



Joined: 29 Dec 2011
Posts: 261
PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:29 pm Reply with quote
As a kid, I remember watching several classic Disney movies such as Aladdin and The Lion King, and while I wasn't really much on Disney past the mid 90s, it is incredibly disappointing that Disney has forsaken traditional style animation that they were so famous for in favor of 3D CG. To be honest I'm not going to lose sleep over it, but it is still a huge shame. I remember watching Toy Story as a kid, but that's probably the only fully CG Disney movie I've seen. Everything past my childhood just doesn't really interest me, so I guess I just grew out of it at some point.
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