If you’re ever wondering why characters in anime, video games, etc. often don’t have visible signs of aging it’s because
1. That shit is expensive.
3. You go an inch too far and you’ve just fallen into uncanny valley. It isn’t even a matter of it being unattractive, it’s just straight up creepy. Instead of looking human, it looks like something pretending to be human.
It’s why anime that is drawn in a very realistic style ends up looking a bit freaky to look at.
Not to mention, making it look right is incredibly expensive. You have to pay far more attention to detail and have a greater understanding of human anatomy… which takes longer to raw and produce frames of because you mess up the human face even an inch and it’s just like bam valley city. You also have to keep it consistent… You can’t have realistic looking eyes and then the more traditional style anime nose and mouth, or realistic nose and traditional anime looking eyes and mouth, etc. Basically, if you’re going to do it, you have to do it all the way. You can’t have one part more detailed than the others because like I said, you just drop right into valley city. You also have to be very intentional about it.
It’s why realistic portraits and drawings are rarely done without a reference or model. There are too many aspects of the face that are nearly impossible to recreate from pure memory even if you understand the underlying structure of the face because there will always be certain details that you simply don’t have in memory and your brain will just fill in what it thinks those pieces that are missing are… Which can lead to some things being a little off if the brain isn’t correct about it.
Even something like A Christmas Carol was fairly expensive to produce and they didn’t get this level of detail by just animating 3D models. They had to use motion capture to help generate the facial expressions and movements of the characters. The models they used were also built to handle that level of detailing and they didn’t just stick that level of detail on the faces of the characters and keep everything else simple and stylized. No, they went balls deep and didn’t pull out.
You see the level of detail in his hands? The texture of the furniture and candles? The clothes and hair? Not a single inch of it was left undetailed and doing something like that costs a shit ton of money. The level of detail in everything around the face work.
Also, motion capture is basically when you stick dots on an actor and their movements are generated on the computer. It’s often used in conjunction with CGi and practical effects. If that doesn’t make sense here is a picture
That’s motion capture and it’s basically used to capture facial expressions, emotions, movements, etc. that would be hard to recreate with CGI alone.
“But Disney is able to do it so why can’t–”
Just because Disney or even Pixar are able to do something, doesn’t mean it is possible for everyone else. Disney is able to dedicate a team of upwards of 50 animators just for characters alone, and that isn’t even getting into the environments, lighting, shading, rendering, rigging, VFX, etc. and dedicate years or even decades creating a single movie. It can take anywhere between four and seven years, and even longer in some cases, to get a movie from launch to finish.
Carl’s signs of aging fit within the stylization of the movie and his model was created with being able to handle that kind of detail on his face. Realistically, he still has a more youthful looking face than a man his age should have… Which means they simplified the features of his face and combined it with stylization and the detail they put in his clothes, hair, etc. which makes the features of his face stand out less.
The same could even be said for the movie Coco. They’re able to achieve that level of detail on Grandmother Coco’s face because everything else is so detailed. You can see the fine details of her hair and the stray flyaways, the texture of the furniture and her clothes, etc.
Why does everything seem to get simplified in animation, games, etc. you ask?
Because people don’t like looking at things that look human but aren’t. Ever see one of those realistic robots? Ever notice how often times something looks just off enough about them if you look at them closely enough whether it be the occasional jerky movement in the mouth or head or the lifeless looking eyes… Something is just a tad bit off. Don’t get me wrong, they’re cool, but not exactly something the brain likes because it can’t tell if it is real or fake. It’s like looking at something pretending to be or almost human… but not quite there yet.
Not to mention, it is cheaper and easier to keep things on model when they are simplified and stylized. People generally would much prefer to look at stylized creatures with symbols of being human (such as the stylized faces, bodies, etc.) as opposed to a completely CGI but realistic looking one. Basically, a more stylized character ends up looking more human than a completely realistic one.
It’s why at the time of its release, The Polar Express, which also used motion capture like A Christmas Carol, was generally considered a tad creepy looking because
The characters and animation were almost human and realistic, but not quite there yet. However, the motion capture really helps with keeping the movements realistic and human enough it didn’t fall into the uncanny valley.
However, even still, there were some aspects that don’t quite look all that right if you look at them long enough.
Even in Overwatch, character models are kept rather simple.
Their character shorts are a little more detailed than the in game models, but still fairly stylized from real life because it helps keep the animation smoothing. Here, you can see the details of tracer’s hair, but in comparison to a more detailed model…
You can see the level of detailing is different, mainly, in the hair. For lack of better words, Tracer’s hair is very static and “glued”. It moves just enough to give the impression of movement, but unlike Rapunzel’s, you don’t see the little flyaway hairs and strands. Sure, you can see individual hairs as a result of modeling, lighting and texturing, which gives the impression of there being individual strands, which keeps the hair looking realistic enough that it doesn’t look like she just has blocks sitting on her head.
However, when you look closely at Rapunzel’s hair, you can see every little subtle movement her hair makes.
Now let’s move onto the in-game models.
As you can see, their in-game models are considerably less detailed than the animation ones. Her hair has just enough shading and movement to mimic hair and for it to not look low quality or off. However, it’s clear that it has less detail than the character short models. You don’t see every individual strand or the impression of them like you can in Tracer’s. Instead, you see lighting and shading of “chunks” of hair that move with enough flow, lighting, and shading that they actually do resemble hair.
Also… Another reason why the in-game models are more simplified than the character short models is because loading that level of detail, even in the character short with the UI, movements, combos, etc. is a nightmare. It is a loading and network nightmare because they level of rendering per second for an online game with a server hosting thousands if not millions of people at once is going to make a lot of systems crash from the overload. It is a bandwidth and data nightmare because they level of rendering would take up a shit ton of space. It would be aesthetically beautiful, however, a nightmare in just about all other aspects.
Final Fantasy FX clocks in at a whopping 100 GB. Nier Automata comes in at 50 GB, and MHW comes in at roughly 20. Overwatch is somewhere in the 15 - 20 range of GB.
The game would be huge in terms of the amount of space required to properly render each movement properly, the amount of bandwidth required to properly render them without lag, etc. In a competitive game… Aesthetics are nice but not if it is going to cause the game to crash because it simply takes too much processing power from the PC or console in order to run smoothly.
It’s why their character models in game don’t have more detail than what is necessary to look nice because functionality matters more. Not to mention, the character models in-game are not created to handle that type of detailing on the face and to do so, would be to require entirely new models to be made or existing models to be heavily edited in order to make it as such… Which would be more expensive… and take up more space… and take longer to render in game… and increase the chances of lag and someone’s system crashing… etc…
It’s why a character like Ashe doesn’t have visible signs of aging. Models are not created for it, takes too much time to render, etc.
When it comes to anime too many lines on the face end up making things look uncanny and it’s harder to keep them on model when you’re animating the character. It’s why many anime moms and older characters lack wrinkles or visible signs of aging on their face. It isn’t just to make them look young, it’s budgeting and being able to animate properly and smoothly.
When there is extra money in the budget, it tends to get put towards enhancing the figures and doing more detailed shots rather than trying to make the faces look realistic or have visible signs of aging in older characters.
It’s usually put towards animations of the hair, movement, clothing, etc. and just making everything look more stunning.
Not to mention, as stated earlier, too many details on the face can push the face into the uncanny valley, especially with a rather simplistic style that many anime and cartoons use.
If they do have any signs of aging, at most it is usually a couple of lines around their forehead, eyes, and mouth.
Even the lines of Kaede’s face are kept pretty minimal for a woman her age as to not push her face into being too detailed in comparison to the rest of the characters in terms of style and simplicity. Because if they were to try to push the level of detail of Carl from Up or Grandma Coco from Coco, then they’d have to do the same for every other character, the backgrounds, clothing, etc. and anime often does not have a budget, time, or resources to do that.
The level of detail has to be kept consistent throughout any animation or gaming medium. Super detailed character models and then super simplistic backgrounds or cloth rendering tends to look off and like someone mismanaged the budget. If you have super detailed backgrounds, then you have to have super detailed characters to balance it out. A super detailed face means more detailed clothing and backgrounds, etc. It’s all about consistency.
Unlike what most people on tumblr would have you believe… Characters aren’t kept simplistic just to keep them looking young and attractive and fap worthy. It’s because they have a level of consistency to keep and sometimes that means not adding more details than necessary to keep the animation and models looking both aesthetically pleasing and functional.
Whatever level of detail you’re putting into the animation, character models, etc. needs to be kept consistent throughout the entirety of the animation… even into the clothes, backgrounds, environments, etc. because often times, more detail causes something to stand out more… and sometimes, it isn’t in a good way, especially if the face is super detailed and realistic (even worse if it is only parts of the face) while everything else is dialed back in terms of detailing.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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