Many of the anime tv series on DVD I purchased are very soft focus, and sometimes rather foggy looking. Sometimes the colors are washed out.
Is this the way they were made or is it a problem of transferring these anime tv series to DVD?
Soft Focus
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
This is done on purpose ...
It's not really out-of-focus or a simple blur. In AfterEffects this would be called "Glow", you might be able to reproduce that look in other bitmap based programs as well. Technically, it takes either the lightest or the darkest parts of the image (or both), blurs them heavily, and puts them back via Multiply or Negative Multiply. In analogue photography you created that effect with a nylon stocking over the lense while capturing (lets the darks bleed) or in the darkroom (lets the whites bleed).
It's not really out-of-focus or a simple blur. In AfterEffects this would be called "Glow", you might be able to reproduce that look in other bitmap based programs as well. Technically, it takes either the lightest or the darkest parts of the image (or both), blurs them heavily, and puts them back via Multiply or Negative Multiply. In analogue photography you created that effect with a nylon stocking over the lense while capturing (lets the darks bleed) or in the darkroom (lets the whites bleed).
Soften the edges. It's a style common to painting for centuries: if you look very close at paintings from Caravaggio to Brueghel, you'll notice that the faces don't have exact sharp edges, but a diffuse transition from skin to background. Seen from normal distance this has the paradox effect of leting the painting appear much sharper than it is.
I can only assume that japanese directors do it for the same reason since I never spoke to one.
I can only assume that japanese directors do it for the same reason since I never spoke to one.
Thank you for the information slowtiger. I only discovered anime a few months ago. I never thought I would enjoy anime so much when I bought my first few DVDs. It’s addictive once you get past the cartoon look. In the past I thought of anime as poorly drawn cartoons, and I preferred full 3d animation. Now I prefer anime over full 3d animation.
On another subject... I learned my 3d software from training videos. I don't learn very will with books. I can't seem to find any training videos on 2d animation or anime. Do you know of any?
On another subject... I learned my 3d software from training videos. I don't learn very will with books. I can't seem to find any training videos on 2d animation or anime. Do you know of any?
The effect you are talking about might be if I understand correctly, a post effect called bloom.
Check out magic bullet movie looks, it's a great standalone and plugin by red giant.
Basically it puts a glow on the highlights and bleed on the dark areas, like a film effect, amongst a whole bunch of other neat grading tricks.
There are a great number of presets which can be tweaked to get just what you are after.
I love this plugin, the new version looks awesome BTW.
It is also very fast and can work close to realtime on many video cards.
Check out magic bullet movie looks, it's a great standalone and plugin by red giant.
Basically it puts a glow on the highlights and bleed on the dark areas, like a film effect, amongst a whole bunch of other neat grading tricks.
There are a great number of presets which can be tweaked to get just what you are after.
I love this plugin, the new version looks awesome BTW.
It is also very fast and can work close to realtime on many video cards.
Oops, I missed this thread as I didn't know it was about Anime from the subject.
As far as I know the soft focus effect comes from when they photograph the animation cels. They probably soften the focus to give it a more natural looking film quality and help integrate the characters with the background. I'm not so sure that a "bloom" or "glow" effect is the equivalent, just some sort of lens blur. However, when a scene has a very bright background or has a very bright light source, they sometimes do use a "bloom" effect, though. I believe the traditional way they achieved it was to actually put a light source behind the cel when they photographed it.
I've found I can get very close to the line-style of Anime in Anime Studio by turning down the alpha, using the splotchy effect, and blurring the whole frame in post by about 0.5 of a pixel.
For more info, you should check out http://www.studioartfx.com/. Terrence used to post here, but I think he's turned away from Anime Studio these days, in favour of bitmap-based programs.
As far as I know the soft focus effect comes from when they photograph the animation cels. They probably soften the focus to give it a more natural looking film quality and help integrate the characters with the background. I'm not so sure that a "bloom" or "glow" effect is the equivalent, just some sort of lens blur. However, when a scene has a very bright background or has a very bright light source, they sometimes do use a "bloom" effect, though. I believe the traditional way they achieved it was to actually put a light source behind the cel when they photographed it.
I've found I can get very close to the line-style of Anime in Anime Studio by turning down the alpha, using the splotchy effect, and blurring the whole frame in post by about 0.5 of a pixel.
For more info, you should check out http://www.studioartfx.com/. Terrence used to post here, but I think he's turned away from Anime Studio these days, in favour of bitmap-based programs.
The majority of Japanese 2D animation studios use Celsys Retas Pro
( https://www.retas.com ) but some other software. although in the minority, are Digital Video's Toonz ( http://www.toonz.com) or Cambridge Animation's Animo ( http://www.animo.com/ ).
( https://www.retas.com ) but some other software. although in the minority, are Digital Video's Toonz ( http://www.toonz.com) or Cambridge Animation's Animo ( http://www.animo.com/ ).
Why rephotograph digital art?
Yes it looks like a double exposed image with a soft focus pass, but this is easier digitally (and heaps cheaper) than printing to neg, developing, rephotographing, and digitising again of course.
You could perhaps do it in anime as rudiger suggests but why not use a tool purpose built for this?
Looks like slowtiger just said the same thing,...woops....
to make up for that here's an example of that post processing.
Yes it looks like a double exposed image with a soft focus pass, but this is easier digitally (and heaps cheaper) than printing to neg, developing, rephotographing, and digitising again of course.
You could perhaps do it in anime as rudiger suggests but why not use a tool purpose built for this?
Looks like slowtiger just said the same thing,...woops....
to make up for that here's an example of that post processing.You are of course right, slowtiger, but the software they are using would have been designed to emulate the look of traditional cel-based animations, so for me that's still the best place to start when trying to understand why it looks like it does.slowtiger wrote:I'm not so sure about japanese animation using any real world cels at all ... I would think they do all colouring and compositing completely digital right now. Do you have any sources about that?
Chucky, that's very impressive. It's a pity that software is so expensive. I wonder if anyone's written a Wax or VirtualDub plugin to do something similar.Chucky wrote:Why rephotograph digital art?
Yes it looks like a double exposed image with a soft focus pass, but this is easier digitally (and heaps cheaper) than printing to neg, developing, rephotographing, and digitising again of course.
You could perhaps do it in anime as rudiger suggests but why not use a tool purpose built for this?
Looks like slowtiger just said the same thing,...woops.... Embarassed to make up for that here's an example of that post processing.
It sounds like you guys are familiar with some of these traditional photographic methods. Is there any chance you could elaborate or point me to a reference.
I even did that myself, on a 35mm Crass camera rostrum stand. Basically you shoot the same scene twice: once with normal light and everything in focus, but only 50% of exposure. Then you rewind the film and start the second shot. This time you attach a softener to your lens, a blur filter. Exposure again only 50%. The finished shot will appear with that "sharp but seen through fogged glasses" look.
If you want that blur effect (or halo) only on certain elements, say a window or a flame, then you shoot the first pass with 100% exposure. For the second pass you have a second set of cels, totally black except for the window (or fire). This is lit from the bottom. You'll add a colour filter to the blur for this pass.
I always felt lucky to have learned the basics in the true analogue way because it makes it so much easier to reproduce a certain effect digitally.
If you want that blur effect (or halo) only on certain elements, say a window or a flame, then you shoot the first pass with 100% exposure. For the second pass you have a second set of cels, totally black except for the window (or fire). This is lit from the bottom. You'll add a colour filter to the blur for this pass.
I always felt lucky to have learned the basics in the true analogue way because it makes it so much easier to reproduce a certain effect digitally.
I've done some research on "anime", not the correct word but will suffice for now, for I am new to this style. Anime started out with photographed cels but now everything has gone digital.
From what I've seen, modern "anime" is much more clearer and detailed than the old way of animating. I'm not sure about the whole foggy thing, I guess it all depends on the environment of the storyline and the way the effects are added.
Code Geass R2 (watch in high quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y36ghfinrJI
Macross Frontier (watch in high quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxcwKGCqMBc
Robin Witch Hunter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs8dWg4Sr40
From what I've seen, modern "anime" is much more clearer and detailed than the old way of animating. I'm not sure about the whole foggy thing, I guess it all depends on the environment of the storyline and the way the effects are added.
Code Geass R2 (watch in high quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y36ghfinrJI
Macross Frontier (watch in high quality)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxcwKGCqMBc
Robin Witch Hunter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs8dWg4Sr40
I love comments for they help me improve on my weaknesses.
Up until recently many cartoons of all genres were still produced "the old fashioned way" using hand painted cells and photographed on to film. Even the Simpsons only recently went totally digital. The "look" of old animations (or even live action movies) is not due to any specific style that the animator or director was after, it was often a product of the existing technology. As the years go buy that "look" becomes part of what we expect to see.
For instance camera blur. There is no need for it in digital production. There is no "camera". We just expect it in movies or motion graphics because we are use to it. Plus it can be used to save time and money. The "experimental" process of filming at 72 frames per second instead of 32 (imax) nearly eliminates film blur. The frames are fast enough to be able to capture the action. Our own eyes see this faster frame rate the same as REAL motion so it looks more "real" than motion blur.
Film grain added to digital output is another useless unneeded effect. A movie shot entirely on DV with digital processing doesn't really "need" film grain. But because we have seen it for years and years and years we like that grain because it is familiar.
The technology exists to eliminate all of those artifacts... and yet... people still occasionally make black and white films for the "style" or "emotion" it provides. We hang on to those little imperfections because that is what we have seen.
I think we are still just at the very very beginning of digital movie or animation production. It will take a long time before people get use to not seeing film grain or motion blur. But if you look at the quality of "Bluray" or digitally projected theaters you see where this is headed. The theaters and movie companies want people to go OUT for movies more. They are planning to invest a ton of money into updating theaters with digital projection displays and 3D or huge gigantic screens (lots of imax theaters these days). That was why movies got "wide screen". Movie studios had to compete with television.
You should check out Quentin Tarantino's "Planet Terror". That film was so fantastic at recreating that style and feel of those old movies. The film scratches, broken reals, missing frames, frame burn and even an entire missing reel of film. He had to do that digitally. Kind of ironic.
No one makes a movie like that now unless it is on purpose... and you have to spend extra effort to achieve it. Those old "Grind house" movie makers weren't making those movies that way because it "looked cool" it was the limitations of the technology.
-vern
For instance camera blur. There is no need for it in digital production. There is no "camera". We just expect it in movies or motion graphics because we are use to it. Plus it can be used to save time and money. The "experimental" process of filming at 72 frames per second instead of 32 (imax) nearly eliminates film blur. The frames are fast enough to be able to capture the action. Our own eyes see this faster frame rate the same as REAL motion so it looks more "real" than motion blur.
Film grain added to digital output is another useless unneeded effect. A movie shot entirely on DV with digital processing doesn't really "need" film grain. But because we have seen it for years and years and years we like that grain because it is familiar.
The technology exists to eliminate all of those artifacts... and yet... people still occasionally make black and white films for the "style" or "emotion" it provides. We hang on to those little imperfections because that is what we have seen.
I think we are still just at the very very beginning of digital movie or animation production. It will take a long time before people get use to not seeing film grain or motion blur. But if you look at the quality of "Bluray" or digitally projected theaters you see where this is headed. The theaters and movie companies want people to go OUT for movies more. They are planning to invest a ton of money into updating theaters with digital projection displays and 3D or huge gigantic screens (lots of imax theaters these days). That was why movies got "wide screen". Movie studios had to compete with television.
You should check out Quentin Tarantino's "Planet Terror". That film was so fantastic at recreating that style and feel of those old movies. The film scratches, broken reals, missing frames, frame burn and even an entire missing reel of film. He had to do that digitally. Kind of ironic.
No one makes a movie like that now unless it is on purpose... and you have to spend extra effort to achieve it. Those old "Grind house" movie makers weren't making those movies that way because it "looked cool" it was the limitations of the technology.
-vern