3 ms·

How much of this is actually drawn in Japan though? A lot of the drawing ends up being outsourced to places with cheaper labor like the Philippines.

by Aunche 3mo ago

hiccuphippo 3mo ago
At least the Frieren one was drawn by a single Japanese artist https://x.com/aoumemimei/status/2012695958824407124 https://x.com/aoumemimei/status/2012695958824407124
- thefifthsetpin 3mo ago
  I didn't realize that they redrew the parts that don't change between frames.
  - c0_0p_ 3mo ago
    They don't usually. In this case they do because they need it to look jittery.
re-thc 3mo ago
> How much of this is actually drawn in Japan though? Often the key frames or "important" parts are done in-house with the "mechanical" or boring parts being outsourced.
- bitwize 3mo ago
  I wonder why the use of AI to do in-between frames is not more embraced by artists and professionals. It sounds like a perfect use case for the technology: pure scutwork that would have been farmed out to sweatshops in a cheap-labor country anyway.
  - autoexec 3mo ago
    > I wonder why the use of AI to do in-between frames is not more embraced by artists and professionals. It's been being used for years. It saves time, but ultimately the results aren't good enough to replace humans. I don't expect that it ever will be. AI is incapable of creativity and sometimes it'll be faster and easier for an artist to just draw what they envision than it is to tell a computer what they want, have the artless software do it badly, and then have the artist tweak and fix the result until it matches what they wanted in the first place.
    - bitwize 3mo ago
      The heavy lifting in terms of realizing vision was already done in the design, layout, and keyframing phases. The in-between frames are interpolations, that's why they're sent to sweatshops. And the idea is that you wouldn't proompt them like you do Midjourney; you'd send the AI keyframes and it would geberste the in-betweens. I can totally see where an animator might be dissatisfied with doing this on a hand-drawn production, however, and vastly prefer humans drawing every frame of the production.
      - avadodin 3mo ago
        People are not going to understand my generic reincarnation harem anime if it doesn't involve Koreans working 120+h weeks for minimum wage. Just the staggering amount of anime produced these days blows my mind. One could die of overwork just binge watching them.
        bitwize 3mo ago
        I was thinking more like Disney. Studio Ghibli would want to hand-draw everything as well; Miyazaki's abhorrence for AI is well documented.
autoexec 3mo ago
Outsourcing is only good to a point, because how can you keep a local supply of key animators, story board artists, character/BG designers if you don't have a pool of local talent working up the ranks to pull from? It saves money to outsource and pay low wages to freelance workers, but that also means the native talent doing in-betweens and fixing the outsourced work that comes back can burn out or quit because of not being able to afford to eat and house themselves. Even outsourcing is kind of a problem because ultimately it means that for all the money being made in animation very little of it is going to the animators. Nobody is creating the best art when they're treated like a robot on an assembly line and worried about paying their bills. Japan has to decide if they want to invest in their animation industry or if they'd rather let it die out by killing off the local talent while training animators in other countries to one day replace them.

How much of this is actually drawn in Japan though? A lot of the drawing ends up being outsourced to places with cheaper labor like the Philippines.

by Aunche 3mo ago

How much of this is actually drawn in Japan though? A lot of the drawing ends up being outsourced to places with cheaper labor like the Philippines.

hiccuphippo 3mo ago

At least the Frieren one was drawn by a single Japanese artist https://x.com/aoumemimei/status/2012695958824407124 https://x.com/aoumemimei/status/2012695958824407124

thefifthsetpin 3mo ago
I didn't realize that they redrew the parts that don't change between frames.
- c0_0p_ 3mo ago
  They don't usually. In this case they do because they need it to look jittery.

re-thc 3mo ago

> How much of this is actually drawn in Japan though? Often the key frames or "important" parts are done in-house with the "mechanical" or boring parts being outsourced.

bitwize 3mo ago
I wonder why the use of AI to do in-between frames is not more embraced by artists and professionals. It sounds like a perfect use case for the technology: pure scutwork that would have been farmed out to sweatshops in a cheap-labor country anyway.
- autoexec 3mo ago
  > I wonder why the use of AI to do in-between frames is not more embraced by artists and professionals. It's been being used for years. It saves time, but ultimately the results aren't good enough to replace humans. I don't expect that it ever will be. AI is incapable of creativity and sometimes it'll be faster and easier for an artist to just draw what they envision than it is to tell a computer what they want, have the artless software do it badly, and then have the artist tweak and fix the result until it matches what they wanted in the first place.
  - bitwize 3mo ago
    The heavy lifting in terms of realizing vision was already done in the design, layout, and keyframing phases. The in-between frames are interpolations, that's why they're sent to sweatshops. And the idea is that you wouldn't proompt them like you do Midjourney; you'd send the AI keyframes and it would geberste the in-betweens. I can totally see where an animator might be dissatisfied with doing this on a hand-drawn production, however, and vastly prefer humans drawing every frame of the production.
    - avadodin 3mo ago
      People are not going to understand my generic reincarnation harem anime if it doesn't involve Koreans working 120+h weeks for minimum wage. Just the staggering amount of anime produced these days blows my mind. One could die of overwork just binge watching them.
      - bitwize 3mo ago
        I was thinking more like Disney. Studio Ghibli would want to hand-draw everything as well; Miyazaki's abhorrence for AI is well documented.

autoexec 3mo ago

Outsourcing is only good to a point, because how can you keep a local supply of key animators, story board artists, character/BG designers if you don't have a pool of local talent working up the ranks to pull from? It saves money to outsource and pay low wages to freelance workers, but that also means the native talent doing in-betweens and fixing the outsourced work that comes back can burn out or quit because of not being able to afford to eat and house themselves. Even outsourcing is kind of a problem because ultimately it means that for all the money being made in animation very little of it is going to the animators. Nobody is creating the best art when they're treated like a robot on an assembly line and worried about paying their bills. Japan has to decide if they want to invest in their animation industry or if they'd rather let it die out by killing off the local talent while training animators in other countries to one day replace them.