Watching the Lion King II, the quailty is much lower and it doesnt “look” like a movie, but rather a long episode of a tv show. Why does the look seem so different?
In: 104
So others have mentioned that it’s because the budget is lower, which is true.
But I’d like to focus on why it looks worse, as in what is different about the animation. Now I haven’t seen The Lion King in well over a decade and I’ve never seen the sequel but when I watch them there is one thing that immediately sounds out to me.
The first movie appears to be, at least for parts (I’m not going to watch the whole thing), animated on 1s or 2s and the sequel is animated on 3s, and maybe even 4s.
Now what does that mean? Basically for a movie or TV show. There are 24 images shown every second. Those are called frames, and you get 24 frames per second. For animation something people do a lot is instead of showing a brand new image every single frame they hold that image there for extra frames
So when I say something is “animated on 1s” that means the image is held for only 1 frame “animated on 2s” means it held for 2 frames and so on.
Holding the exact same image for less time ends up with a much more fluid-looking animation. But as you might guess it’s more expensive because you literally have to draw more pictures. A movie animated on 2s will have twice as many pictures as an equally long movie that’s animated on 4s (all else being equal).
If there is something “cheap” looking about animation you cant quite explain 9 times out of 10 that’s what it is.
There are other techniques like reusing animation, more simplistic character designs that are easier to animate, or fewer heavily animated sequences like fights in the first place. But straight-up drawing fewer pictures and just showing them for longer is definitely a big go-to method for cheaper animation.
Latest Answers