Please Bring South Park.........

[WriteSimply]

I think the only South Park episode that was actually done with paper cuts was the Christmas present video Parker and Stone was commissioned to do.

After that, it was all done on Alias Wavefront for lighting, Alias PowerAnimator for animation, with character building in Corel Draw and partial set decor in Photoshop. Of course, this was back when they started. They could have changed their MO now.

Link to the South Park article.


fuad

[buckshot]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

I think the only South Park episode that was actually done with paper cuts was the Christmas present video Parker and Stone was commissioned to do.

After that, it was all done on Alias Wavefront for lighting, Alias PowerAnimator for animation, with character building in Corel Draw and partial set decor in Photoshop. Of course, this was back when they started. They could have changed their MO now.

Link to the South Park article.


fuad

really I thought the first episode ''cartman gets and anal probe'' was done with cutouts as well? because it has such a different look to it than any of the other episodes.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by buckshot

really I thought the first episode ''cartman gets and anal probe'' was done with cutouts as well? because it has such a different look to it than any of the other episodes.

Yes, the pilot was done with construction paper as well. They switched to computer once they realized even with a crew they could never do a TV show that way (plus the fact that the computer could do the job just as well in the first place).

They riffed on this when they had the whole Special Edition parody thing (Star Wars, ET).

In any case, this is one thing where DVD is definitely good enough. The colors aren't going to get any better. It isn't widescreen. There is no additional textures or dimensionality to be gained. The only advantage to having it on BD would be having all the episodes of a season or even two seasons on a single disc.

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Yes, the pilot was done with construction paper as well.

I didn't know that.

In any case, this is one thing where DVD is definitely good enough. The colors aren't going to get any better. It isn't widescreen. There is no additional textures or dimensionality to be gained. The only advantage to having it on BD would be having all the episodes of a season or even two seasons on a single disc.

IF they had kept the animation files, they could re-render the episodes in widescreen. They could also enhance the fidelity of the textures.


fuad

[gamer4eva]

i know aye the HD episode of good times with weapons looked so good on my 360 only on 720p they should take out like a best of south park with 5 disks or something which has the funniest episodes on HD that'll be a good idea if not all the seasons

[Frode]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

I didn't know that.

IF they had kept the animation files, they could re-render the episodes in widescreen. They could also enhance the fidelity of the textures.


fuad

Yeah they could and would have to for a HD release. The working resolution of the resulting files right now would not give good HD results. This is from a different show, but should give you an idea of the issues with computer drawn animation if shown in HD and not designed for it in the first place:

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/7947/rah03hdjx0.png

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by Frode

This is from a different show, but should give you an idea of the issues with computer drawn animation if shown in HD and not designed for it in the first place:

That is really sloppy work.


fuad

[Resseh]

I'd love to see south park on BR. It would be great if they could fit all the episodes per season on 1 disk with new commentarys too. Their commentaries on films such as Orgazmo or canibal the musical are sometimes funnier than their film

[Frode]

It's not so much sloppy work as it's from doing straight digital 2D animation. The shot above is from the HD-DVD version of Raxhephon the movie, and thus represents pretty much the original working resolution they made it in. When it gets converted to SD resolution it'll look like this:

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/9677/rah03dvdpr0.png

Note that this has been scaled up so you can compare the two directly, but the blurring should give you an idea. I think that in addition to the resize it's been run through a filter to reduce the aliasing, but some of it is still there if you look closely.

It just illustrates how one shouldn't assume that digital 2d animation will handle the transition to HD painlessly, especially if originally targeted at SD. Cel animation is different as it's painted on acetate sheets which are then shot on film, and thus gain all the benefits that hi-def can provide.