New Pics of Movie Characters

[Best First]

Empire have uncovered some new shots of many of the TF cast.

You can see them here:

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?nid=20693

They have also provided probably the most succinct view of the film to data:

Seriously, we know the story is daft and it's a great big ploy to sell toys, but is there a prospect more exciting this summer than seeing this big lumps highspeed fighting down a freeway.

[Kaylee]

...sounds horribly close to the noises I heard on TF boards around the time of the rise and fall of Pat Lee- yes we know the art and story are naff, but at least it's Transformers in a comic!

Meh. Maybe the sequels/prequels may take it in a newer direction, once things get established this time round. If nothing else it's spawned a new cartoon, which doesn't sound half bad:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=133093

The promo art looks quite promising (although people are already hooting about it being too stylised) and the team behind it (the same animation team as Teen Titans and the same chaps who worked on Batman: TAS and JLU) sound more than promising. If it spawns a half decent show, maybe some new toys and obviously a few new pages of comic I'll happily forgive the movie anything (although fingers crossed for the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man...)

Nice shots though- if you've not seen the Baron's recolouring of ol' Screamer with original colours I recommend it: http://transfans.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6508 it suits it surprisingly well Still looks like a particularly gooberish orangutan though

[Best First]

I see this as a slightly different kettle of fish to say, Dreamwave, where half the fandom could actively have done something better, no one else is going to make a live action TF movie to show them how it should have been done, so this is it.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

All of the designs are so complex... really confusing on the eye, I have to hunt around to work out what they are.

[Kaylee]

I see this as a slightly different kettle of fish to say, Dreamwave, where half the fandom could actively have done something better, no one else is going to make a live action TF movie to show them how it should have been done, so this is it.

In all seriousness as a sidenote, I wonder if we could do some short eps? We certainly in theory have script writers, people with access to camera stuffs and we have some very good 3D designers? Mmm low budget quality

[Impactor returns 2.0]

One of the reasons I have never completed even a very short TF animation is because of the time it takes to hand animate even a few seconds.
If, and i dream, I had access to a motion capture suit (a cheap one is now about £5k) then it would be so simple!

What I have considered is rendering an entire comic strip tho, moving a character into a single pose is easy, with an enviroment pre-lit, it can save loads of time...

[Kaylee]

Stop frame animation!!

[Yaya]

You know, it's not that they look different from the originals that bothers me.

It's that they are so indistinct and indecipherable, they look like someone's artwork from a junk heap.

I have a hard time making them out from these stills. Just imagine what it's going to look like with them running around.

That's what's going to suck, not that they look different from the original, but that I can't make heads or tails of 'em.

[Hound]

You know, it's not that they look different from the originals that bothers me.

It's that they are so indistinct and indecipherable, they look like someone's artwork from a junk heap.

I have a hard time making them out from these stills. Just imagine what it's going to look like with them running around.

That's what's going to suck, not that they look different from the original, but that I can't make heads or tails of 'em.

I kinda know what you mean. I cant make out Ironhide's lower half!

After having seen the trailer though, I think these designs work well. Just not sure I like em myself...

[BB Shockwave]

...sounds horribly close to the noises I heard on TF boards around the time of the rise and fall of Pat Lee- yes we know the art and story are naff, but at least it's Transformers in a comic!

Meh. Maybe the sequels/prequels may take it in a newer direction, once things get established this time round. If nothing else it's spawned a new cartoon, which doesn't sound half bad:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showthread.php?t=133093

The promo art looks quite promising (although people are already hooting about it being too stylised) and the team behind it (the same animation team as Teen Titans and the same chaps who worked on Batman: TAS and JLU) sound more than promising. If it spawns a half decent show, maybe some new toys and obviously a few new pages of comic I'll happily forgive the movie anything (although fingers crossed for the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man...)

Nice shots though- if you've not seen the Baron's recolouring of ol' Screamer with original colours I recommend it: http://transfans.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6508 it suits it surprisingly well Still looks like a particularly gooberish orangutan though

Screamer will only work if he's recolored into Apeface. Trust me on this...

I had a hard time defending the new animated show on TFW2005 - already people are saying the Teen Titans or Legion of Superheroes animation is ugly. I did some screencaps from LOSH of Brainiac 5 'transforming' and the responses weren't better. Frankly I think even TT animation had great dynamics, they did excellent battle scenes. And if the writing is half as good as in Batman TAS...

Btw, where did you get the info that Paul Dini is on the job? I only heard about the guy who wrote for Teen Titans and the new 'The Batman' (which started out horribly, but is shaping up nicely by season 4) and a BM writer on the writing team of TF animated.

[Best First]

One of the reasons I have never completed even a very short TF animation is because of the time it takes to hand animate even a few seconds.
If, and i dream, I had access to a motion capture suit (a cheap one is now about £5k) then it would be so simple!

What I have considered is rendering an entire comic strip tho, moving a character into a single pose is easy, with an enviroment pre-lit, it can save loads of time...

i think a bit of cell shading could work well on that front - probably make the models/backgrounds simpler as well i am guessing?

Some of Megs is just funny - his hands look useless. Imagine getting into a fight with im - it would be like getting punched by a pair of Daddy Longlegs.

[divebomb]

I dont know I've warmed a lot to the movie designs, because they are different. from the clips I have seen it really blows me away on the detail of each bot and really we should think what would you rather have seen, something brand new, or a live action MTMTE?

If you think about it how many of the original characters really looked like their cartoon counterparts? Not many, artistic licence was there for the cartoon makers and i'm sure if this board was around then we would have people screaming that Ironhide is just rubbish and where's his screen gone?

[Kaylee]

...I thought the ironhide toy was attrocious

[Impactor returns 2.0]

i think a bit of cell shading could work well on that front - probably make the models/backgrounds simpler as well i am guessing?.

yeah, the cell shaders i have now are bloody impressive, doing all sorts of clever stuff to make line weights on the hard edges look 'hand drawn' it can easily be applied to the entire scene - the great thing, if u model say the interior or the Ark, just a main room or somthing, then u dont have to keep redrawing the background, just move the camera. so apart from moving the characters into postion etc, i think u could get an entire comics worth of a strip together pretty quickly, bit of photoshop here and there, voila.

This is what I use for cell-shading : http://www.finalrender.com/products/pro ... UD=&PID=37

As u can see its very versitile.

And why do all these TF have daddy long-legs arms?

[spiderfrommars]

I'm getting used to these designs. The trailer helped.

I'm more worried about the parts of the film that will have typically Bay-styled slo mo shots of children staring into the sky accompanied by Han Zimmer's choral music.

*shudder*

[Yaya]

I dont know I've warmed a lot to the movie designs, because they are different. from the clips I have seen it really blows me away on the detail of each bot and really we should think what would you rather have seen, something brand new, or a live action MTMTE?

I would rather see something that's clear, be it brand new or a live action MTMTE.

That's really my only major gripe. The characters are too complex, and purposely. It's much harder to detail flaws when it looks like a giant pile of trashcans with scissors glued on is running at you.

Some of Megs is just funny - his hands look useless. Imagine getting into a fight with im - it would be like getting punched by a pair of Daddy Longlegs.

Megatron Scissorhands. They should have gotten Johnny Depp as voice actor.

[Hot Shot]

The promo art looks quite promising (although people are already hooting about it being too stylised) and the team behind it (the same animation team as Teen Titans and the same chaps who worked on Batman: TAS and JLU) sound more than promising. If it spawns a half decent show, maybe some new toys and obviously a few new pages of comic I'll happily forgive the movie anything (although fingers crossed for the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man...)

I'm not sure that the new cartoon will be that great. I heard a rumor that the characters spin around like the Tasmanian Devil to transform.

[Best First]

given every cartoon we have had since BW/BM has been sheeeite i'm not really too bothered - at least they are trying something a bit different.

don't think we have seen anywhere near enough to make any proper judgements anyway cartoon wise.

[Hot Shot]

given every cartoon we have had since BW/BM has been sheeeite i'm not really too bothered - at least they are trying something a bit different.

don't think we have seen anywhere near enough to make any proper judgements anyway cartoon wise.

I wouldn't call ALL of them sh*t. RID is the only one that truly deserves that title. Armada had its good points(Sacrifice, last 3/5ths of the series), and Energon and Cybertron were just chopped to pieces(I watched an episode of Galaxy Force and understood so much more).

I don't mind change, but not all change is good(Michael Bay has shown us that). I just hope that the cartoon isn't movie-based...

[Legion]

given every cartoon we have had since BW/BM has been sheeeite i'm not really too bothered - at least they are trying something a bit different.

don't think we have seen anywhere near enough to make any proper judgements anyway cartoon wise.

I wouldn't call ALL of them sh*t. RID is the only one that truly deserves that title.

I totally disagree, i find RiD much more watchable than any of the Armenertron mess... but anyway...

[Kaylee]

I quite like RiD too. Once you just take it as a campy, big in-joke it's quite sweet IMO

[Hound]

Another RID supporter here.

[Guest]

Sky-Byte was great!

And there hasn't been anything worth replacing him since!

[Kaylee]

Sky-Byte was great!

And there hasn't been anything worth replacing him since!

'Cept his toy, which still haunts my nightmares. Character wise tho, what a larf!

[Guest]

Sky-Byte was great!

And there hasn't been anything worth replacing him since!

'Cept his toy, which still haunts my nightmares.

Nightmares, eh?

*pretends to makes villainous notes to self*

Sky-byte toy, darkened room, flashing lights, laboured breathing, contractual obligations...

Hmm. Didn't realise how ticklish my palm was...

[Kaylee]

{locks doors}

anyhoo- new cartoon sounds promising

[IronHide]

Autobots....cool lookin, really like how they did Jazz, visor and all.

Cons......to many sharp edges, and Frenzy looks like complete sh*t.