The Dragon Prince - The Frame Rate Problem


The Dragon Prince was one of Netflix’s hot new animated shows that aired this season. There was a lot of hype behind the production as it was created by Aaron Ehasz of Avatar the Last Airbender (ATLA) fame. And while the show captures a similar feel to ATLA, it has several aspects that make it unique, namely it’s animation style. An animation style that is mostly… perplexing. The Dragon Prince is animated in 3D CG but with a reduced frame rate. The result is incredibly choppy.

While some report the decision was made to emulate 2D animation, I looked further to see what the creators had to say about the approach. According to the shows official reddit account they used 3D CG to “have more dynamic camera angles and lighting, and much more detailed character models.” But they slowed the frame rate down to avoid what they termed a “floaty” look. They looked to anime for inspiration on their "floaty" problem and came away with the 8-12 frames per second effect. They recognize “the result can look staccato” but preferred it to the so called “floaty” effect. 

While I’m not entirely sure what this floaty effect they mention looks like I can’t imagine it being as distracting as the choppy dialogue. While action scenes and sweeping camera motions look breathtaking the important character moments are cheapened by the distracting choppy animation. It made many including myself think our internet had rendered the show wrong. While I’m no master animator myself I question the use of anime inspired frame rates since much of anime, including Miyazaki who they reference specifically, uses 2D animation (not 3D CG). And the style of anime: the exaggerated character movement, the style of lip lock/mouth shape, lends it self to this frame rate. For me, The Dragon Princes style of animation doesn’t mesh well with this frame rate. 

Maybe there is a technical aspect I’m missing but many viewers agree that while the art style and animation is beautiful, the frame rate makes it choppy and distracting during key character moments and dialogue. If given a chance in a second season, I’d love to see how the creators go about addressing this issue.

Below is the first trailer for The Dragon Prince, pay close attention to the parts with dialogue and character movement.


(((Do not get me wrong the Dragon Prince is a wonderful show and I highly recommend for the story and representation but the animation style is a tad off)))




Comments

  1. Rob SmithOctober 31, 2018 at 8:59 AM

    Even if this "staccato" style of 3D animation doesn't resonate with some viewers I still think it is great that the creators took a risk here that they even acknowledge in the Reddit post. The movements do come across as less flighty and more grounded so they were successful but I think it's great that animated shows feel like they can take these types of risks and try to create a new style. It's important to continue to push the boundaries of how we see movement and learn what is accepted or rejected. I don't mind the choppy movement personally, and hope the show finds success and encourages more risk taking like this in the future.

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  2. Rose PinnisiNovember 2, 2018 at 7:15 PM

    You're so right! There's been something that was bothering me about the animation for this show right from the start when they put out the trailer, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I've been noticing a lot lately how anime style and 3D animation are weirdly incompatible in a lot of ways. Hand drawn animation is such a stretchy medium, and 3D models are so stiff... I don't think there's NO way to do it well, but I think there's a very uncanny aspect to the way it usually turns out.

    But yeah, I do find the level of creativity that it takes to come up with a solution like this very impressive. I do like when people take risks. But I think it's important to notice both the positive and the negative results of what they come up with.

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    Replies
    1. Rose PinnisiNovember 2, 2018 at 7:20 PM

      I wonder if the "floaty" thing they're talking about is the sort of feel you get in a show like RWBY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dccENAzzC8) where the motions are so fluid that it almost feels like the characters aren't pulled by gravity in quite the right way. Look at how hair and dangly parts of clothing swing and drift, in particular. This can be a really cool exaggerated style for action scenes, which that show does really well, but I feel like it messes with the realism of simple conversations a bit.

      Delete

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