There’s a style of ‘animation’ that has become widely used on YouTube where they take a still image of a character then make them sway back and forth repetitively. I guess it’s cheap to make but I find it distracting and weird, even a bit patronising, as if they think we need moving pictures to keep us interested. I think it started with Veritassium and spread to other edutainment YouTube channels and now I just flat out avoid channels which use it.
Anyone else find it annoying?
You mean like the whole rigged 2d animations where they just deform an image instead of having it move properly? I hate that.
When you deliver a talk in real life, you don’t just stand there like a statue as you click through the slides.
Good presenters know it engages the audience a lot more if you move around the room, motion at the slides, use hand gestures to emphasise your point. People fundamentally respond better to that, and that’s just human nature.
Stick figure animation is the equivalent for YouTube presenters who don’t want to show their face.
You might find it patronising, but it works.
No doubt at all. I’m probably just in the minority who pay it too much attention. It’s like visual tinnitus to me.
Stick figures are far less jarring for me, it’s when they try to create semi realistic characters that sway repeatedly that it bothers me
YES. It bugs me in game development too. I notice that you’re doing nothing but tweening and I hate it
It’s TEMU Ken Burns.
Yes, and in particular because of the patronising thing you mention. Just like lots of the other things they do on the veritasium channel you gave as an example. Because they are things no one does because they think it makes their video better, but because it is known to drive engagement.
Yes! CCG companies use it to make “trailers” and I hate it.
Unfortunately the urge to create and push content has created a lot of illustrations and animation that is total tat. Just because you can does not mean you should. It’s the same as the insta tropes, unoriginal and annoying AF.
The thing is…creators are gonna keep doing it if people keep mindlessly watching it. So easiest way is to review just how much slop you consume. I am not trying to be condescending, just an observation.
It never looks good when people do this
yes and I fucking hate it
I can’t imagine that it’s cheaper than not doing it. I think the visuals are useful storytelling aids; they help me keep track of characters in a story, especially if a story has a lot of characters. I’ve never really thought about the passive animations, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say it’s either a way to keep the eye trained on a visual element (e.g., moving a character or object while that object is being discussed by the narration), a ploy to increase retention, or maybe the animator just likes having things animated even if they aren’t performing a specific action at the moment.
I’ve never really been bothered by it, I think it’s just a stylistic choice.
No, it is a technique used since puppets exist, it is much worse when your characters don’t move at all. There has to be some kind of movement, either swaying, jumping up and down, pan and zoom or something else. Here is where animators can shine if they are good puppeteers, if not, it is like bad acting.
I feel like when puppeteers and rubber hose animators have cyclic animation they add to the characters personality. A character like miss piggy flops around dramatically, Kermit crumples awkwardly, Betty Boop bobs around perkily. The animation you see on YouTube are basically - define arms legs and head then sway back and forth every 2 seconds - copy for all characters.
It is the difference between putting some interest and not giving a fuck.
It’s creepy. I block everything that uses it so I don’t have to see it accidentally.
It’s fine in visual novels, but only in visual novels.
You would hate wallpaper engine. It’s basically a lot of live pc wallpapers that do that. There’s a few cool ones there but you start to notice some stupid tropes after a while. Like the kinds of beings or people being depicted are wide and varied but they all seem to move like a video game protagonist’s standing idle.
I’m afraid I probably would 😅. I don’t mind the repeating animations on scenery like waterfalls or clouds moving, it’s just the swaying repetitive animations on characters. Come to think of it, I was never annoyed by the repeating static character animations in fighting games but somehow that feels an endearing part of the genre.
Ooh yeah, agreed. Breathing cycle animations on a 2d sprite kind of rule
I think there’s a craftsmanship and intentionality to those animations that’s lacking in a lot of cheap pseudo animation.
The static animation in fighting games I think has some grounding in real martial arts. Back when I joined the taekwando club in school, a lot of the more experienced martial artists don’t sit still and at the very least do that bobbing up and down like fighting games characters do. Personally it keeps me on my toes to act and react when sparring, IIRC back.
Eh I do appreciate motion comics
