Series: Kung Fu Panda: The Legend Of Awesomeness

http://www.nick.com/videos/kung-fu-panda-legends-of-awesomeness-videos?navid=aLevel

Kung Fu Panda is getting turned into the next Dream Works Nicktoon.

I had hoped that after Penguins, they would make enough effort to raise the budget and make it look more like the feature film. Obviously, I was wrong. Just HOW expensive is CG fur?!?!

As long as it's good and stays true to the films, I suppose I can live with this animation. But yes, it is rather jarring.

The designs themselves look fine.

The animation is still as choppy as in Penguins. That worked there because the penguins already moved like that in the film- it was part of their characters. There's no sweeping, graceful movement in these clips.

edited 6th Sep '11 8:28:39 AM by kyun

It's not necessarily that CGI fur is expensive (although it is considerably) it's more of the fact that it takes a freaking amount of work to animate something that complex, which most television animators would rather not do. That's why for shows like Jimmy Neutron, the eponymous character had a simple ice cream do which they could animate as one single blob.

This causes problems when a work of this level is based off a feature film with animation that is far better than in Jimmy Neutron. People will notice. The problems aren't big enough to affect your enjoyment, and heck, I found most of Penguins to be darn hilarious, but Dream Works does work that doesn't translate well into a TV budget.

Oh, and the creators of Penguins specifically mentioned in an article that they didn't work with fur because it was too expensive.

In a side note, Gabe Swarr (The Ren And Stimpy Show, Life In The Analogue Age for Dumm Comics) is storyboarding on this show.

edited 6th Sep '11 9:32:43 AM by kyun

Some of the new voices are a little jarring, but I'm really happy James Hong has come back. Mr. Clown made me smile.

Animation looks good to me, although Shifu looks really weird without actual fur. The voices are gonna take some getting used to...

I think the main issue about CGI quality is time. Movies have years to develop whilst tv shows probably need a rate of about one 22 minutes episode every 3-ish weeks. Now, I have no idea about how much time was spent rendering when making Kung Fu panda nor how much it takes for this series, but I am gonna make the wild guess that fur and framerate really increase the time you would have to wait for scenes to finish rendering before knowing if the result looks good or not.

Couldn't watch the video, but the stand still pictures seem good for a TV show to me.

edited 6th Sep '11 5:59:30 PM by nabaduco

I enjoyed what I saw. I really liked seeing Monkey and Po paling around, and I couldn't help but crack a smile at Mr.Clown. I think the new guy playing Po does a pretty good Jack Black impression.

As for the character models and animation, that stuff can slide. It is for TV after all. I think it would be highly unfair to expect the same quality of animation as the films.

I think it's expected to have the CGI quality go down.

With that said, the trailer was all right. People begged for the Furious Five to develop, so here is their chance!

ib4shippers

Damn, and here I was about to say it was kind of cute to see Po teasing Tigress like that.

Well, I don't think the animation is so bad. It won't have the fluidity of the movies, but at least it looks fairly decent for the fight scenes. And I actually thought it was pretty funny. Odd that it sort of seems like Tigress was a Butt-Monkey in it, but I guess the episode in question was sort of about that.

I'm looking forward to it, I guess.

edited 8th Sep '11 12:29:02 AM by kegisak

Hah, never would I imagine an episode turning someone like Tigress into the Butt-Monkey of the day.

Tigress: "WHO'S the Butt Monkey?!"

Monkey: "...... what?"

Well, at least Fred Tatasciore returned from the video games to voice Shifu.

THAT'S who that is.

There should be a ButtMonkeyOfTheDay trope! :D

I would say that the animation far surpasses my expectations, I just feel that the environments feel bland and empty, but I can't blame them. I wasn't expecting the fur to be animated either, but Po and Shifu do look kind of weird being so flat.

Makes me wonder how the HTTYD one is going to look like. Isn't that also coming out next year?

I sense bitterness

BITTER >*

I haven't seen the show, but I don't think I'd watch it without Jack Black's voice...

Ya know, if you're gonna make a hateful comment, you should at least use proper grammar.

<checks out the clips>

<notices the animation is nowhere near as bad as this thread had me believe>

<is satisfied>

Tigress as a stoic Butt-Monkey probably works because she's an Unfunny, I suppose.

edited 19th Sep '11 11:26:10 PM by KnownUnknown

For that Butt Monkey Of The Day trope? Let's snowclone it with ___Ball and name it Butt Monkey Ball (a pun on Monkey Ball too!)

edited 20th Sep '11 12:08:07 AM by Ookamikun

As usual, one episode isn't enough to judge a show. We so far only see Tigress out of commission, James Hong in a cameo as a childrens' clown, and Mantis and Viper are nowhere to be seen. I do like the villain of the week however, and I'm glad they incorporated the 2D-animated sequences like the one that opened the first film. We'll see how this goes.

What I wasn't expecting was for it to be 22 minutes long! I was expecting 11 minutes, like Penguins!

I thought it was okay. Nothing absolutely amazing, but not too bad, either. Much as I would've liked to see more of the other characters, it was nice to see Monkey actually, um... y'know, having more of a presence.

Also nice was the single-episode format, though who knows if they'll always use it. Like kyun said, I'd expected a pair of 11-minute shorts, but the length worked well here. Scorpion was an interesting antagonist, if primarily for her background; wonder if she'll be a recurring adversary...