Other CGI TV series
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I haven't seen any others myself on TV, although I have seen a few trailers and scenes online for the Dan Dare series - see http://www.dan-dare.net/Dan%20TV/Dan-Dare-TV-Movies.htm, and Starship Troopers: The Roughneck Chronicles - see http://www.digitalanimators.com/HTM/Features/Starship_Troopers/Troopers1.htm
Hard to choose between Dare and Troopers when viewing them online as opposed to TV, but I think Troopers may just have the edge for my money. Amazing, considering it was made in 1999, 6 years before Scarlet and 2 years before Dare.
I would probably need to see more before I could make a firm decision as to whether or not the animation in Scarlet is better.
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Lieutenant Green
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steviep
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CAClark
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I reckon Scarlet is the new CGI TV benchmark for both.
Dan Dare. Great mechanical and set designs. Characters not based much on Frank Hampson's original designs, so that put the older viewers off straight away. Character voices way off. Dan looks like Tim Henman and speaks way too posh. Digby is a cockney!!!???. Some great in-jokes - a space freighter called XL5, a yellow truck shaped like TB4. Basic kids storytelling, though more adult in the last few episodes - a great Aliens style two parter. Failed to catch on with either the older fans or the kids. CGI god Ron Thornton was involved (Foundation Imaging), producing pretty good CGI after the first few episodes . Shown in UK on Channel 5 saturday mornings.
Roughnecks: Starship Troopers.
Dark and gritty storytelling and the lighting was very dark and gloomy. The killing of the arachnids was toned down somewhat. Very good CGI, but I found it all too dull. Snoresville. Lots of rock planets. Some interesting plot arcs but the characters themselves were totally uninteresting. Seemed to wear heavy battle armor all the time. Foundation Imaging again, I think they were sharing the animation duties. Shown on Sky One.
Max Steel. Great animation but shimmering hair - never quite looked right. Maybe the CGI gurus can explain why this happens. This sort of shimmering happened in early Babylon 5 FX too. Quite enjoyed this one. Shown on ITV1 if you could get up early enough. Shared work with Foundation Imaging again. I recently saw a DVD movie based on the series. This time the animation was done by Mainframe. Characters looked anorexic in this movie version, and they couldn't get the hair right either, this time it just looked plasticky. No shimmering though.
ReBoot. Done by Mainframe. Shimmering hair again. Was this due to early CGI? Awesome set designs. Fun kids stories, and the hero sacrificing himself at the end was very good. Shown on ITV1 mid 90s.
Transformers: Beast Wars. Dull plain undetailed backgrounds - desert scene, arctic scene. Very simple stories. Animation shimmered again. Animation by Mainframe. Shown in UK on Channel 5.
Hot Wheels Acceleracers. Only seen an advert for the DVD. Car animation looks pretty cool.
Xcalibur. Xena in CGI. Jules de Jongh (Lt Green) did one of the voices. Characters shimmered when they moved. This totally spoilt the animation for me. Couldn't really get into the sword and sorcery type of stories either. Chennel 5 again.
Shadow Raiders. Seen the first DVD, Series shown on Sky One?? Great mechanical design once more. Simple kids storytelling again. For a younger audience - characters such as a talking frog, a fire planet where the inhabitants have fire for hair - lots of being hot-headed jokes) shimmering hair again. Some great FX scenes but series was just too childish for me.
Then there's the myriad CG shows for the younger audience - Jimmy Neutron etc.
Anyone know of others?
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yorkie
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Xcalibur. Xena in CGI. Jules de Jongh (Lt Green) did one of the voices. Characters shimmered when they moved. This totally spoilt the animation for me. Couldn't really get into the sword and sorcery type of stories either. Chennel 5 again.
If you are in the UK, Channel 5 is repeating Xcalibur on Saturday mornings around the 10.30 mark It begun about 3 or 4 weeks ago.
I've seen a few episodes of this. It was a combined French/Canadian production made in 2001/2. I don't think the CGI is as good as the web clips I've seen of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers which was made a few years before this. I expect CGI to advance as the years go by, and therefore would have expected Xcalibur to have superceded Roughnecks in this department. However, there is little motion capture, and the animation doesn't seem to be as good.
Compared with Scarlet, well obviously there is no comparison. Scarlet wins hands down.
Nevertheless, if you are missing some CGI action on a Saturday morning you might want to check it out.
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Lieutenant Green
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That rings a bell. Was the main character more humanoid looking but with blue/teal skin and 'hair' that was a kind of blue quartz? I've been trying to remember the name of that series for ages.
I liked it very much, mainly for how the characters were drawn.
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Elentari
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yorkie
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Thanks Yorkie for posting that list. It has been nagging me for ages what that series was called. I rather liked Graveheart - for the voiceover work ... and how he was drawn. I think it was probably the first CGI series I saw.
I think that's why I found the NCS characters so disappointing - they seemed so pasty-faced and unhealthy looking at times.
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Elentari
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