I don't know if Arcane should be included in a list supporting the advancements of 3D animation. While the characters are animated, and I do mean that in the technical sense (i.e. actually moving the bodies), in 3D as meshes of polygons, a vast percentage of the effects are 2D vector/bitmap animations and all of the backgrounds are traditional static digital paintings.

I am in no way saying Arcane does not 'look good' to me or in any objective way, in fact, I really enjoy the over all look of the show. But I think it is a bit disingenuous to use Arcane to prop up the advancements in 3D animation compared to 2D.

Is it though? Without advancement in 3D animation Arcane wouldn't have been possible. It's a fairly unique 3D/2D hybrid and that merging of the styles is apparent in how it looks.

I stopped watching into the Spiderverse due to the bad CGI.

Plenty of people liked it, but I think it’s more people getting used to the style than it actually being good. Most modern animators and many viewers grew up with bad 90’s CGI, worse the old guard of computer animators where making it.

Taking with some of these animators they still recognize quality, but it’s like their uncanny valley has moved.

At this point the animation is so widely lauded that I'd say it's objectively well executed. I can certainly understand not enjoying the style though, I don't like the style of some of the classic Disney animations... but still can appreciate the effort and skill behind them.

I don't really buy the idea that animators grew up with bad animation and have somehow lower standards... in the case of the handful of pro animators I know, they're absolutely massive animation nerds and their taste extends far beyond what they grew up with.

Clicking through the reviews on Rotten tomatoes and it got quite a lot of hate though ending up with a high score. It was novel which attracts praise, but again people genuinely seem to like the look of CGI.

Anyway as long as we are talking animation. I asked one of the Frozen animators why the faces looked so freaky and they basically said meh, needs to be distinct to sell toys. Serious props to their skills and the massive R&D involved but that right there was the core issue. Moana’s water does a lot of cool animations but looks vastly less “real” than the objectively worse CGI water tentacle in Abyss. Again same deal it’s aiming for a style.

Ok fine you say what about CGI in blockbuster movies, except the article again points out how fake they look for various reasons.