Uhhhh I'm not a fan of this new NewFrame+ FF7 VS FF7R video, particularily because it feels like shameless nitpicking for nitpicking sake for the original (the FMVs I mean), and also ignores the differences between realism/cartoon and motion capture/hand-drawn animation

You can't really talk about incredible animation skill when talking about how "the eyebrows look way better now when she opens her eyes", bc that's motion capture (&some touches of hand-drawn of couse). Same with the more naturalistic movement in the CG scenes in FF8 and onwards

And it doesn't talk about how we process and filter animation movement based on the actual limitations he's signaling. When the limitations are set in our brain, it's way easier to accept those "unnatural animations" as de facto. That's how limited animation in general works

So limitations or jerky movements, once you see a few, are going to be processed in your mental set of how the world looks and adapt to it, and then the staging/light/cinematography (which he does talk) does the work, which is why most people don't have problem with those FMVs

I guess my main problem is that instead of feeling like a "how animation has changed in 20+ years" (which makes sense if your focus is only animation and that's it) is more like "and that' why FF7R is so great because it does what honestly any current animation team would do"

To be fair, it talks also about staging and how it communicates things with animation, but that's scene direction and intentionality, it's not something that this animation team completely brought by themselves as contribution (esp since motion capture/acting came before)

And the thing is, the different scene presentation of the game and intentions, that's... subjective, I have some problems about how it's presented in the remake, I don't think it's "remake better" and that's it. But here we're talking about scene direction, so we'll not go there

My point is, being able to communicate more subtle stuff with animation is an useful tool that opens posibilites, which is nice to appreciate, but doesn't mean "this scene is already way better than before because it has it"

Honestly, overall, thinking about it I just disagree with doing a binary "who does this scene better" comparison that focuses 80% animation per se and 20% staging (+ the other stuff I mentioned). But probably bc I disagree in parts and I'm not a prof animator (different mindsets)

And just to clarify (this thread was retweeted, I hope it doesn't go viral), I like and follow this person and like his other videos, and it's easier to talk about what you disagree than what you agree. No disrespect to him. I just feel like this and wanted to let it out