Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25247233-20160513080632/@comment-410526-20160517123708

Well, in defense of Volume 3's animation...

While the fight scenes in Volume 3 were a step-down from the previous two, I think it's fair to say that the non-combat animations were miles ahead of Volume 1 and 2. They're so much more natural and emotive. The spectacle of the fight scenes is greatly diminished, but the storytelling has been elevated enormously. Previously, while the fight scenes were singularly spectacular, virtually everything else was mediocre to bad (Cinder on the rooftop).

And I think this betrays the flaws of the previous pipeline – Monty focused mainly on making awesome fights, since that was his undeniable strength, while letting the other animators handle non-combat animation, inexperienced and handicapped as they were due to having to work in an unfamiliar environment such as Poser.

There were also as many if not more fights in Volume 3 as there were in 1 and 2 combined, so not only did they lose Monty's expertise, their attention had to be divided even further.

Ultimately, I think it's a trade off between better non-combat animations and Monty's fighting animations, but if nothing else, the new pipeline/animation process certainly has its own merits. I did think Volume 3 was visually appealing in its own way.