東英アニメーション（Toei Animation)

The building is not very modern with tight and winding passageways.

Inside the screening room we watched two 3 minute short episodes of a new 3d Animated anime called Robodz. It was a mix of samurai culture and robots. The backgrounds all looked to be shot in live action giving it a nice sense of reality.

Can Anime translate into 3d? The answer is yes. The show still maintained a sense of limited animation, to the point where it felt like any other 2d anime in Japan. I never thought that would be possible especially from one of Toei Animation's very first all 3d animations made for TV.

Next they also screened the new opening for One Piece which they said still had not been aired in Japan. I thought it was just okay as the song was a remix of the song from the very first season "We are." The visuals going along with it were just okay as well, but it was fun to see on the bigger screen and hear it with the nice sound system.

Pictures in the studio were okay anywhere except the screening room.

We then moved on to see some of the original bg artwork which are done by hand with pastels. For me they were a lot more beautiful and interesting than a lot of the art shown to me during the history portions of art classes.

Next stop was talking with one of the key animators on One Piece. He was sitting at his computer with two screens and a tablet to draw on. The sample animation he showed was luffy in a close up turning and waving "Come on, let's go!" The program he was using was called Stylos HD.

He explained that they draw all the key frames and then in between each one. The in between process was simplified a lot with the use of the computer. Basically he would draw a path between the two keys then mark the middle. After that he would move the two drawings together onto that point and rotating them just right to get the right arc. Then because it would be hard to tell which line is which he changed one line work to red and one to blue. Next it's just a matter of drawing in between the two colored lines. He showed us that even if the line isn't perfectly straight when you draw it there is a tool that will easily smooth out the line.
I couldn't believe how much easier this process was than what I had to do by hand with paper and pencil for my animation in the fall.

All of the in betweens are done in the Philippines and there are approx. 8 drawings for every second that's four less than what I am used to doing. He also showed us a storyboard sheet for an episode. It takes about 3-4 months an episode. More on Toei later.......