DVDizzy Forum

On the pink dress, ok, I think the concept art makes it look appropriate for a ball, and you don't and think it's not that different from the original. Ok.

Now, sometimes in the film, Cinderella is just standing still and the sparkles move on their own, but I put that to the fact the animators thought still sparkles would look odd. So they figure she's always slightly moving like a real person would, and sparkling. What proves to me the sparkles are not magic is when she meets the Prince for the very first time, when she first sees him, she stands there with no sparkles, and then when she curtsties she sparkles.

Hm, maybe you are right about Anastasia, but I don't know. Sparkles seem like something you would hand-animate except for in cheaper films like direct-to-video ones (they did CGI sparkles in Cinderella II and III).

Well, like I said, doing sparkles isn't very difficult. And even looking at the effects on Anastasia's crown and jewelry, that is not that difficult an effect to achieve.... but no, it is not CGI. We are talking mid-90s here... CGI was very expensive so it was used sparingly.
I actually asked an animator on The Princess and the Frog if their tiara's were CGI, and he told me they weren't: the cleanup artist had to draw them frame by frame... and that was in the late 2000s!

Also... Anastasia's imperial grown... those patterns are very simple, and sparingly used. I wouldn't even call the decorations on her bodice a pattern (since they don't repeat over and over)... and the stuff on her over-skirt. Very mild. Just two strips. It's not all over her dress... also, keep in mind Don Bluth is known for rotoscoping when it comes to humans. So a looooot easier to have more jewelry when you are tracing it from live action...

Thanks for confirming. I didn't notice those details before.

I always felt the sparkles were CGI because there were so many of them and they were constantly seen during some major extended scenes of Anastasia, but you guys are perhaps right. In the commentary, Don Bluth mentions a lot of things that were done for the first time with CGI or augmented with it so I assumed the sparkles were part of that too. I guess past films have done bubbles, shadows, snow, rain, etc. all by hand so sparkles wouldn't be that different.

After watching Anastasia again, the sparkles on Anastasia in her final princess gown, and especially in her tiara, definitely were CGI! I don't know why they felt the need to make them CGI, but then again I thought the whole film used CGI instead of just hand-drawn effects too much.

CGI was still pretty new for animated films at that point and Don Bluth said they used a lot of it.

Hm. Ok. I wish he had done something like hand-drawn with just a little CGI applied. Or just plain all hand-drawn.