Computer-generated imagery

Computer-generated imagery (CGI) in Transformers media has gone through four phases thus far.

Generation 2

Cube 4: Superdupercube

The Generation 2 "cartoon" was simply the Generation 1 cartoon with a new CGI opening, and new scene-transitions featuring the nefarious Cybernet Space Cube. These segments added nothing but glitz (and annoyance) to the cartoon, and are mostly forgotten.

CGI was used more extensively in Generation 2's commercials. Entire segments were computer animated for early commercials advertising the toys and the comic. Initially the CGI was quite primitive. Later, more advanced techniques were used to allow computer-animated characters to interact with live-action actors.

The Beast Era

"Tarantulas! Find us some mood lighting, too!"

Both Beast Wars and Beast Machines were fully CGI, created by Mainframe Entertainment of Canada. Beast Wars was a bit primitive, even in its day. (It is notorious for lacking shadows except when vital.) Its animation quality improved steadily over time, most obviously in comparisons of the landscape between first and third seasons. Beast Machines was a further step forward, and holds up reasonably well even by modern standards. Both are praised for their good use of facial expressions and body language.

Energon and Cybertron

"Well, a firetruck is bigger. Much, much bigger."

The last two-thirds of the Unicron Trilogy, Energon and Cybertron, both used shaded CGI for the Transformer characters, and traditional cel animation for almost everything else (humans, backgrounds, etc.). Some episodes (e.g., "City") used CGI for doing complex environments, particularly when the camera needed to be able to move through the city quickly.

In comparison to the Beast Era, the character animation in Energon and Cybertron is generally unimpressive. For an extensive discussion of its flaws, see Energon, Production flaws.

On the positive side, the character models are toy-accurate to a fault, reproducing the design and transformations of the toys in detail.

Transformers (2007)

"Oh, crap! He's got 5,000 pieces of geometry, and over 1,000,000 polygons! Run!"

The live-action film series, obviously, uses CGI extensively, most spectacularly for almost all appearances of the Transformer characters in robot mode.

Trivia

• If one includes the Generation 2 cartoon, then of the nine Transformers TV shows that have aired in the U.S., more than half have used CGI, and nearly half have used it extensively.
• A Toys R Us Big Book ad airing in late 2009 briefly featured CGI versions of the movie Optimus Prime and Bumblebee not animated by ILM [1]. The CGI models appear to be based on the 2009 Leader Class Optimus Prime and Deluxe Class Bumblebee toys and utilize the same transformations as the toys without any apparent morphing (essentially computer rendered versions of the toys and their transformations).