The Sonic Render Problem 

We really need some new renders, they feel so corporate, ugly, stock, and yadda, yadda, yadda. Two thing that irks me is how they feel to keep reusing these same renders even if they are way to old, and that these poses feel so stiff, they can’t move or do expressive poses they feel like plastic figures with limited joint movements. At least the games renders look better but I’d rather have an overhaul with the renders and models themselves, but I doubt they would, this is Sega we’re talking about.

It would be one thing if they just looked generic, but it's also the fact that they pose them in such awkward ways; compare Sonic's render from Frontiers to his render from Smash Ultimate, and it's literally a night and day comparison *dropped a little Sonic Unleashed pun for you there*

Well, Dream Team has more expressive renders and the CGI cutscene before the Dr. Crabulous boss fight for Sonic, he’s very expressive!

I personally think they just need a whole new art style for the modern Sonic games. Look at what they did to the Riders series, they had sick, tall, cartoony stylized character designs that fit the early 2000's futurism aesthetic, and were later stripped of any personality in Sonic Free Riders, just by slapping all their attire onto these modern models. Hell, Naoto Ohshima and Uekawa made 2D renders of the characters to look like graffiti art, why can't they just re-adapt that idea again like in SA-SA2? There's even Sonic Frontiers mods that have Sonic look like Uekawa's design and it looks gorgeous!

3:04 BRO SAID UGOLLY AHH 💀💀💀

Kinda a shame the renders got such a downgrade after 2008 that’s probably because Sonic teams budget was cut in half

Amy's render looks creepy

crazy how its been almost 20 years since these renders have been used, shadow 05 was the first game to use them thats like if nintendo still kept using the exact same gamecube era mario renders over and over instead of updating them or creating new ones

And they out here saying, "Oh, we want to surpass Mario." Ok then, step 1: Stop being cheap!

2:59 As an Angry Birds fan, I can confirm that these renders of the birds are, in fact, not new. This artstyle for them has been used since 2019, I'd say because they remixed the main theme for Angry Birds Friends, and we got this art for the soundtrack cover. That's the first time I recall seeing this artwork, and they've been using it ever since; most recently in the "Angry Birds: Slingshot Stories" animated shorts that the official Angry Birds channel is uploading right now. They're not new, but they're *way* more recent than the Sonic renders shown on the right. I actually think they look pretty good, although the Hal (green bird) and Stella (pink bird) renders look kinda weird to me.

Nintendo also used to use a lot of old Mario renders especially during the Wii U era (I.e mario tennis ultra smash) but something they’ve been doing recently is redoing their old renders from as old as the GameCube era, giving them brighter colors and the little white rim light around the edges of the characters, and overall more details and they look, pretty good, I wish sega would do a similar thing, I don’t think they have to make new renders if they just want to reuse the regular sonic standing renders, they should at least update them, with brighter colors and with more contrast on the shadows and fix that weird skewed mouth, there’s like a small bump below the mouth and makes the expression just odd

It's a shame that 90% of SonicTubers are just endlessly caught in the cycle of copying ideas from one another these days. What happened to originality? At a certain point, it could've been chalked up to coincidence. Now it's just blatantly recycled ideas.

I think the problem is that they’ve refused to change the models/art style since Colors. Unleashed and Shadow use the same models, but the lighting for each is different which makes each version unique, but Sega has continued to use the Colors version that has the same lighting in every mainline game since then. At first it didn’t bother me as much and I just wondered “Huh, this is like the third time in a row they’re using the same models, when are they going to change the art style for the main games again?” until Chaomix also did a video on the modern Sonic model awhile back and pointed more of this out, and now it bugs me. I miss when each game had a new art style, I wish they would go back to that. Nowadays, unique Sonic models are only made for spinoff projects like cartoons, the movies, and non-mainstream games like Sonic Boom, and not for the main games anymore, and it’s a shame. I agree with both of you that them reusing these renders makes them feel so corporate.

No, no one is complaining that Super Mario isn't changing renders. Or even Donkey Kong, Sonic is perfect the way he is now. Also i don't see what you see Tails and Amy look just fine...

Sonic Team needs to improve the designs, make them stylish, yet still marketable. Redesign them to look similar to Yuji Uekawa’s modern Sonic art-style. Give them more expressions too, make them feel like characters instead of just smiling for boring advertisements.

Our boy unleash back with a banger of a video

Crazy when you look at the Frontiers in-game renders like for the final horizon or adventure 2 shoes, they actually look better than the CGI renders, this is really sad.

in my opinion the entire sonic franchise looks bland. Sonic needs a new art style. I think they should go with how the 2d artwork looks. Its stylistic, fun, colorful, and doesnt look generic.

Wow, so we’re complaining about RENDERS now? 1st it was “Sonic’s spines are too short”, then it was “Sonic Frontiers is bad since it apparently reused the Forces model and as we all know, Sonic Forces is the worst game to ever exist and now anything that used ANYTHING that Forces did is bad” and now it’s “Sonic promotional renders are bad because they look stiff and corporate” Which btw are the same points that Splash Dash/LS Mark made. Why are we so goddamn negative about everything all the time?

This dude makes a whole ass video complaining about a characters renders as if it's gonna kill the whole franchise

If Sega made new renders like the ones of Sonic Dream Team, I would be fine with it. But that they still use the old renders...

2005-2009 had the best renders. 06 and Unleashed (and Sonic's Frontiers ones) renders are my go-to for whenever I wanna use one, they're so good.

Splash dash has already done this

There’s a Sonic Forces Render where the Good and Bad Characters are about to Face off and that’s honestly one of the Only “Recent” renders that look good.

Another example is star fox. Nintendo use to use the same render from 64 but over time it gained a render remake for star fox zero say what y’all want but I love star fox zero. And same with Mario they use to use the render from the GameCube era but when the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake came around it changed into a newer style to appeal to newer audiences. So I don’t understand onto why Sega does change the models for like angry birds 2 and dream blast. But not the others. I’d say it’s a shady business practice if I do say so myself.

SEGA owns Rocio so it’s not really a collab

this art style problem isnt only in the angry birds collab, its the same for lost world and sonic frontiers

I agree, the renders can either be kinda good, or an affront to god

If they just use the sonic dream team render this problem would be fixed

tbh sega is kinda lucky those marza animation models/renders hold up so well since 2005

9:00. The word you’re looking for is stiff

Who can we contact to make changes about this? Sega marking department? I want to actually get in contact with someone for real this has to be addressed.

Theres literally tons of Sonic fan artists that could be payed by piece of artwork to fix this problem for good ( new game covers. Full color game booklets -video format ads. -2d Animators feature films) . Corporate Sega waits forever to give the greenlight at upgrading the styling. Sega why do you wait so long? Why use old outdated design? The employees probably don’t mind at all creating new renders and artwork. Its just Sega more than likely has to approve the process which is lame and it’s hindering creativity. - Great video by the way

I personally like the new dream team renders

I don't have a problem with the renders. They look exactly how I expect them to look. A render is a render to me.

I hope there will be new and better sonic renders like that updated Sonic generations

I wish they would do more 2D design stuff as well as new 3D renders for all the characters. Would love to see more cool looking merch

Never was a big fan of the renders, id say the only right way is 2d drawings or just a better 3d model

I preferred it when it was 2d adventure looking box art

Wait! didn’t he get a new model in Sonic Dream Team because I’ve seen Sonic Dream Team, and there’s something about the renders that I just like about the fact that they use the Sonic Prime art style is just so good

I think the reason why they didn’t use the Frontiers renders is because they didn’t really work with the kind of way they wanted to advertise the collab. The series may be called “Angry Birds” but they clearly were trying to go for a more friendly approach with the advertising( Considering the Friends renders had the birds looking so happy and everywhere else used the movie renders).

Hey, its Splash Dash's cousin! Istg ai can make more expressive Sonic renders than Sonic Team.

What if they're just doing all of this on purpose? Like, they know that most fans won't care for this crossover, so they made these inconsistencies just to get us to talk about it in SOME way.

The Sonic fans don’t care-

I miss when Sonic had 2D renders. Look at Zelda, there games have different 2D renders and they all look different.

Honestly yeah these renders are godawful, I think they're just milking a dry cow with them and it only gets worse the more of them they use, I think this also branches into a problem of Sonic's model and artstyle being the way it is, but I've seen the same one get pulled off masterfully so I won't jump to that conclusion yet

Marty and Carmen reminds me of Steven and Connie

3:46 Amy X suntop AMYTOP

I remember I tried really hard to like these renders when I saw them for the first time and I really couldn't bring myself to actually like them

I could point out all of the games the renders shown at the end came from, all except the one on the bottom right. I recognize it from promo material, but if it was used for a game I can’t place it. Maybe back of the box art? Or it’s from a mobile game? Those are the conclusions I came to, if it isn’t just a promo render of course.

The lack of shading makes my eyes burn

9:02 the one on the up right it's actually from team sonic racing and it's good lookin

I think the main problem (besides the renders being corporate) is that they try to make the renders generic and realistic. The should embrace the more cartoonish aspects for the character( allow their limbs to stretch, and such) will also giving it the edge of uekawa's adventure art.

8:44 this is true and kind of reminds me of the classic sonic US box art where he had the same exact expression on every box art

Hey, didn’t I watch this before? Also, that specific Sonic render that’s talked about here. That ain’t Sonic. That’s Sandiego, a hedgehog that’s similar to Santiago.

i also think we need renders like sonic dream team those renders might not be the best to some people, but they're at least good or more decent

We need Yuji Uekawa back asap

No body's out here talking about that fire sonic frontiers render🔥

I think it's because sonics mouth is closed in the bad renders

If Unleash can put in the effort to get fabled Chun-Nan 1-2 gameplay, then Sega can put in the effort to provide newer renders. Simple as.

I feel like sonic render is going stale over time and they say they want to surpass Mario but they not going to beat they are being cheap on stuff and rushing development with puts pressure on the developers probably unlike Nintendo I’m probably sure Nintendo probably just laughing in their minds about that

I’ve said this many times, but I really don’t think the designs are the problem. They just need to make the models have more controls and creativity. And also stop re-using stuff so much. Be creative, sonic team! You have a good foundation! You’re well capable of it!

1:51 is that all stock 2D art of the sonic characters? these poses aren't even halfway appropriate to the situation that they're in except Sonic's pose granted, it is a mobile game, but still

Not to defend them but I've messed with 3d before and it's actually the model it's designed in a way that makes it awful to pose and light ,abd the models are just plain old ,the best solution is to remodel they can easily make him more expressive by making the brows bigger and making then muzzle flow into the eyes small stuff like that can go along way

Then theres the Olympic games renders that are better than every other render they've made since 2005

Sonic looks like he's only in this for that paycheck

I always call these renders as corporate sonic renders since they just have no life at all Also 5:12 that's not a render that's a piece of 2d artwork 😭

Sonic dash is the home of bad renders but sonic force mobile have such good renders in my opinion

For the games, yeah there good for now… but the renders for merchandise and stuff like that, they need to fix that

Quite a bad move when Nintendo is making Mario look nicer and more expressive on all places.

Literally scripting a video about this very problem rn haha

At least they tried

I could easily make better renders

Sonic Team should stop using the same old af renders. Other companies like Hardlight made new renders and they're 1000 times better.

some of the promo renders don't look THAT bad

i dont really care about the Render, all i care is the freaking SHOES, their not Like In a Banana Shape, but the quills? I dont mind them, they look more expressive in my Opinion, but hey, we all have different Taste, also they KIND OF gave Sonic a new render in Sonic dream team, but the dream team sonic is the same as the Prime Sonic if you didnt Noticed, so they Kind of gave him a new design, but they keep using that Render for commercials for no reason, and in the new sonic forces speed battle trailer, Sonic got a kind of New Render, but it looks Lifeless, so yeah, Sega hasn’t confirmed a new Render yet 😢

I'm so glad someone finally spoke up about this. These renders look dog shit, and they really need to step it up.

Hm, this sonic problem. Feels familiar, right american artist for classic series?

If we’re talking about Sonic renders we need to talk about Sonic Dream Teams, fully animated cutscenes like you can see they made a completely different Sonic model rather than just copy and paste the Forces one like how they did for Frontiers

You kinda sound like Echosoldier but an older brother

The renders of 2000s years are soo cool.

I see. A rare Unleash take I agree with. These opinions are like Russian Roulette, but 5 of 6 bullets are chambered 🫠

They look fine to me, despite how it look awful at the same time for years by keeping them repetitive after Unleashed. But sadly they reused for decades even if they need to upgrade the old renders into new form

8:45 MODERN SONIC IS AMERICAN SONIC!!!!

I've seen fans on Deviantart make better renders on stuff like SFM, Blender, MMD, and even GMOD than Sega themselves.. It's sad and I want them to learn these old awful renders are just not as good as some of their other renders *Cough cough Unleashed has better renders*

Dude no shit

The renders aren’t that terrible

I'm so tired of these renders , they are stale , ugly and soulless. Even the real life Mascot have this design i just *sigh*. Sonic is a character of attitude , so put more attitude in this little dude please SEGA we beg you ;_;

It's funny how angry birds looks more high quality than sonic😂😂😂

A friendly reminder that segas target audience is children and they aren't trying to appeal to us let alone me who's old enough to have one. Not saying thats why. Just a possibility on their decision. Maybe they found that this is the most appealing. But they recently tried using babificatioon face on sonic so I could be wrong

I must admit, the models are getting better, but they need to stop using those ugly things entirely for promotional material.

Does anyone care about Angry Birds x Sonic? Because I don't care about it.