I've been noticing a few CG animes appearing lately such as Arpeggio of Blue Steel and the upcoming Knights of Sidonia:

I've also noticed it appearing in parts of other shows, such as Girls Und Panzer, when the focus is not directly on the characters:

Is the reason anime companies are starting to use this technique more for characters, that it's cheaper to implement? Or is there another reason?

I've been noticing that CG in anime has becoming more popular. Recently, I've watched several shows that have almost fully 3D animation.

Arpeggio of Blue Steel and Knights of Sidonia:

I've also noticed it appearing to smaller effect in parts of other shows, such as Girls Und Panzer, when the focus is not directly on the characters:

It seems that primarily mechanical objects are done with 3D technologies as the measurements are exact. This doesn't surprise me, but human characters are notoriously hard to do with computer graphics - see the Uncanny Valley . For this reason I would have thought making 3d anime characters (who don't even have normal human proportions) would be expensive to do right.

Is the reason anime companies are starting to use this technique more for characters, that it has become cheaper to implement? Or is there another reason for this slowly increasing popularity?