Is 2D animation basically dead?

[mr-mankind]

I watched a 1.5 hour long feature on cable last night about the origination of Pixar and it highlighted something I've always wondered ...is the market for 2D pretty much dead today?

When I watched the feature it did expose something about Pixar and its founders ..while I applaud them for bringing 3D to the fore-front and to prominence in the film industry ...the team did have the luxery of floating for a long period, unproductive and still able to pay the rent. A luxery most people in the industry will never have.

It also exposed how the technology pretty much shut down Disney 2D business.

But that aside ... after Toy Story I must admit ... I basically started dismissing 2D animation as it looked so amuterish in comparison.

Ok we have had such hits as South Park ... not only is it 2D ...but its very sloppy 2D. And again I must admit South Park is alluring ...the characters ...Cartman .. are like a real people!! But the basic appeal to South Park is the story and the dialogue ...which after several years is getting a bit old and stale! And thats only natural ... still South Park is ...was.. a success!

But when I see other 2D like Anime or Manga style features ... they are so weak!! Even before 3D I've always felt trying to draw 2D with characters being real-looking people is very very hard to sell. In my view its better looking cartoony with the old squash and stretch rules.

Here is another area of 2D I would put aside ... the Flash and web features! Most people who use Flash today are partly involved with it for web features and content a slight difference from feature films. This is an offset I would categorize differently.

I just wonder ...for all the members in this forum, how many have any real interest in 2D today?

And is it soley because of the difficulty, the expense and the time involved with 3D why the cartoon channels are showing mostly 2D re-runs! Why don't we see more Jimmy Neutron style half hour animation by now on these channels instead of Batman 2D re-runs?


I use Flash and ToonBoom and I am trying to experiment with a style I call
2.5D ... its basically drawing the stuff in 2D but using color and shadings to show more depth. Its nothing new ...so I wonder if anybody has any experience with this style and could provide some tips, maybe even point me to software ..etc to help.

I just can't draw the characters with the old staid solid black outline and fill them with bland mono-tone colors any-more.

Or should I just give in go find a hole for a few months/years and try to learn one of the 3D software out-there? I tried the old freebie ... BLENDER .. and with very little guidance I have no idea how to use this software. I wonder if Studio 3D or Maya is the same ..or will any of the number of user-guide books actually help.

[Ken Davis]

Most TV animation these days is STILL 2D, the conversion has been to digital ink and paint there. FLASH is gaining some ground, but it also means that those studios overseas that received outsourcing have to add technology AND retrain their staff to handle FLASH. Purely digital work like straight 3D happens, but its probably no more prominent than 2D is, certainly no more than FLASH. Still seeing tons of 2D animation being done on commercials, Disney is doing features in 2D again.

2D is not dead, not by a long shot.

[mr-mankind]

OK ..point taken. But while most TV show is 2D today ..I can make several un-appealing statement about that fact.

The Turner stations, cartoon networks etc are nototious for spending pennies on films and re-run for enternity while they cash in on the bundled pakage provided by the cable networks. So, much of the stuff on the cartoon channels are old ... old re-runs.

The new stuff introduced tend to be low budget stuff ..and not nearly the animation quality of the old made for TV disney stuff. I'm sorry but ..stuff like "growing up creepie" I find un-appealing. And the trend is to farm out the work overseas these days ...like the Simpsons done completely in Korea or China.

The old Hannah Barberra, and Goofy Mickey mouse stuff has ran its course long ago. The one flaw I see with the old stuff back then was that it was made entirely for kids. Today's 3D has a much much wider appeal. And its why I believe South Park is a hit. But I no longer see the quality work done in 2D like the old Disney stuff ...and at one time I was thinking hey ...what if someone took that quality stuff and update ithe story around the animation. Its what the Iorn Giant was all about.


Creepie is a Flash produced series ...but most stuff done in Flash is for the web which is really the software's appeal.

Please ..understand I'm not a pro, have never been in the business, and I wonder if I would be better off pursuing 3D were I to consider make a run at this today. So I'm fishing for information here because I feel most people in this forum have some experience in the business.

[beeblebrox]

I think you're really comparing a lot of apples and oranges, from TV to features to the web. While 2D has taken a hit in studio features, it is alive and well on TV. While 3D is certainly dominant in studio features, it is not as common on TV. No one medium really gives the complete picture.

But Pixar/Disney are bringing 2D back to feature production. And of course there's the extensive sequence in Enchanted supervised by James Baxter.

I think animation in general is thriving. What you choose to pursue should depend on your talent and your interests, as well as the potential job market.

[mr-mankind]

I want to ignore the web issues and flash here. I think Flash, 2D and the web has a market and will only get better in the future. In addition, for Flash and the web, more so than the art ...its the technology and interactivity features thats propelling 2D in this area.

You say 2D is still on TV ... but I wonder if its only because its cheap and easier to make than 3D ...and like I said much of it is re-run stuff.

[cherokee158]

Maybe I'm old school, but I think 2-d (and 2 and a half D) are better suited for some subject matter than 3-D. Some stuff wasn't MEANT to be photo-real. Case in point: anyone see the The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Great book, charming old cartoon...and creepy as hell movie.

When it comes to visual story-telling, what you leave OUT is as important as what you show. Ever see Cool World? Was anyone else vaguely disappointed when Holly morphed from a smoking hot toon into a somewhat tired looking Kim Basinger? How many hugely successful 2-D cartoon franchises were similar disappointments when brought into the 3-D realm? Scooby, Bugs, TMNT, need I go on?

A cartoon, or any other visual image, is a collaboration between the artist and the viewer. Some things are best left to the viewer's imagination. 3-D attempts to define EVERYTHING in the frame as if it were a real physical object subject to empirical laws of light and shade and physics. But it isn't a real object, and trying to make it real robs the viewer of a chance to color the scene with his own imagination, as well as robbing the artist of many opportunities to interpret things in his own way.

I think 3-D animation is a powerful tool...but like all tools, while it has its uses, it can't do everything. And, like all things digital, it is hyped far beyond its actual usefulness.

2-D artists have been THINKING in 3-D since the days of the masters. Computers gave us a way to save time drawing vanishing points and inbetweening. We can even use them to make things look pretty real if we want to.

But we don't always want to, and we shouldn't.

[Black Spot]

The thing with 3D animation, which I’m totally fascinated with by the way, it that it like trying to bring a sculpture to life, and yet I not have seen it been taken to an absolute exactness. Making a body and then making it move is all very well, but I remember that we were promised that we would not be able to tell the difference between real people and animated people, and that was over ten years ago – I’m still waiting.

Both 2D and 3D have their plusses and minuses in their limitations. 2D at the moment can show more extremes of emotions and movements without being realistic or even wanting to be. 3D is still very static in respect to those movements to a great extent, but can look realistic to a certain point and still trying so hard to be. Pixar might have muddied the waters a bit, but no one would say their 3D characters were realistic, although they can convey emotions. The ‘real’ kids in the films were still based on 2D animation in the way they look and move.

I don’t think the medium matters much as long as the story is strong, but if the animation is over clumsy in either format, no one is going to want to watch it again.

Thus speaketh a rank amateur and non-connoisseur

[mr-mankind]

The thing is I was fascinated by Toy Story, and since then ..while there has been a few failures ..there has been several 3D with better visuals and even better story line than Toy Story.

Rattatouille I thought was good, over the edge, A Bugs life, Ants, the Incredibles ...all great films.

When it comes to visual story-telling, what you leave OUT is as important as what you show. Ever see Cool World? Was anyone else vaguely disappointed when Holly morphed from a smoking hot toon into a somewhat tired looking Kim Basinger? How many hugely successful 2-D cartoon franchises were similar disappointments when brought into the 3-D realm? Scooby, Bugs, TMNT, need I go on?

A good point ..which is why video games don't appeal to me. See, one of the genius I think behind the 3D's mentioned above is that they don't pretend to be real ...perhaps if someone were to try to do a Batman film in pure 3D ..with pure 3D character ...I would find it un-appealing!!

I'm not knocking all 2D ... the Iorn Giant I think was great ..and Disney did some made for TV films with Goofy and Donald duck ..which I felt was very well done.

They are cartoons ...but not woody woodpecker Yogi Bear cartoon and some thing a family could actually watch. I remember watching this feature where Goofy was trying to bond with his son ..I thought it was very well done.

See one of the problem with cartoon was because its 2D and because it could do anything ... the story line revolved around doing unrealistic things ..which was why back then cartoons was only ...only meant for 3 to 6 year old kids! Disney started to break that mold back then ...but still some of what they did then ..like Snow White ..and Bambi ..was dull! Forget the story line ..the animation itself looked weak ..because it was 2D trying to be 3D !! The Lion King back the 90's was great ... but can you knock Ice Age??



But for the people in the business now how many of you are actually thinking about 2D or doing 2D today? How many friends do you have in the business ..or even people thinking of getting in the business who see 2D as more than just a stepping stone to 3D?

[Ken Davis]

You say 2D is still on TV ... but I wonder if its only because its cheap and easier to make than 3D ...and like I said much of it is re-run stuff.

Nope, I'm talking about current run stuff, not re-run material. Most new animated shows are still being made in 2D.

But for the people in the business now how many of you are actually thinking about 2D or doing 2D today? How many friends do you have in the business ..or even people thinking of getting in the business who see 2D as more than just a stepping stone to 3D?

I've been working on 2D projects as recently as a couple of months ago. There's 2D projects going on all over the place, I'm seeing what is clearly 2D material on TV and in direct-to-DVD all the time.
As for how many people I know in the biz--my Linkedin connections list stands close to 70 people right now, but the actual numbers of people I have worked with stands in the high several hundreds, if not well over 1000--quite a few of then have been, are, or will be involved in 2D productions ( and FLASH and 3D) in the future.

No one medium is dominating or "leading" right now, all remain viable and all have some kind of work happening in them. Training in one medium to the exclusion of others is just setting oneself up to be a niche talent, and I have written long and loud about the dangers of that here.

[David Nethery]

When John Lasseter was put in charge of Disney Animation one of the first things he did was to start to re-build the traditional animation dept.

This article , Hand Drawn Films Make A Comeback is just one of many where Lasseter is basically quoted as saying that hand-drawn is still valid and Disney ought to be doing it.

In part the above linked article says:

"The whole notion that the audience didn't want to watch hand-drawn animation any more was ridiculous," Lasseter says. "It would be like saying the audience didn't want to watch something made with a particular camera. Give me a break!"

Lasseter is also sensitive to another notion -- that the fabulous success of Pixar's computer-generated films, from his own Toy Story to this year's Ratatouille, has killed the commercial appetite for the old ways of Walt Disney.

"You can't say that," Lasseter says with fire in his belly. "We've never ever believed that. It's not technology. It never has been. It's what you do with it.

"It's storytelling. No one goes to a movie to see a particular technology. They go to see story and characters. They go to be entertained. What it was is that 2D became the scapegoat for bad storytelling."

Traditional techniques are being used even at Pixar, Lasseter says. An amusing 2D "educational" cartoon, Your Friend the Rat, was created as an extra on the recent Ratatoulle DVD release.

The 11-minute short tells the history of how two species of rat spread around world, except in Alberta. The film begins in computerized 3D with Ratatouille's rat stars Remy and Emile lecturing in a classroom. The body of the film was done in hand-drawn animation under the direction of Jim Capobianco, who also worked on Ratatouille.

"It's a unique short for Pixar," Capobianco tells Sun Media at Pixar's studio near San Francisco. "It's the first time we've ever done 2D hand-drawn animation here for a short.

"We've done it in the past for our credits. It started with Monsters, Inc. The opening-door sequence was done by hand. On Ratatouille, we did the end credits with hand-drawn animation."

The old ways are still exciting for animators, Capobianco says.

"I just think it's a beautiful artform in of itself. The fact that these drawings are moving and conveying emotion, I don't think you want to lose that.