Are questions about "Is 2D dead?" basically a dead end ?

[David Nethery]

Are naive questions about "2D" vs. "3D" or "Is 2D dead?" basically a dead end ?

[Ken Davis]

It just illustrates the naivete and confusion about the medium--something that a bit more reading or actual experience in the industry/craft can answer.
There's not harm in asking the question, but drawing conclusions based on assumption can create problems.

Bottom line is that the CRAFT of animation, and therefor the BUSINESS of animation is talent-based, so having/appreciating talent in ANY medium is what makes the business work.
If someone wants to hold to a belief that one medium has superseded others, then they are free to structure their career around that assumption. If they are wrong its to their detriment, not mine.

Heh, I've been called a dinosaur my young pups before.........but I'm STILL working in the biz and will be for the foreseeable future--so I guess my 2D skills still have a place in the scheme of things.
30 minutes more searching and reading on forums like AWN and other would supply insight enough to form an opinion that 2D, 3D et al are all thriving and being utilized. But the confusion persists....

[Flipmcgee]

Mods should convert that thread into a sticky actually. I don't think it's automatically trolling, every year there'll be a fresh batch of animators-to-be who'll be asking this same question.

It takes time and money to get any meaningful training so I can see were that poster is coming from (based on his first post) with his blood-pressure elevating question.

[beeblebrox]

In the thread that doubtlessly inspired this one, it's trolling. When you start from a place thinking you know everything, more than people who actually work in the business, and you ask a question knowing that you're going to start trouble, that's the very definition of trolling.

[beeblebrox]

Originally Posted by Flipmcgee

Mods should convert that thread into a sticky actually. I don't think it's automatically trolling, every year there'll be a fresh batch of animators-to-be who'll be asking this same question.

I think for the most part, there is a genuine curiosity and concern from would-be animators about which medium to focus on. It's a very fair and legitimate question. But that's not the case here. He came in with pre-conceived (and ignorant) notions and isn't at all interested in differing opinions on the subject. He knows 2D is dying and if you disagree with him, even if you work in the industry, you're "delusional."

[addlepate]

I think it's almost as silly to take questions of the sort seriously as it is to ask them in the first place. Why suffer fools? Why reward laziness and arrogance with assistance - or even responses? And I don't refer only to the sort of baiting that the last mouth-breathing dot-dot-dot-doofus did - I also extend my contempt to the question even if it's asked sincerely.

I'm a worthless wannabe with no credits to my name and, at present, not the slimmest chance of being accepted to the art school I'm aiming for, while everyone that I know who's my age is graduating from college; but even for someone as far removed as myself from the real world of the production of animation, all it takes is a modicum of common sense and artistic sensiblity to know that there's no limit at all to what can be done either in 2D or 3D - where there's sufficient talent and ample liberties - and that ultimately one's course is impelled by nothing of more significance than one's own taste. And if you're not exercising either your talent or your vision (or, ideally, both) then you may as well quit the industry for something far more lucrative.

It all seems so simple and straightforward to me that I cannot find anything redeeming in these exchanges other than their entertainment value as inadvertent jokes.

I mean, what kind of narrow, sub-human brain cannot comprehend - independently, without being lectured - that, no, a decade-and-a-half-long trend towards CG animation does not entirely negate almost a century of preceding hand-drawn history and momentum and, no, just because Disney is now an "entertainment" conglomerate that is more concerned with theme parks, "tween" bands and cruise lines than film does not mean that an entire artform has expired?

I don't see how the curiosity is justified, because it is predicated upon a wholly erroneous expectation that there can be such a thing as immutable security in employment or certainty in trends. If this were not the case, then they wouldn't be wasting time chewing over the same half-baked opinions again and again in an effort to plot-out the fail-safe plan for stability - they'd be using their time to improve their skills, towards whatever end excites them. But these haughty amateurs want to stake their success on anything other than themselves and their own skills, because, being so desperate for some guarantee, they are subconsciously driven to convince themselves that the matter of their success or failure hinges upon something bigger, something more unshakeable than themselves (which it doesn't). As a consequence, they so often become the rambling, devoted fan-boys of this-or-that style, trend, method, mode, technique or studio, deluding themselves that, armed with their superior opinion, they've elevated themselves into that current.

But actually, they stink. They are doomed to perpetual and inexorable mediocrity precisely because their constant fixation is external.

That having been said, I would never dream of barring the discussion from the forum. That last guy was the funniest thing I've read in weeks.

[Black Spot]

It just needed custard pies at thirty paces and it would have been perfect.

[Ken Davis]

Originally Posted by Black Spot

It just needed custard pies at thirty paces and it would have been perfect.

I don't use custard.

I use meringue--better kinetic "knock-down" energy, and a flatter ballistics path.

[Black Spot]

Originally Posted by Ken Davis

I don't use custard.

I use meringue--better kinetic "knock-down" energy, and a flatter ballistics path.

But the splooge dripping effect down the face is more glorious with custard, surely?

[Ken Davis]

Originally Posted by Black Spot

But the splooge dripping effect down the face is more glorious with custard, surely?

I can't help it, I've been trained to go for one blot, one spill; no exceptions.