Can 3D animation replicate 2D animation?

Since the dawn of the computer era, and graphics cards in general, the graphics have reached a new era. The 3D era, which will never end. It has also impacted animation, especially 2D animation. It has made it’s own version of animation, 3D animation.

The 3D graphics have evolved from this…

…to this.

Even a simple chimp can see the change. The latter photo almost looks it’s from a movie. But it still CGI. In this article, let’s dive in to the 3D graphics, and think about it’s possibilities in animation.

The computer-made 3D animation has been around since the early 199- oh sorry, 1960s?! Wow. Pretty insane that we could make 3D models with the same primitive technology we got to moon. Althrough the modern RAM couldn’t run browsers properly. No wonder why some people think that things were better before. (Well, it wasn’t) I’m getting out of track. The guy who made the first 3D models was an employee at Boeing, William Fetter. They were used as simulations and blueprints. The first video made with CGI in the other hand, was made in 1974. The animation was pretty impressive, considering that around the same time most of the computers were pretty big, and microcomputers weren’t so common in the early 1970s. The first computer-generated film in the other hand was released in 1976, two years later after the first animation. 3D animation was later used for special effects, like in the Star Wars films. Many of you have probably heard of it. If don’t, you are either a little baby, or a person who has lived under a rock.

AutoCAD was the first computer-aided design software, created in 1982. The same year when the one of the best movies, and worst video games were released. The rise of the 3D animation came only after the 1980s, in 1990s. Just like Star Wars, Terminator movies mixed both live action and CGI. Jurassic Park surprised the viewers with very realistic looking dinosaurs. The 1990s was the start of the fully-animated 3D tv shows and movies. Most of the were targeted to children, like Veggietales and Toy Story. Pixar rose to one of the largest animation studios, and was aquired by Disney later in 2006. The movie Avatar in 2009, broke the ice with very realistic-looking characters.

Let’s move on to today. Majority of the children’s animation and a minority of the adult animation is made with 3D. Many critics think that 3D lacks the same soul as the 2D animation does, and is cheap and bad. They have a good point, but can we replicate the same magic that the 2D animation created? Yes, sort of. Some 2D animated shows like Futurama and Disentchantment (They are good shows, I can recommend them) use cel shading. Cel shading gives 3D the same cartoon-like feeling as it gave in the 2D animation. It was used in video games like Zelda or Jet-Set Radio.

3D animation is used in anime-style video games, too. Most of them also use cel shading. Like in Persona.

You can see that the characters’ design is very anime-style, and an anime series is made from the game series. Well, the anime is pretty controversial, since some fans liked it, some fans hated it. Speaking of anime, CGI is used in many anime shows and movies in order to assist the animation. Read more here: https://www.foxrenderfarm.com/share/the-secret-behind-using-3d-to-make-2d-animation

As I have mentioned before, some 2D cartoons are made with 3D animation. 3D animation can make cartoons that look like 2D animation, like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and The Bad Guys.

You can see that those two movies’ design almost resembles 2D animation, and they don’t have cel shading, but they are still pretty good looking. I’m not much interested in Spider-Man, althrough I have read old Spider-Man comics from the late 2000s. They are pretty well made, and I can recommend them, althrough I’m not that big Marvel fan unlike when I was a kid in elementary school.

Those both movies are movies targeted for children and younger audiences. 3D animation has expanded towards more mature audiences, like for example, Meta Runner. Meta Runner was in my opinion, good in the first and second seasons, but the show’s quality dropped fast in the third season, when the show felt more like just another mass-produced saturday morning cartoon. The same show was from the same guys who made SMG4, which were some shitpost-like Mario animations. They made another shows, like Murder Drones, Sunset Paradise, and many others. Another adult animated series, Arcane uses 3D animation, althrough they use 2D animation as well.

The large problem in 2D animation is the production time. 2D animation is very time consuming, and making a 20-minute animation can take like three months. 3D animation is pretty much faster alternative, and you can make animations faster by animating with 3D. Some people may think ”Isn’t 3D animation expensive?”. Well, yeah, but there exists free 3D animation software, like Blender, which eliminates the expenses. (If you want to make a larger project in a group, the animators need pay, but if you make it yourself, 3D animation is then free.) If you don’t know how to draw, you can make animation or comic books using 3D software. Just add some cel shading, and cartoon-like artstyle, and voíla! You have made it.

I am interested in animation, and I have wanted to animate myself. My drawing skills are in the level of a grade school student, so 2D looking 3D animation would be a good alternative for me. I have a lot of ideas written in my computer, and have drawn some concept drawings.

So, the question and the title of this article is: ”Can 3D animation replicate 2D animation?” It can. It can be an alternative for new digital artists, who want to make animation or comics, but their drawing skills aren’t that good. (Like for me) You just need to put some cel shading, and some (hopefully good) artstyle into the animation.