There go my dreams of becoming an animator.

[Obraxis]

Your right - 3D is replacing 2D in the general animation market. It's still around, just not much in Hollywood.

Personally, I find that I can connect with both 2D and 3D characters well. 3D is more complicated than a pencil to learn, but it's like learning to drive. If you can learn to drive, you can learn to do 3D - in some respect.

2D animation is great because as you say, all you need is a pencil. But for 3D, all you need is a laptop ;)

[oshiroii]

There was a mini article on some site saying that Disney is planning to do 2d animated movies again. It will be Disney, but in a seperate company, anyone knows anything about this?

[Tallacus]

i like 3d better for one reason, you only have to draw the characters once, but you whether it be 2d or 3d its still the same amount of work,

[jeb]

the idea of 2d being replaced by 3d is just as dumb as if people would have thought about replacing oil paint with the airbrush.


They are both very different and rich art forms. both have their unique qualities.

The day someone can do the flowers making love sequence in the pink floyd movie better in 3d...that day 2d will be dead for me.

[oshiroii]

3d can get very close to 2d when using a good pose to pose workflow. You might set the keys and extremes and let your litle brother inbetween them ^.^ No serious, if you use "stepped curves" you'll get really close to the 2d method of working. I don't mind really as long as it looks good and has superb quality. :D

About you loosing a dream: You are stupid! So that's said. You have a dream as animator? But you don't like 3d? You say the animations are too colerfull and unrealistic. If you look at Star Wars for example, it's quite realistic. Look at finding nemo. It's cartoony, but pretty close to reality too. I think 3d is more capable of realism then 2d. A walking mouse of a talking duck isn't realistic either you know. You can get the same amount of quality with both forms.

You want to be an animator. Well, just practise 2d if you like. There are tons of animators out there who started with 2d and are working at ILM or Pixar right now. And I even think that if you're capable of doing great 2d animation, you might even gain more respect than with a 3d animation. Since everybody does 3d. 3d Isn't complicated at all. It's just the people who make them complicated. There are kids in my class who say they "don't get it" with some lessons, or they don't "understand" but those kids don't really go in depth and arn't "living" animation. Animation is animation and nothing else. The complicity lies in buying maya, download IKjoe and start animating. That's it. If you can do 2d animation, you can do 3d. You just have to learn how to use a mouse.

2d Animation still lives you know. I believe Disney has recently released like 2 2d drawn films. Brother bear and another one. You'll always have Studio Ghibli, who only use computers for coloring and for really really boring scenes, the rest is all drawn.
So don't give up the dream, you want to be an animator, you can be it, you just have to believe it and do it. :thumbsup:

[Tukata]

Pixar is forming a 2d department which is going to step up as a leader for 2d animation where Disney has faultered. I dont think 2d animation will ever vanish but I think we'll be seeing a lot more hybrid movies like Atlantis and Titan AE which I personally love. I still think in animated films 2d characters are more believeable then 3d characters but I love the 3d setting so I'm a huge fan of the hybrid animated movies.

[CarlCampbell]

IMHO some of the CG animation I've seen recently in feature films such as Shark Tale, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Shrek 1 & 2 (yeah, all pixar and Dreamworks, so we got to start different things!) is far more realistic and provides a much broader range of emotions than I've ever seen... And believe me, I may be only 19 but I've seen my share of traditional animation, old school and new...
Oh and IMHO, Square sux :p

[Morganism]

2D still rocks television. And don't worry, the 2D feature will come back some day.

[oshiroii]

Squar rocks! Well, they used to. I hate the new style Final Fantasy, but the older ones were definitally superb. And they almost always had stunning effects which wern't achiefed before. (if you don't coun't the genial MGS of course :D) Like FFVIII being my first square game. I loved it and still do, I loved the graphics and those FMV's o my :applause: I got Vagrant story and that was amazing, played to oldschool super famicom games and those were great too and for that time pretty new I guess. Just because it's colerfull doesn't make it bad. Take a look at FFIX that was pretty realistic, cartoony, but it could all be possible, it was believable and it looked pretty damn good on the PSX, it was a great game SO SQUAR DOENS'T SUCK KAY! :D They just use a different style, which in my opinion is realistic, in that it's believable, it just may not be photo-real. Squar inspired me big time, when I was a kid (sorry if I take this too personal hahaha :D )

[sundialsvc4]

I agree with the sentiment. "Can you draw, or not?" Can you create good commercial art? Can you do it consistently, on a deadline and a budget? Can you do it both when it's fun to do and when it's a chore? If you made a promise, will you keep it? If so, you've got a job. Somewhere. It's up to you to find it.

Once you do start looking, don't impose limits upon what kind of job you'll accept. If it's a 2D project then do it. If it's a conventional movie and you're good at matte-painting, even if that's digital now, do it. If it's a 3D project, maybe you'll be asked to paint the clothing UV-maps, or some element of the scene that's going to be painted on a digital scrim. Why should you care?

"Look, for this project I need a digital painting of soap-suds. It's gotta be done by Friday. And it's gotta be so good that no one will ever look at it; so good that no one will ever notice it's a painting. Then I need an equally good painting of a box of rice, a can opener and a salt-shaker that will be sitting on the kitchen counter. And can you please do me a nice square of dirty formica for that counter-top? Thank you. Oops, that's five things I guess. I need them all by Friday. And remember, so good that no one will see them. Can you do that for me?" Can you do that? Will you? Can you hold your head up high at the Christmas party when you say, "I'm really, really good at painting dirty formica?" If you can, and you know why such a trivial-sounding task is so important, then you've got a job anywhere Hollywood .. because there's gonna be a lot of demand for formica-painters and only one actor needed to play Luke Skywalker. Everyone dreams of being Luke Skywalker. (Well-l-l-l... :D )

Within the scope of any type of commercial art, for any purpose, you will find a niche ... one that you enjoy and one that you are good at. And, if you can produce and diligently look for people to demonstrate that ability to, you'll be as busy as you want to be. But if you are le' artiste.... " :buttrock: " They don't call 'em starving artists for nothing.

[ralphpoon]

You guys have to check out Katsuhiro Otomo's "Steamboy", a coming soon 2d feature film :)

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/steamboy/

[oshiroii]

:eek: I thought steamboy was already out like a year or so... maybe it was the japanese version. I remember this being frontpage on 3d.com. But I also remember a scene with awfull 3d effects :argh:(not awfull, but it popped out to much, didn't fit in :hmm:)

[ralphpoon]

It just show up this year! They have been working for 9 years to finish it!!!
yes, they use 3d in the backstage since they plan to apply more computer graphics in the early stage, but then they found 2d is more close to japanese anime. so they do most of the work in 2d...especially the steam!!
there are many many steam in the film, of course, it's steamboy..lol. All are drawn by hands~
Should have an eye on it~

[webhead]

A few people here said 'you can't get real emotion in a 3D character.'
I have to disagree. What about Gollum in LOTR? What about Nemo, Shrek, Stewart Little, Sulley and Mike in Monsters, Inc? These are very well realized characters; and the ability to create even more realism in 3D is happening as the technology improves. I love the incredible worlds you can create with 3D animation. The possibilities are tremendous!
However, I do hope hand drawn animation will still have a place in the movies.

[oshiroii]

Of course there is one thing a lot of people are missing here. In 3d animation they use 2d animation in a tremendous amount. Lots of animators firstly make thumbnails, make a quick little 2d animation, before starting out in 3d. Have you ever seen Nemo's story board? I saw it in the making of and there were like 3 billion pictures (at least something like that) those are all used to make the storyboard, I believe they're also scanned into the computer and used as a timing help. 2d will always be used in 3d in evey stage. So there's always need for good and proffesional 2d artists. :shrug: Don't worry! :thumbsup:

[ralphpoon]

actually....i think the most important thing for you to realize your dream as a animator is your heart, not skill.
Animation is about creativity, communication and concentration, regardness 2d or 3d.
It's not a bad idea for you to learn how 3d software works, while many great 3d animators were 2d animators.
lastly, i remeber a statement, "When you can't change the environment, change yourself."
Go for your dream!!!

[telliott]

I'm a traditionally trained 2d animator making the leap to 3d. I've been working animator for 7 to 8 years now and 2d work IS scarce. I don't like 3d as much but it has a lot of good qualities to it, very similar to stop motion. If you take a look at the big picture, the long term, obviously 3d will be at a place that the best 2d animation acheived or better. 3D is still a really young art. Look at where it was ten years ago.

Your art and passion will always be your art and passion. The industry, the economy, the times won't take away your desire to use animation to express your art. You need to ask yourself honestly how you want to spend your time. You can be an aspiring singer and get a job singing jingles for Double Mint Gum. It will pay well and you will be a professional working singer. If this is enough for you, then you are a lucky fellow. If you feel that your soul will wilt in a situation like this, I would advise to leave animation as your art, and perhaps find work in something else. I find that after animating and working all day on a computer (making absolute garbage, btw) I have no energy to come home and work on my own stuff. It's just the truth. Throw a girlfriend or a wife or an active group of friends into the mix and you will find yourself with even less time. But I aspire to something better. So I work a full time job and go to grad school part time. And let me tell you it is difficult. I hope I can find a job soon so that I can learn on the job, otherwise, I don't know how much more of this schedule I can maintain.

We all would love to work at a top animation studio and make movies that stand the test of time. But truth is that many of us will be animating the next box of Tide flying around a kitchen with a housewife staring in awe and amazement. And that's after you've raised up to that level. To begin with, you will animate the soap bubbles or making track mattes or something equally as tedious. There are very few rock stars in this industry. You have to love it, otherwise you simply won't survive it.

Just my two cents.

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