Creating a hybrid 2d and 3d animation
Creating a hybrid 2d and 3d animation
Animation has fascinated humanity for more time anyone can remember; ever since the first flipbook showed people how images could be made to move, the race has always been on to make animation better and more expressive. It has always been two-dimensional animation though until very recently, when 3D animation performed on computers, began to supplant 2D. But does the arrival of 3D animation have to necessarily mean the end of 2D? How might one go about using two at the same time? With the right software and knowledge, it is possible to tastefully put 2D and 3D together in the same scenes and films. Begin by putting down on paper, drawings of how you wish to have your hybrid scene appear. You will need to plan the 3D elements of your film, the background, and plan them down to every detail of their appearance. You could also do well to write down details of all the 3-D components of the scene that will need to actually be animated. Creating an environment on 3-D software can take a great deal of time; modeling a tree, a rock and other component, placing them exactly where you want to see them, can end up taking days. You can find excellent tools for this in any 3D animation software, and also in Photoshop . Always remember that it is not your aim to just create smooth surfaces all over: all good 3-D animation software provides for texture programming. All the 3-D objects in your film that need to be animated, can be run through a 3-D rendering application. Take your camera angle exactly as you wish to see it in your film, and try not to keep the camera static. It is the motion that will allow you to show your audience the difference between the 2D elements of your film and the 3D ones. Rendering is the process by which a programmed graphic is actually made visible by translating the mathematical formulae used by the software into actually visible pictures. Your animation program can be used at this point to take up all the characters and backgrounds you created and to animate them. The rendering process achieves this. In the rendering process, each frame programmed is interpreted from computer models to visible pictures. When you open the 3D backgrounds you created in your animation program you can begin to paint in the 2D characters you have created with the help of the animating software, or by other means. If you have any camera angle changes or panning planned, you must keep track of how the background environment needs the change to the appropriate new background in each frame. You can do this on the frame by frame basis until your 2D character easily moves against a moving background.