What do you prefer seeing, 2D or 3D animation and why ?

2-D is intrinsically superior in every way, and anyone who doesn't think so just needs to watch more cartoons.

...

There. I just made this thread more interesting then it was possibly going to be otherwise.:anime:


In all seriousness, I've been watching a lot of recent films lately - contrasting, say, Up with Princess & the Frog and so on - and what I'm repeatedly seeing is that, despite the advances by Pixar and Dreamworks and such, CGI simply isn't... there yet.

I mean, watch the best pieces of animation, and you'll see people playing around with the medium and the visuals - being extremely creative and funny with it, or just utilizing it in the best possible way. The living shadows in P&tF is what I'm thinking of now, but there a number of other examples, especially from the Golden Age.

With CGI, on the other hand, while it can look beautiful and has been a crucial part of some terrific movies, seems to only be able to do really one thing. There are a few people who are being creative with it - I'd say Blue Sky has some very experimental visuals for a commercial company, for example - but for the most part the quality of CGI can still be measured with a straight line - Ratatouille's at the top, Sid the Science Kid is at the bottom, and everything in between looks vaguely similar.

I'm not a pessimist - I'm sure that, with time, a bunch of people will come along and turn CGI into a more varied and creative art-form. But until that happens, I think "2D" animation really has more merit.

(...please tell me you were talking about CGI vs. Hand-Drawn animation, and not actual "2D" vs "3D" movies. If you weren't, I'm going to feel really silly...)
 
Do you actually mean 2D VS 3D, or do you mean hand drawn animation VS CGI? 'Cause they're not the same thing. 3D isn't an animation style, it's a visual perspective. Even CGI films like Shrek and Toy Story are technically 2D unless otherwise specified, like the 3D versions of Monsters VS Aliens and How to Train Your Dragon.

Anyways, to answer the question: I don't have a preference. If the animation appeals to me, and the story looks interesting, then I'll watch it. I don't care how it's animated.
 
2D animation, especially if it's Disney-style full animation. I watched the old cult classic The Brave Little Toaster for the first time ever about a week ago, and although the story was interesting enough, it was the lovely animation that kept me entertained all the way through.
 
But all CG cartoons start out as pencil drawings before they're animated by computer. CGI is hand-drawn too.

I really don't understand why so many people are so biased against CGI. Not every CG project is good, but there are plenty of bad hand-drawn cartoons as well. CGI is just another way to tell a story. Ultimately, it's how the story and characters are executed that's important, not how it's animated, at least that's how I feel.
 
For television, 2D reigns. The number of 3D TV series that are well-produced and definitely good I can probably count on one hand. In fact, the better ones are relatively dated today as far as animation goes (by better ones I mean Beast Wars, Reboot, arguably Action Man). Some anime series have been 2D w/ 3D giant robot action, which has had mixed results so far.

For movies, both work marvelously. It depends on what you want to achieve. The style, the art, it's all different. I wouldn't have Beauty and the Beast any other way, just as Wall-E captured that perfect magic in my book.
 
But that line of thinking flounders in front of stuff like, say, Fantasia. If the exact same film was made with Flash Animation or TV Budget CGI, I don't think it's biased to say that it would be awful.
 
Very true. Visuals and animation style make up 50% of an animated work's appeal, IMO. There are some well written shows/films out there that I can't watch more than once because it gouges my eyes and/or puts me to sleep. Story and character execution are important, but I'm not in agreement with people who put it as 90% of a film. It's different in a novel...but even then, story is not necessarily the most important thing there. I know this is not your point, but I had to put it out there.



Evidently not enough to matter, since CGI beats the living daylights out of 2d in the box office. :shrug:

As a viewer, I'd like to see both 2d and 3d represented in equal abundance on the big screen. Unfortunately the mainstream audience do not share my egalitarian tastes when it comes to this debate. Boo to them. Boo, I say. In general I prefer 2D because i have a bias towards seeing an artist's linework, but I do appreciate the sensual qualities inherent in CGI as well.

I will say though, I really hate this new "3d glasses" trend. Boo to studios for still using an outdated model pulled from the 50s. This is nothing unique or even great. And I don't like darkened colors either.
 
How it's animated (cel animation, CGI animation, stop-motion, clay, etc) doesn't really matter as long as one style doesn't overshadow the other, and as long is the writing is "acceptable".
 
If you want to get that picky, then even How to Train Your Dragon is, strictly speaking, a 2D film as well - I mean, those characters aren't really popping out the screen at you. They're just flat images that look three-dimensional because of an optical illusion.
 
My head says that good animation is good animation, whether its made with pencil and paper, computers, stop motion puppets, clay, bottle caps, or whatever.

My heart says hand-drawn animation. It's just the medium I find the most visually pleasing (though there's currently a Clampett Bugs in desperate need of dental work in the top banner who is trying to convince me otherwise.)

I like computer animation just fine. I liked Kung-Fu Panda. Loved Beast Wars and ReBoot. I worship just about everything Pixar does. But if all you tell me about two movies is that one is hand-drawn and one is computer animation, I'll pick the hand-drawn one. It's the style I grew up loving, for one thing. I also really love to see evidence of the artist's hand and there's more of a direct connection between what the animator is doing and what you see on screen with hand-drawn than there is with computer animation or even stop-motion. You can still tell good work from bad and in any medium, the ideal is usually for the whole piece to look consistent no matter how many people are working on it. But with computer and stop-motion animation, everyone is using the same physical or digital model, while in hand-drawn, each drawing is individual and one character may be drawn by many animators, each putting their own ideas into their work.

Every style of animation has its own strengths and weaknesses and while computer animation has made leaps and bounds in recent decades, there will always be areas in which it can't match hand-drawn. Something that i frequently go back to it this argument is these pencil drawings of the characters from Disney's Bolt. I ended up liking the final movie OK, but to my mind, a lot of appeal was lost in the translation to three dimensions. The simplicity of these drawings draws your attention to the detail that are there. As a drawing, Mittens immediately reads as a scruffy-haired alley cat. But when you can see every hair on her three-dimensional body, the effect becomes more subtle. (And if IMDB is to be believed, getting it to look right was a challenge.) This may not be the fairest comparison, since I don't feel like Disney ever fully got the hang of full computer animation (witholding judgement on Rapun...errr, Tangled.) But I think it demonstrates some of the aspects of hand-drawn animation that I particularly love.


If anyone actually wants to talk 3D (special glasses, images popping off the screen, etc.) vs 2D (most movies, no special dimensional effects, no glasses required), my position is much more definite. I prefer 2D. I do have a bias, since my eyes don't entirely focus in the same direction and only the most extreme 3D effect really do anything for me. I also feel like it's nearly always just a gimmick. It doesn't really add to the storytelling in most movies. You'll either have scenes that are put in exclusively to show off the 3D, or the effect will be so subtle that (most people I know tell me) you stop noticing it at all. The one good argument I've ever heard for 3D came from John Lasseter discussing Up and talking about how the depth of field changes when the fog lifts and the whole landscape is revealed. That's at least plussing the storytelling a little, even if it's not an effect that I think would only come across in 3D. And I don't feel like I've missed out on anything big by seeing Up exclusively in 2D.
 
Playing off some of the stuff Ink and Pixel says above, here is a test you can use on movies and things that I think exposes the gap between CGI and 2-D pretty well - watch the movie, or show or whatever, and then look at the concept art. Or, if there is no concept art available, just try to imagine what it would look like if it was 2-D.

Five times out of ten, I find that the concept art is superior to the art in the actual film, or that I think it would look better in 2-D. And this is even in the animated films routinely praised for their visuals, like Up or Madagascar - I wont even talk about most of the television series. That's the kind of thing that I'd like to stop happening.
 
I prefer classic 2D animation to the 3D animation or CGI of today, it's just a personal preference and some of that would be the "old school" in me but all in all 2D films and cartoons always thrill more than anything CGI.
 
Wow InkAndPixelClub, why don't you just read my mind some more. Holy geeze.

Even the whole head and heart thing ffffff.

But yeah, even if I love a CGI film, like HTTYD or Toy Story, I typically find more appeal in the concept 2D drawings than anything else and would love to see those animated as well. I think one of the big things as well is that a transition from CGI to 2D typically still looks good, as evident by Kung Fu Panda (Maybe not so much Jimmy Neutron). However, the same thing can't be said for 2D to CGI, so 2D just has this type of appeal that's really hard to beat.
 
2D, its more appealing then half-real half-fake shaded models with too much detail. Plus, 2D has evolved wuite a bit while 3D isn't too far from the 30's, when most cartoons looked the same.
 
if it's in terms of traditional animation and computer animation, i prefer traditional because it seems much more appealing, but i still love computer animation. like a person said a few posts above this one, the animated movies (and maybe shows as well) work best the way they are (or the movies are perfect the way they are)

if it's seeing a movie with 3-d glasses, i prefer not to see a movie with the glasses because i don't want to spend extra money and it's probably not worth the extra cost anyways. also i don't think it really matters whether you see a movie with 3-d glasses or not
 
2-D or CGI, whatever it is, I know it's just a cartoon that's striving for entertainment. This includes Fanboy and Chum Chum, which I like.
 
Hi,new here :).I most definetly prefer 2D over 3D.It`s hard to explain why, CG cartoons always leave me...cold.And weirded out.The character designs look very akward and unappealing.Every pore,vein and hair folicule is present,but it leaves them even less real and expressive.They all look like robots with plastic dead eyes to me.
And talking animals have semmi human face glued to them.It`s just unpleasing to look at.Oh and the humans...I better not start.
But to be fair,CG movies can be hart warming and keep you intrested,unless they ruin it with overobundace of pop cultural refrences and potty humor.
I can sit through (some) CG movies,maybe even laugh a little...but no...I just don?t feel as comfortable as watching 2D stuff.
Maybe Im just not use to the new animation aproach,spoiled up with the classics...but yeah,this new stuff just doesn?t click with me right.
 
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