Critical Report:2.5D Animation
2.5D animation is a new product of combining the visual style of 2D graphics with the model scenes of 3D. From a technical point of view, 2.5D animation is a fusion of 2D and 3D through NPR non-realistic rendering techniques. Examples include wolfwalker 2020, which uses illustrative techniques such as shading, layering, perspective and parallax on 2D objects to make them appear to be in 3D space; Treasure Planet 2002, which adds 3D models to 2D scenes to mix dimensions; or Spider-man: into the spider-verse 2018, which adds 2D dynamics to 3D models with 2D dynamic lines.
The emergence of 2.5D animation on the internet has caused some controversy. Some people believe that 2.5D will replace 2D or 3D animation in the near future, while others deny this idea. So this article will discuss whether 2.5D animation will become the mainstream of the animation industry in the future.
2.5D animation is becoming more and more popular.The latest 2.5D animation innovation wolfwalker was nominated for an Oscar and scored almost a perfect score on the movie ratings website. 3D animation brings “realism” to the “secondary” world of animation. In Wolf Walker, the film’s visual quality is “infinitely closer” to the real world of the “third dimension”, giving the audience “an aesthetic experience closer to the real thing”. (Snyder and Desiderio, 2021) In wolf walker, the illustrated pencil and watercolour textures, the intentional flatness of the images, the “irregular” lines and “distorted proportions” of the people and objects, and the not-quite-seamless “The visual effect gives the animation a childish, rustic and fresh quality that complements the folklore subject matter and provides more scope for symbolism and interpretation. There is little ‘perspective’ to the panoramic views of the castle and the city, and as Ross Stewart, (Moltenbrey, 2021) one of the directors, says, ‘the bold black lines and harsh angles create a cage-like labyrinth for Robin to escape from’.
Every frame in Wolf Walker, which could be used as wallpaper, not only provides a visual feast for the viewer, but also fully serves the narrative, reflecting the richer expression of animation compared to live action. The freedom and variety of the animation enhances the expression of emotions. At the beginning of the film, when Robin shows her determination and determination to kill the wolf, she is portrayed in an ‘expressionist’ style of ‘menace and tension’.
Each frame in Wolf Walker can be used as wallpaper for the painting, providing a visual feast for the audience, reflecting the richer expression of 2.5D animation compared to 2D or 3D animation, enhancing the expression of emotions.
2.5D animation will become the dominant form of animation in the industry
With the development of animation technology, the disadvantages of 2D and 3D have been reveled, for example, 3D animation requires tons of time on rendering and 2D animation allows more exaggerated movements to be designed.
2.5D animation has significant advantages. Firstly, 2.5D animation can improve production efficiency, save costs and create effects that 2D animation cannot achieve. Camera movement is one of the major weaknesses of traditional 2D animation technology, which is not only difficult to achieve, but also time-consuming and costly. However, 2.5D animation uses NPR technology to produce films that can be shot using 3D models or real cameras, so there is more freedom when it comes to camera movement, especially in depth.(Yuting, 2015)Secondly, the artistic expression of 3D animation can be enhanced. Early three-dimensional animation generally focus on dry imitation of reality, the role and scene shaping lifelike, but with the change of people’s aesthetic interests, the unique style of animation works began to be welcomed. 2.5D animation can imitate traditional 2-dimensional visual style such as, cartoon, ink, paper, etc. Thus it greatly expands the artistic expression of three-dimensional animation. Ware Writes, ‘The idea of 2.5D design is introduced as a way of specifically taking the structure of visual space into account, and introducing elements of 3D in a judicious way to enhance a mostly 2D information display. Ultimately design decisions should stem from the goal of creating visualizations that are efficient cognitive tools.’ (Ware, 2021) At this point 2.5D animation keeps the visual style in 2D animation and the tridimensional space in 3D animation at the same time. Finally, in the information theory part of the complex sciences there is a theorem called Zipf’s theorem: when optimising both the information transmitted and the cost of transmission, it leads to Zipf’s theorem (Zipf, 1949). In short, when the viewer sees a character’s face, the brain optimises the information about the face and focuses the visual attention on the facial expression. Conversely if the contours of the character’s face are over-optimised, the lines of the face will instead shift the original visual focus. So if you render the best angle of a three-dimensional thing into a two-dimensional image to present the information. This allows the important and effective information to be magnified and the less important information to be converged. This is more in line with the brain’s optimisation of information for optimal economic energy consumption gains and is more aesthetically pleasing.Therefore, 2.5D animation is likely to become the mainstream in the animation industry in the next few years.
However 2.5D cannot replace 2D and 3D animation, because 2.5D animation technology is not yet mature enough. Firstly, there is still a gap between the effect of 2.5D animation simulation and hand-drawn images. It is generated by a computer through a special algorithm, which is only a simulation of the hand-drawn style, but it is fundamentally different from hand-drawn. Because each frame of hand-drawn animation is filled with the artist’s design and inspiration, blood and sweat, it contains a huge amount of non-logical information that is always difficult for computer programmes to reach. For example, the simulation of ink style is just a simulation of the formal characteristics of ink painting, if you compare the simulated works with the classic ink animation such as “Landscape Love”, you can easily see the huge difference between the two.
Secondly, 2.5D animation is currently unable to perform the more difficult particle effects. For example, the waves that Elsa encounters as she runs across the ocean in Disney’s heavily animated film Frozen 2 use simulated and procedural ocean surfaces. The wave flume device was created by building a wave flume device through Houdini FLIP fluid simulation and driving the simulation’s third order Stokes wave equations to create the barrel-turning waves on the sea surface. To add realism to the water surface, the artists added a low-density particle layer to the fluid simulation is, modifying the FLIP fluid solver so that water particles detached from the main water surface exhibit ballistic behaviour, rather than swimming around in an air field. The velocity field generated by the low density particles is used to propel the particles to create secondary elements, creating effects such as spin drift and spray. To create the wall of mist in the Enchanted Forest, which is 50 feet high, the artists first transformed the scene into a height field, then used Vellum Cloth fabric to drape the mist along the scene, then created a cluster beam and fold at the top. Finally two Pyro simulations of 1000 frames were generated at the origin to achieve the intense disturbance and directional flow effects of the mist. These near-realistic effects can still only be achieved in 3D animation.
To draw a conclusion, even 2.5D animation is not well developed but will become the dominant form of animation in the industry. The art of animation has been around for nearly 100 years and has undergone many technological innovations. Whether it is hand-drawn animation, computer animation or stop-motion animation, all have been influenced to some extent by 2.5D, in terms of production processes, visual effects and artistic expression. (HyeJean, 2018)2.5D animation not only offers a new possibility for animation creation, but also influences the future direction of animation art to a certain extent. It is believed that with the advancement of technology and the exploration and experimentation of artists, it will have a more profound and positive impact on the creation of animation.
References:
https://blog.vmgstudios.com/2d-vs-3d-animation-pros-cons-marketing-video
https://www.gcores.com/articles/138957
https://www.film-east.com/wolfwalkers
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1746847709104643
https://www.insider.com/how-wolfwalkers-used-3d-tech-to-transform-25d-animation-2021-2
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128235676000057?via%3Dihub
https://ccpt.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?filename=1015607149.nh&dbcode=CMFD&dbname=CMFD2015&v=
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-42738-2_8