This research focuses on exploring how historic/traditional two-dimensional animation techniques could be replicated using modern three-dimensional software.

Replicating a two-dimensional/abstract ‘flat style’ using 3D software is a fundamental challenge for animation. For example, traditional techniques such as those used by UPA (United Pictures of America / 1943) employ a series of perspective and logic cheats to help abstract designs and fool the eye. Titles such as ‘Gerald McBoing Boing (1950)’ and the Mr Magoo series personify this approach. These techniques work in direct opposition to three-dimensional software, which replicates a real world space and logic.

In 2012 Disney Studios produced ‘Paperman’ using bespoke software as a response to this problem. The animation ‘Rob ‘n Roy’ (2013) by Tumbleweed Studios explored this problem further by creating two and half dimensional characters that exist in both two dimensional and three dimensional worlds at the same time.

Alan Postings used Autodesk Maya 2016.5 and Mental Ray to explore potential answers to this problem. Including transporting 3D models of characters, buildings, and environments into a 2D logic and aesthetic using render solutions. Such as, using Mental Ray alongside Maya Surface Shaders, lighting and shadow solutions, toon lines, noise patterns, aging, and post-effects in After Effects. Alongside, understanding and controlling the relationship between 2D line, 2D shape, and colours in relation to a camera in a 3D space. Alan shared his conclusions with a group of artists and animators as part of the ‘texturing, lighting, and rendering rules’ for the production ‘Red and the Kingdom of Sound’.

This research was part of a collaborative brief to create a 3D animation visualising Benjamin Britton’s, Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra orchestral (1946). Funded by the Orchestra Network for Europe Network, and screened at series of live events alongside orchestras across Europe.