Difference between 2D and 3D !

                               2D

                                 

                                                 and 

             3D

As i told you we are going to discus all basics so now 1st understand what is 2D and 3D.

The first concept you must grasp is that 3D means 3 dimensional and 2D means 2 dimensional. Now before you think I'm stating the obvious, let me go on to say that the 3D and 2D in animation refer to the dimension in which the animation was created. Ahhhh. The plot thickens eh?

For 2D animation, everything happens on a 2 dimensional platform. Pictures are flat, without depth and offer only one perspective. Objects and characters are usually drawn without the subtle soft shadows we see in real life and colours have few varying shades. In 3D animation, everything happens on a 3 dimensional platform. Pictures have depth and offer multiple perspectives just like in real life and have soft subtle shadows casted on the objects and characters within.

In 2D, characters look cartoonish and unrealisitc. In 3D, characters can look cartoonish but realistic at the same time.

Another way to think of this is to think in terms of a painting and a sculpture. 2D is a painting, and 3D is a sculpture. 3D introduces "depth perspective," so we not only see a rectangle (2D) but a CUBE (3D). You may also want to think of it like being the difference between a photograph of a glass of water (2D) and being able to reach out and actually pick up the glass of water (3D).

Typically, 2D involves "drawing," or movement on, say, a flat surface (sketch pad, etc.) or in the vertical and horizontal planes. 3D involves "modeling," i.e., creating objects in 3-dimensions using a computer software, residing in an expansive virtual environment, complete with lights, reflections, other objects, shadows, etc.

You could start training yourself by comparing a cartoon like Bugs Bunny, Aladdin, Lion King (2D) to "Toy Story 1,2 & 3, "Finding Nemo" and "Incredibles" (3D). If you have not watched any of these great cartoons, than go back to your planet please... 

# 2D and 3D refer to the actual dimensions in a computer's workspace. 2D is 'flat', using the X & Y (horizontal and vertical) axis', the image has only two dimensions and if turned to the side becomes a line. 3D adds the 'Z' dimension. This third dimension allows for rotation and depth. It's essentially the difference between a painting and a sculpture. 

# The most familiar form of 2D animations can be found by watching Saturday morning cartoons with your kids, or even simpler animations every day when you surf the web. It takes on the forms of advertisements, e-cards, etc. The basic starting point for all animations is a storyboard that lays out the basic script in a visual format, much like an extra large comic strip.

                                 The main difference is the tools that are used to create animations, the effort and the price. Traditional 3D animation was more like claymations, and was done by using stop-motion filming techniques. Essentially, the true concept of 3D animations did not really catch on until the use of computers for animation became more cost effective and practical. 

# Now about Softwares:- actually many studio use there own softwares as per there requirement but you should know some other basic softwares to handle that.

2D softwares :-

 Genral- FLASH,PHOTOSHOP etc.

 *USAnimation OPUS  (www.toonboom.com),

 *ANIMO (www.cambridgeanimation.com), 

 *RETASpro (:http://www.celsys.co.jp),

 *CTP (http://www.cratersoftware.com),

 *DIGICEL (www.digicelinc.co),

 *AXA Softwar("http://www.netguru.com/index.aspx"
                      >www.netguru.com)

 *Animation stand (Visit: www.animationstand.com)

                       and 

       *Pencil 2d(www.blendernation.com)

All above are 2D softwares which are usd for personal and studio work. 

3D softwares:- * Autodesk 3D Studio Max

                 * Autodesk Maya

                 * Inivis AC3D

                 * Carrara                     
                 * DAZ Studio

                 *MAXON Cinema 4D

                 * Autodessys form-Z

                 * Houdini 

                 * LightWave 3D

                 * Grome

                 * MilkShape 3D

                 * Pixels 3D

                 * Massive

                 * Luxology Modo

                 * Relux Pro

                 * Poser

                 * Bryce

                 * Realflow

                 * Nevercenter Silo

                 * Avid Softimage|XSI

                 * solidThinking

                 * solidWorks

                 * TrueSpace

                 * Vue 6

                 * Pixologic ZBrush

                    

bla bla ... still there are many but above are more than necessary , personally i think you should be good in any one of them !

Introduction to animation .

Animation means, literally to breathe life in to something. A transformation is involved, what was a still now move. The word Animation is derived from the phrase ‘to animate’ means breath life in to given entity.

“Animation is performing art rather than graphic art.”

Animation is image manipulation and it can be used on nay objects from pins to people.

Animation is cooperative exercise and utilizes various skills.

History:

When we come to the history part, the animation starts from 18000BC when cave painting drawn on the walls. Then in 7000BC in China shadows of puppets are projected

on the parchment paper.

In 2000BC Greeks drew figures on vase s in various stages of movement. And in 1860’s flip books were developed which led to the coin machine.

In 1880’s Emile Raynand developed the praxinoscope (Spinning drum)

In 1995’s William Harbutt invented plasticine.

In 1914 Windsor MacCay a pioneer animator produced the first proper animated film for cinema entertainment called ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ this was the silent film I black n white.

1928 was the most precious period in the history of animation when Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse made his first appearance as a character. That was the first step to the success of animation film and for Disney Company.

1930 was the period when colour was added to the film and Snow White became the first full length animated colour film.

‘Tron’ was the first fully animated film in 1980. The film was completely made by computer.

Toy Story was the first full length all computer generated animated film made in 1990.

Types of the Animation:

Animations are of various types like:

• 2D Animation.

• 3D Animation.

• Stop motion on Animation or Puppet Animation.

• Cut-out Animation.

• Clay Animation.

• Vegetable Animation.

• Sand Animation.

But broadly animation is divided in to two parts i.e. 2D Animation and 3D Animation.

2D ANIMATION:

2D Animation is known as traditional cell animation where each frame or drawing is animated on the paper and then traced on to the cell transparent sheet by crock well pen or even Xeroxed. From the back side of the cell it was painted by ink or paint artist. Finally it was kept on a colour background and exposed under camera, then the exposed negative print was developed and it was a ready to show animation on the big screen.

3D ANIMATION:

There is a general abuse of term 3D these days. These days when people talk about 3D they usually talk about computer animation. But only computer animation means 3D or it is something more? The object having length, breadth as well as depth called as 3D. Here the depth is most important term because that is the only thing which differ 2D and 3D. 3D objects have three axes X, Y, and Z where as 2D objects have only two axes i.e. X and Y.

In 1988 the trade mark of Real 3D has been developed which is technically known as stereoscopic vision.

3D animation is created with the help of a computer and software and also rendered by the software to see the animation on the screen. Planning of animation and pre production material designed with a paper and pencil. 3D animation is a computer generated film that is made in specialized software, which provides the animator with a 3D space unlike that of paper. Technically there is big difference between 3D animation and 2D animation.

Animated movies::::::::::::

The Polar Express is the most expensive animated movie as the production cost of this movie is $170 million (USD) and it enjoys enough box office business too.

As we come to the most successful animated movie then it is Shrek 2. Shrek2 had the largest opening for animated movies ever and it was the most successful movie of 2004. Shrek3 is already in production and Shrek4 is in pre-production. The production cost of this movie was $70 million (USD) and worldwide box office collection is remarkable $916 million (USD). In the successful animated movies there are other names also like

SharkTale

The Wild

Toy Story 1&2

The Incredibles

Finding Nemo

Cars

Dinosaurs

Monster Inc. etc.

Best animation studios :

As we come to the point on best animated studios then first name come in tour mindis Disney and Pixar studios ,

but manga also give quality .

2 classification for animation

First is american animation (Walt disney).

Second is japanese (manga which you see on animax ).

Now days combination of japanese+american = japamerica is also femous .

1st movie

which was the first animated feature film?

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated feature film. It was released by Disney in 1937.

The Manufacturing

Process

Creating an animated short or full-length feature is a long, tedious process. Extremely labor-intensive, the average short cartoon has approximately 45,000 separate frames. To make a character say "Hello, Simon," can require 12 drawings to depict each movement of the character's lips.

The story is written

* Sometimes the animator is also the writer. The animator makes a storyboard, a series of one-panel sketches pinned on a board. Dialogue and/or action summaries are written under each sketch. The sketches may be rearranged several times as a result of discussions between the writer, the animator, and the director.

The dialogue, music, and sound effects are recorded

* Actors record the voices of each character. Background music and sound effects, such as doors slamming, footsteps, and weather sounds, are recorded. These recordings are generally preserved on magnetic tape. The music is timed for beats and accents; this information is recorded on a bar sheet so that the animation can be fitted around the music. Because Walt Disney was one of the first animators to fit the action to the music, this process is called "Mickey Mousing." Many professional studios now use an optical sound track on which voices, music, and sound effects are represented by varying lines. An electronic sound reader and synchronizer gives an accurate count of the number of frames required for each sound.

Dialogue measurements are entered on an exposure sheet

* A technician known as a track reader measures each vowel and consonant in the dialogue. Words are recorded on exposure sheets (also called x-sheets or dope sheets), each of which represents a single film frame. This allows the animators to synchronize each movement of the character's lips with the dialogue. Footage, the time needed between lines of dialogue for the action to take place, is also charted on the exposure sheet. Slugs, or sections of film without sound, are inserted where the action occurs.

Model character sheets are created

* A model is created for each character in order to keep their appearances uniform throughout the film. The models can be detailed descriptions or sketches of the characters in various positions with various facial expressions.

Artists create the layout or set design

* A layout artist creates linear drawings that animators use as a guide for action and that the background artists use to paint the backgrounds.

Characters' actions are sketched

*

6 Using the model sheets, the head animator sketches the primary, or "extreme," action. For example, if the character is running, the head animator will draw the foot leaving the floor, the foot in the air, and the foot returning to the floor. Or if the story calls for the character to blink, the head animator will sketch the eyes going through the motions. Animation assistants then fill in the details.

The drawing is done on a transparent drawing board that is lighted from below. After one drawing is completed, a second sheet of paper is laid on top of the first and the second drawing is varied slightly to signify movement.

Drawings are cleaned up and checked for accuracy

* Artists check the characters against the model sheets. Drawings are enhanced but not altered. Scenes are checked to ensure that all action called for on the exposure sheet is included. All figures are checked for proper line-up with the background.

A video test is conducted

* A computerized videotape is made of the sketches to check for smoothness of motion and proper facial expressions. Adjustments are made until the desired effect is achieved.

Artists create backgrounds

* Artists create color background paintings, including landscapes, scenery, buildings and interiors, from the pencil layouts. The color is filled in by computer. As the computer scans the layout, artists click on colors from a template.

Sketches are inked in and painted

*

10 If the animation drawings have been executed on paper, they are now transferred to cels using xerography, a process similar to photocopying. In a few studios, the inking is still done by hand, tracing the pencil sketches onto the cels.

Colors are applied to the reverse side of the cel, usually by computer, in the same manner that background colors are applied. All inked and painted materials are checked several times for accuracy.

The action is filmed

* The cels and backgrounds are photographed according to the instructions on the exposure sheets. One scene of action can take several hours to photograph. The cels are laid on top of the backgrounds and photographed with a multiplane camera that is suspended high above. When more than one character appears in a frame, the number of cels stacked on top of the background increases. Each level is lit and staggered, creating the illusion of three-dimensional action. The film is sent to the photo lab where a print and a negative are made.

The sound is dubbed

* Dialogue, music, and sound effects are re-recorded from 10 or more separate tracks onto one balanced track. Another set of two tracks, one with dialogue and the other with music and sound effects, is often made to facilitate translation when the film is sent to foreign markets.

The dubbing track and print are combined

* The final dubbing track is combined with the print to make a married print. If the animated film is for television viewing, the negative and the tracks are often sent to a video post-production house to be put on videotape.

The Future

In the last decade of the twentieth century, computer-created animation began to make great strides. Although purists decry this development, it is unlikely that computer animation will disappear. What remains to be seen is whether or not traditional cel animation survives.

Anime, a cartoon form from Japan, is also changing the nature of animation. Story lines and characters are more detailed and reality-based. Varied camera angles bring the viewer further into the action.

Backgrond or a little history

Background

Animation is a series of still drawings that, when

viewed in rapid succession, gives the impression

of a moving picture. The word animation derives

from the Latin words anima meaning life, and

animare meaning to breathe life into. Throughout

history, people have employed various techniques

to give the impression of moving pictures. Cave

drawings depicted animals with their legs

overlapping so that they appeared to be running.

The properties of animation can be seen in Asian

puppet shows, Greek bas-relief, Egyptian funeral

paintings, medieval stained glass, and modern

comic strips.

In 1640, a Jesuit monk named Althanasius

Kircher invented a "magic lantern" that projected

enlarged drawings on a wall. A fellow Jesuit,

Gaspar Schott, developed this idea further by

creating a straight strip of pictures, a sort of

early filmstrip, that could be pulled across the

lantern's lens. Schott further modified the

lantern until it became a revolving disk. A

century later, in 1736, a Dutch scientist named

Pieter Van Musschenbroek created a series of

drawings of windmill vanes that, when projected

in rapid succession, gave the illusion of the

windmill circling around and around.

The magic lantern became a popular form of

entertainment. Traveling entertainers, visiting

the villages and towns of Europe, included it in

their shows. In London, the Swiss-born physician

and scholar Peter Mark Roget, most famous for

compiling the Thesaurus of English Words and

Phrases, was fascinated by the scientific

phenomenon at play and wrote an essay entitled

"Persistence of Vision with Regard to Moving

Objects" that was widely read and used as a

basis for subsequent inventions. One of the first

was the thaumatrope, developed in the 1820s by

John Paris, also an English doctor. The

thaumatrope was simply a small disk with a

different image drawn on either side. Strings

were knotted onto two edges so that the disk

could be spun. As the disk twirled around, the

two images appeared to blend. For example, a

monkey on one side appeared to sit inside the

cage on the opposite side.

The next major innovation was the

phenakistoscope, created by Joseph Plateau, a

Belgian physicist and doctor. Plateau's

contribution was a flat disk perforated with

evenly spaced slots. Figures were drawn around

the edges, depicting successive movements. A

stick attached to the back allowed the disk to be

held at eye level in front of a mirror. The viewer

then spun the disk and watched the reflection of

the figures pass through the slits, once again

giving the illusion of movement.

In Austria, Simon Ritter von Stampfer was toying

with the same idea and called his invention a

stroboscope. A number of other scopes followed,

culminating in the zoetrope, created by William

Homer. The zoetrope was a drum-shaped cylinder

that was open at the top with slits placed at

regularly spaced intervals. A paper strip with a

series of drawings could be inserted inside the

drum, so that when it was spun the images

appeared to move.

By 1845, Baron Franz von Uchatius invented the

first movie projector. Images painted on glass

were passed in front of the projected light.

Forty-three years later, George Eastman

introduced celluloid film, a strip of cellulose

acetate coated with a light-sensitive emulsion

that retained and projected images better than

those painted on glass. The first animated

cartoon Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J.

Stuart Blackton, of the New York Evening World,

was shown in the United States in 1906. Two

years later, French animator Emile Cohl followed

suit with Phantasmagorie. Winsor McCay

introduced Gertie the Dinosaur in 1911. Other

cartoonists who brought their characters to the

screen included George McManus (Maggie and

Jiggs) and Max Fleischer (Betty Boop and

Popeye). By 1923, Walt Disney, the world's most

famous animator, began turning children's stories

into animated cartoons. Mickey Mouse was

introduced in Steamboat Willie in 1928. Disney's

first animated full-length film, Snow White and

the Seven Dwarfs, debuted in 1937.

Yellow Submarine, a 1968 animated film starring

the Beatles, featured the process of pixilation,

in which live people are photographed in

stop-motion to give the illusion of

humanly-impossible movements. In the film The

Lord of the Rings, directed in 1978 by Ralph

Bakshi using rotoscoping, live action was filmed

first. Then each frame was traced and colored to

create a series of animation cels. By the late

twentieth century, many in the industry were

experimenting with computer technology to

create animation. In 1995, John Lassiter

directed Toy Story, the first feature film

created entirely with computer animation.

what is animation ?

Process of giving the illusion of movement to

drawings, models, or inanimate objects. From the

mid-1850s, such optical devices as the zoetrope

produced the illusion of animation. Stop-action

photography enabled the production of cartoon

films. The innovative design and assembly

techniques of Walt Disney soon moved him to the

forefront of the animation industry, and he

produced a series of classic animated films,

beginning with Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs (1937). The Fleischer brothers and the

animators at Warner Brothers offered more

irreverent cartoons that often appealed to adult

audiences. In Europe new animation alternatives

to line drawing were developed, including

animation using puppets (sometimes made from

clay). In the late 20th century computer

animation, as seen in the first fully

computer-generated animated feature, Toy Story

(1995), moved the art to a new level.

Raw Materials

Although the most important raw material in

creating animation is the imagination of the

animator, a number of supplies are necessary to

bring that imagination to life. Sometimes these

items are purchased; sometimes they are

constructed by the animator.

The animator works at an animation stand, a

structure that holds a baseboard on which the

drawings are attached by register pegs. The

animation stand also supports a camera, lights, a

work surface, and a platen (clear sheet of glass

or plexiglass that holds the drawings in place).

The drawings are executed on cels, drawing

paper, or on film. The majority of professional

animation is drawn on cels, transparent acetate

sheets five millimeters thick. Each cel measures

approximately 10 in by 12 in (25.4 cm by 30.5

    cm). Holes are punched along the top edge of the

cels, paper, or film, corresponding to the register

pegs on the animation stand and baseboard. The

pegs keep the drawing surface rigid.

Opaque inks and paints, and transparent dyes are

the most common media for drawing the story.

Felt markers, crayons, and litho pencils can also

be used.

Professional animation is photographed with

35mm cameras. However, it is possible to use

Super 8 or 16mm models. A variety of camera

lenses are employed, including standard, zoom,

telephoto, wide angle, and fish-eye lenses.