"why there isn't nearly as many 2D animated films as there are 3D?", answered

degraala asked you:

Hi, I was wondering if you could answer a question about 3d animation I have. I’ve seen lots of stuff about how hard animating in 3D is, and it’s obviously super expensive and takes a long time, so I was wondering why there isn’t nearly as many 2D animated films as there are 3D? Are they able to get out movies faster compared to 2D, or is it some marketing thing like they don’t think people want to watch 2D anymore? Sorry if you’ve answered this before!

I am sooooooo glad you’ve asked this. I’ve told the answer to many people, they choose to ignore it because hating on something is way easier than changing your view of things.

3D animation is not unlike any other form of animation- a lot of people working together to create something awesome. Every contributor is different, every thing they contribute is necessary. It’s the same for any type of animation.

The reason, to answer your question, why there are more 3D movies today than there are 2D, are mostly 3 things: 

1. the hollywood greenlighting system is extremely toxic. Not just for movies but for TV cartoons as well, as we on tumblr definitely know :( The people who control the greenlighting system are suits, uncreative bureaucrats who make financial decisions based on money and statistics. Like insurance brokers. Movies aimed at 13-25 year old men seem to be the most successful, nevermind that that’s all they make so of course they fucking get numbers because everything else is too rare/insignificant to give a fuck about. Stuff like that. Oooh, kids seem to be into robots, lets greenlight everything to do with robots and shelf everything else nomatter how great it is. Right now, they have zero drive to make 2D movies because they earn, on par, the same as 3D ones, and it’s faster to do so. 2D hasn’t “died out”, and there are tons of 2D movies… just, not in the US. There’s ones being put out yearly in Europe. How many of those have you seen, huh? The cinema world doesn’t totally revolve around the US.
2. Time = money. In 3D animation, modeling, rigging, texturing, animation, lighting and everything else can be done simultaneously. That means, I could be animating a scene with a model that isn’t actually even done! All they do later is go in, swap the character models, and it’s like nothing was any different. Because the pipeline, as we call it, is not linear, we can do so much at once and as such a movie made in 3D can take a year to complete, versus the 5 it takes 2D ones: they have to design the characters->finalize all that->do storyboards->revise storyboards->begin animation->clean up animation->colour animated cels->edit/sound/vfx/etc and so on, but this has to be done IN ORDER, because that’s just how you do it. People have to draw the goddamn characters first to do anything else. That’s fine and dandy, but long and arduous. 
3. The talent is there, and getting better. Like I said before, other countries are still doing 2D movies. But in terms of 3D animation, nobody beats the US/Canada. France has a shot, but the talent coming out of the US/Canada is absolutely unbeatable. Put plainly, we have the best 3D animators in the world and they are not in short supply. As such you have them teaching others, and more and more refined ways to learn and apply your talent quickly are developed  The shit I get to use every day at work was NOT in circulation 5 years ago. We have a ton of 2D animators too, but lots of people aren’t going for jobs in 2D because none exist due to no fucking productions being made.

I suspect people miss 2D animation not just because it’s a wonderful awesome thing full of artistic merit they’ve been exposed to since they were kids, but because of that, they have this nostalgia attached to it. 

I suppose your next question is, “what can we do to get more 2D animated movies produced here??” and the answer is, haha, nothing. These decisions are made by the assholes who decide, via self-perpetuating numbers and circle jerks what to pursue and greenlight, and what not to. While in TV toys are literally what funds a season of a show and are required nomatter how much you hate it, and it’s changing because some great networks are taking chances on awesome shows that other bureaucrats wouldn’t, 

Don’t shun 3D animation because you think it’s responsible for killing your lovely 2D animation from your youth. 3D animators are different beasts than 2D, they aren’t lesser or better than 2D… it’s dumb to compare because they are so different. Like I’ve said before 3D is closer to stopmotion than it is to 2D, but all of them use the same animation principles. 2D animation isn’t gone, it’s living happily in places like Europe and Japan. Go watch European animated movies, they’re often dubbed/subbed in English. If you want a recent one, watch Asterix and the Vikings, its my fave hehehe :B

thank you! I’m making this rebloggable so maybe people can remember this! ASK if you want to know more.