2D ANIMATION – Reviving characters and stories in 2D technique

Together we will develop an idea, and define what style of 2D animation is best for the realization of your idea. After determining the visual style and type of animation most suitable for your project and your budget, our illustrators and animators will get to work.

The first step after defining a visual style is to create illustrations that the animators will later animate. Whether there are characters, backgrounds or a kind of “props” that will be used in the final video, the process of making illustrations begins with sketches. The next step is a final drawing, and lastly, a colored drawing. Now our animators take over.

First, animators have to prepare the illustrations to be able to animate them. Specifically, when it comes to characters, you need to adjust the points of the joints – this step is called rigging. It is a process of setting up a kind of “skeleton” so that we can control the character as easily as possible during the animation process. The preparation and complexity of the control we ultimately want to have over a character depends on the character’s design and the details of the illustration.

Animation is the process of reviving characters, but also the background, and all the other elements within the scene that must move through space. The animation can be stylized or realistic, depending on the visual style previously defined. 2D animation is mostly defined by the classic keyframe approach, which means that the animator sets the keyframe for each movement in the scene and thus ultimately creates the illusion of movement. However, to make their job easier, animators often use real-life (video) references.

2D animation is, as its name suggests, a two-dimensional type of animation, and unlike 3D animation, a camera in 2D animation cannot move through space. But thanks to 3D layers, the illusion of depth and movement of the camera can be created. But whether this is necessary for your project depends on the style and type of animation.

In some cases, the illustration style and background itself may not be visually appealing enough, or the animator simply thinks it can further enhance the visual impression of the entire animation, so he resorts to image manipulation – adding various effects resulting in different visual styles.

Rendering complets part of the process of every animation, including 2D animation. But unlike 3D animation, rendering in 2D animation is not (necessarily) complicated or demanding, nor does it require any special optimization of the settings. There are several video formats (mp4, quick time movie, avi), or image formats (jpg, png, tiff). The size of the file and sometimes the rendering time also depend on the choice of the format. The duration depends on how big the rendered scene is, and how many elements and effects there are.

In most cases, the job is done with the rendering process. However, sometimes it is necessary to insert or combine a redesigned 2D animation with some other either live or animated elements (telop animation). In this case, we combine different elements (e.g. rendering 2D animations and game background), and refine the details if necessary. The finalized image is then rendered in the previously selected format.