3D animation in comparison to 2D animation: 2021 perspective

What are the first thoughts that appear in your mind when you hear Animation? We tend to perceive the term “animation” as a method through which studios create cartoons like Walt Disney, Pixar, etc, isn’t it? Although, for real 2D animation is mostly used for the creation of cartoons, it is gradually being considered as a great tool for marketing technologies and 2D images.

Throughout the medium of 2D and 3D animation, it can be effective to develop the business and content plan. Besides, if you use animated videos, your brand will be more recognizable. You obtain the ability to create different things to furnish the world of marketing with VMG’s mascot Chester (a dragon cat).

Chester

First of all, we should answer the very first question: what are 2D and 3D animations? We are going to unpack this question – and many more – in this article, but let’s take a look at definitions. In the term “2D animation” 2D stands for two-dimensional. It means that images, characters, and environment are created by artists in two dimensions only. Then the movement is making it work. It is one of the most traditional types of animation that has its benefits and cons.

3D animation sounds like another level, right? That is true. The 3D animation definition is this: the process of creating three-dimensional moving images. Artists work in a completely digital environment. The movement here plays a vital role: it makes objects, characters and other aspects of the animation alive.

2D animation

An outstanding example of functioning 3D and 2D animation is present in this video made by Darvideo. 

The clip provides your eyes with all the magnificent capacity that the 3D animation world possesses. That helps to enhance your content plan and develop and improve your own business. 2D animation It can be concluded that there is no room for doubt that it is a good approach to achieve significant gains by utilizing two main styles of animation 2D and 3D. But it is important to be acquainted not only with the benefits that you will receive but also with some disadvantages for the business.

The most common style of animation now is 2D. The style that creates movements in a two-dimensional space. Even though 3D animation is more common to use nowadays, modern animation companies still carry out 2D animation procedures. Why? When you are combining these styles, one can emphasize another. In this case, the presence of 2D can make 3D objects more detailed and dynamic. There are a lot of advantages that the 2D animation style represents.  This type of animation can be easy to upgrade especially compared to live video action because 2D animation has a less complicated structure than the 3d dimension.

One more significant item that animated videos have is longer shelf life. Naturally, creating animated videos takes plenty of time and requires much effort to produce, it depends on the length and complexity of the video. 2D animation is considered as a kind of video that is the less cumbersome process so the time limit for producing it as a rule is shorter because the animation has a simple structure, so to say ‘’flat image’’.

To while away the time of elaborating the project of animated videos it is better to do it in the stage of making storyboards and style frames by prompting and feedback. Also, it is vital to note that in 2D animation you can obtain benefits from this on the economic side.

Even though it can be lucrative for your business and your pocket. It is no secret that 2D animation is simpler to produce and costs much less than 3D animation which is obvious. The main factors that have an influence on the price are the length of the video, the number of details, and the quality of them, music, design, etc. Another advantage that you can find in 2D animation is the capacity of transforming it into static graphic design elements. You can do it without problems in a very easy way. It includes plenty of different items such as infographics, business cards.

Postcards or website assets. To sum it up, in comparison with 3D animation 2D style can seem at first glance ordinary. Some people might think it is even boring. However, it is completely, one hundred percent misleading. Even though you are restricted from getting a full 3 dimension view and from some interesting tricks, 2D carries out its benefits that – attention – can’t be replaced with 3D. 

Whereas you can still keep elaborating marvelous 2D assets through which you can lure the audience with beautiful content but it cannot delight the audience as much as 3D animation. After discussing the 2D animation style, it is high time to make a smooth transition to 3D animation and the advantages that it has.

3D animation

Nowadays, 3D animation is used in the world so often and the bulk of people prefer to assimilate information by watching videos than reading content. This kind of animation functions based on graphics that are elaborated in a 3 dimension world. It is more complex than 2D, and its usage is completely different. Why? Mostly because the complexity can be a good reason for other goals.

Using this way for increasing your business recognition you make your public be more exciting and can easily catch the attention of them. In some cases, it seems like you can´t find the difference between animation and real life. In front of you are opening a lot of possibilities to create the best character, 3D objects, or scenes with great visual effects. 

So, if you decide to utilize a method of producing explainer videos to promote your own business there will be plenty of opportunities to make your videos more dynamic and create 3D imagery and visual storytelling. In this way, without doubt, you will receive more views than ever before, which is a great advantage.

Another benefit of the 3D animation style includes that it can be used for interactive options similar to how the 2D style can be transformed into digital and marketing materials. For instance, if you want to explain something on your website via videos it’s much easier to pass a full view of your image to the audience. By the way, research has shown that interactive media can increase views several times. 

Who wins in the battle of dimensions?

Actually, no one. Sorry for the spoiler! Okay, all the jokes aside. Let’s take a look at actual parameters that would help us decide “who” can get more credit here.

The level of realism – extremely low for 2D animation (but that’s the thing!), and quite high in the case of the opponent.

Boundaries for creative output – 2D animation gives you limitless space for it. 3D animation is…limiting you. Right! Because everything here depends on the level of software.

2D animation – 3D animation

Production time: it doesn’t take long for 2D animation. Actually, it is one of the “quickest” forms of animation. However, it is completely different for one-more-dimensional cartoons to see the world. Well…is any of these giving you a sense of who should win here? Probably not, because they don’t work in the same field, to say so.

Is 2D dead?

It took you by surprise, didn’t it? You might think now: why are we discussing some corpse that used to be an art method? Well, we don’t. However, we have to get you familiar with the topic. Here is the thing. Almost ten years ago, the proud founder of this style – Disney studio, by the way – decided to leave its 2D department in the past. What a shame!

Disney heroes

Obviously, many people supported this, especially many-dimensional artists. Even though 2D animation has no future, as they claimed, leaving it behind is a very bad idea. 2D animation helps to bring something incredible, highly creative to the video when it’s used in pair with other styles. But it is not dead! When comparing 2D animation with 3D, definitely the first option takes less time to produce and is much less than the cost for the second one.

Nevertheless, it’s worth spending a little bit more because the 3D animation style is dynamic, engaging and you can improve the quality of your brand or website. Also, the overall statistics indicate the percentage of Return On Investment (ROI) will increase through the use of the help of the videos.

Besides, the videos give you a significant return on your investment. In addition, animation has a long shelf life and is capable of being easily upgraded thus the investment of yours in an animated video will go further.

Let’s talk about sharing business videos on the Web because it is an essential part of the social media world. Practically every minute the people public their videos on Facebook and Twitter and their number reached 1000. For example, your video can be shared by any other person; it could be your partners, like-minded, etc. If your marketing videos are all necessary that people can learn and if you achieve to solicit their interest and finally if people like what they watch, your fruit will rapidly make a name for itself. It would mean that you are on the right track to establishing your own business.

To conclude, 3D animation plays a key role in the creation of content and business plans that help you to broaden the maximum potential and ideas that you want to implement in your content marketing.

Summary

Imagine, in front of you lies a coloring book and you want to paint two men who appeared on one page of it. Obviously that you are not going to do it with one similar color, you have to select different colors, green, red, and many more, in order to make it more detailed and stylish. The same situation deals with animation, there are plenty of styles of animation and various functions to utilize. In brief, to distinguish between 2D and 3D animation, everything looks very simple.

2D animation shows the flat image at a time when 3D style represents the view of a 3dimensional environment. Speaking about marketing video, there is no balance of having one option regarding style, timeline, etc. The zest of that lies in having many animation options by which you can find the best style that fits the most.

Our team is working on both poles: we love to make simple 2D videos and put a lot of imagination into the three-dimensional clips. Create a 3D video or 2D explainer with us right now and get a discount for your explainer video!