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The advantages and impacts of computer-rendered three-dimensional animation were made clear to the public consciousness with Industrial Light & Magic's dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and are now well-known to Star Wars fans who followed the development of Jar Jar Binks and Episode II's digital Yoda. With Finding Nemo leading the 2003 box office, 3-D computer animation itself has even become its own popular genre.
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Less widely known is that the same familiar three-dimensional modeling and animation techniques that made possible the visuals of Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones have been adopted by two-dimensional animation productions as well -- from the spacecraft of Lilo & Stitch to moving cityscapes in "Futurama."
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With ambitious stories to be told starting this November in the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated microseries, creator Genndy Tartakovsky decided to borrow some of the computer-generated efficiencies used in the new Star Wars films. "If the animation is simplistic, then we'll do it in 2-D," Tartakovsky told Star Wars Insider. "If it's an element that just kind of flies through the scene and doesn't do a lot of turns, we'll do it in 2-D. But if it's got a lot of complicated moves, then we'll make it 3-D."
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To make the Republic or Separatist forces flip, spin, dive and explode, Tartakovsky turned to Rough Draft Studios -- an Emmy-award-winning group specializing in a seamless blend of traditional cell artwork with computer animation for such programs as "Futurama", "Grim & Evil" and "Samurai Jack". Using standard 3-D animation techniques, Gregg Vanzo and the Rough Draft team can compose a complex scene and iteratively change speed, timing, trajectories and camera angles without the time and cost that would be associated with making changes to hand-drawn sequences.
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When a movement is finalized, it can simply be rendered without the complex shading, texture and reflections associated with a photo-realistic animated style. The result is simple solid shading and basic black outline of the shapes. "It looks as if it's been hand drawn and colored," noted Tartakovsky. "They'll look exactly the same."