"2d or not 2d" ../08
A process close to our hearts : how to translate a stylised 2d design into 3d whilst maintaining charm and character?
Slide are starting the long and exciting process of creating a self-funded short animation. The genesis for this project was our creative director Etienne Jabbour's explorations in bringing his distinctive 2d cartoon style into 3d. This had been an interest since Etienne's days pitching characters and synopses for Cartoon Network, later revived in his role as lead character artist on Nintendo's Battalion Wars series.
Being predominantly an art and animation studio, we decided we'd settle first on a style for the production and then build a narrative to fit. What follows is a breakdown of how we evolved a single character design, which also serves as an overview of our general approach to asset development.
Read all the way to the bottom!
Our first step is to sketch out the character. In this case we knew we wanted to juxtapose a bouncy cartoon approach with a darker setting, so we focused on bringing this contrast to the character design itself. We combined ugly with cute, bold shapes with finer detail and - as the animation is to be extremely dynamic - we exaggerated the silhouette to ensure it pops into some great poses.
Once we have a firm foundation we turn to a sculpting package to see how these shapes translate to 3d. At Slide we use Mudbox and ZBrush in equal measure - they're both great packages. During this translation we usually find that some tweaking of form is necessary, and we often ping back and forth between 3d and 2d as the design comes together.
As the maquette develops, we use it as a guide for generating volumetrically-correct, loose, gestural pose sheets - these give us an insight into how the character will look once animated.
When we start to feel the shapes are working well, we use paintovers to explore colours and costume details.
The design stage comes to an end with a final sculpt, from which we all agree on sign-off. After this, work can begin on creating the lighter-weight, re-topologised animation mesh.
But more of this next time! Stay tuned for updates on this exciting project - for now we'll leave you with a final turntable :
