Potential & Limitations 2 - 2D and 3D Asset Interaction

Ocean in "Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack"

Although 2D and 3D when synthesized have multiple potentials in emphasizing an animation's aesthetic, they hold within them numerous limitations and possible problems that one is to solve or ruminate about BEFORE getting well into the process of production. Me and Jay have identified several of the limitations that might transcend into dilemmas regarding our choice to do mixed media, him sticking to 3D whereas I am opting for the 2D assets. Furthermore, we resolved the main dilemma of choice of style through compromises where I would focus on animating the ocean and how it would interact with still 3D images created in Maya (of the island), whereas Jay shall focus on the meticulous design of the island with me doing the textures for the UV maps. However, taking all this into consideration, the main call to research here was HOW the water is going to be animated - traditional style, layering, 3D? I researched plenty of animations which have bodies of water interacting with the characters or the environment, as well as techniques that resolve this problem. I found out that there is an ocean tool in Maya which simulates the gravitational flow of water, however, I was not quite sure how it would interact with 2D images since because if the ocean is 3D, the characters and assets must be implemented within the sequence, which will make them appear paper 2D. Moreover, since it can only be rendered as a video to interact with Photoshop or After Effects, we would have to make a line mask for every separate frame where one part of the ocean would have to overlap everything that interacts with it, and the other go behind said everything, proving to be quite a tedious process. Casting this aside as a peripheral resolution, I came across the manner in which The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack's ocean is animated. Although it is stop-motion, the technique can be applied to 2D: layering of water. I figured that in order to retain the flexibility of the space and avoid the risk of creating a flat space shadow is key, where every layer would vary in darkness, forming an effective gradient around the assets. Inadvertently, with the debris in the water already having been created with a gradient (an example would be the pill I modeled as shown in my 3rd week's post) and interacting with the light, I figure it would give no spatial confusion when the audience is to absorb the scene and the scale of it. Even with 3D, if the island is to be exported as a still (meaning, it would technically be a 2D image with a 3D illusion) it would interact with the ocean in the same manner as a 2D drawing of it would. Thus, I created a placeholder animation of how this problem would be resolved in After Effects through the technique of layering. Although this placeholder animation is 1/4th of the complexity I would apply to the water, it gives me a sense of understanding and visualizing the outcome, effectively eliminating the majority of the problems that might spark up during production.

"Placeholder - Waves" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqj2yakGOWg