The client: Nickelodeon wanted a series of 3D shorts – two 15s and a 20-second bumper – for its NoggleVision primetime slot which necessitates viewers don those cool 3D goggles.

Vancouver-based International Rocketship head Marv Newland says they’ve done a lot of work for the net over the years, which is why Nick’s Linda Walsh come to Rocketship for the 3D animation, which required a very strict use of primary colors and hue to create the illusion of depth.

Newland says the typical m.o. is that Nick rings them up, explains what they’re doing and asks for some boards. ‘We love these projects because we’re involved from the very get-go, everyone here cuts loose and does boards.’ Once Nick picks the boards they like, ‘they say, `Okay, let’s get budgets and get started.’ ‘

The brief was to introduce new programming for kids, with a little bit of back to school thrown in, and that it had to work in three dimensions.

The concept: As to how they arrived at the animation design for 3D: ‘We’re smart,’ offers up Newland, in a Reader’s Digest explanation of the process.

Of the 10 boards sent, Nick chose three situations (which involved a school bus, a lava lamp and ‘things that fall back into space’). The 3D effects were built in via color depth, and making sure that things either jump out at you or recede.

Rocketship was sent a 3D design specs kit from Nick, with the specific 3D glasses used and a chart with colors and lettering so they could see how the colors separated.

As things and people move from the foreground to the background, the characters change color accordingly level by level ‘in order to stay in that plane in the three-dimensional effect,’ explains Newland.

Credit on the six- to eight-week project goes to Andy Bartlett, Alan Best and Shelley McIntosh. Julie Moreton produced.