Vancouver: The animation landscape has its share of mutants – you know, the unsuspecting Joe transformed into something more powerful by forces known or unknown.

Look for the mutant ’21/2D’ to reign as the modified hero for the tired world of traditional 2D animation, an industry that many believe was hit by a creativity-zapping stun gun a few years ago.

The advent of digital technology has allowed enterprising animators to push the boundaries of 2D and, in many cases, create a fake 2D. Call it 21/2D.

Series such as Decode Entertainment’s groundbreaking, 65-episode Angela Anaconda, for instance, look like 2D but are made entirely with high-end Octane processors and Houdini software that allow producers to rewrite the laws of 2D gravity.

Without the digital enhancements, Angela would not have her 100-plus facial expressions, the lip-synching would be less sophisticated and the movement of the shots would be less interesting, says Decode partner Beth Stevenson of Toronto.

‘[Angela] looks like nothing else ever done in 2D,’ says Stevenson. ‘We get a huge range of emotion that we wouldn’t get with manual manipulation.’

Most studios have exploited the cost-savings that digital technology presents. Specifically, digital ink-and-paint technology has reduced the need to send that work overseas. And many have reaped the creative benefits opened up by compositing technology, incorporating visual effects and textures previously not available in the old 2D environment.

Undergrads, Decode’s new series for Teletoon and MTV, uses live-action compositors to give the production a more ‘cinematic’ feel, says Stevenson. Because digitally created images can be broken up into separate and more manageable fields (compared to traditional 2D animation images that are ‘one big picture’), producers can efficiently add more animation to a scene.

For example, the first-year

college classrooms featured in Undergrads have more students moving in them than an old-model 2D process would allow, but without incurring huge costs.

‘Digital enhancement is always part of the planning [of new shows],’ says Stevenson. ‘We kick down the creative walls every time to come up with the combination [of techniques] best suited to the property.’

Blair Peters, a partner in Vancouver’s Studio B Productions, takes a similar line. ‘When we are developing shows, we keep technology in mind, because that determines a show’s look….A few years ago, animation all looked the same. Now we are all trying to do something a little different in the look.’

A good example of the growing integration of 2D and 3D is the baseball stadium in the Studio B series D’Myna Leagues, created in Maya 3D, but made to look 2D to blend seamlessly with the rest of the show.

The advantage, says Peters, is that animators can give the stadium a new look and feel and can better match the real pacing of live sports. Producers can be more creative with shots – such as following a baseball as it sails into the crowd and then moving back.

‘Ultimately, kids just want something that’s cool and different,’ says Peters, whose partners will be taking the company’s inventory to NATPE. Audiences and buyers are less interested in the technology than they are in innovative storytelling, he

maintains.

Yakkity Yak for Nickelodeon will be Studio B’s first show done in Flash. The technology platform was actually the easy part – twice the time and effort went into meeting the demand for strong and funny storylines. Studio B’s What About Mimi?, meanwhile, augments 2D animation only with innovative music that attracts viewers, says Peters.

At Montreal’s CineGroupe, production has just begun on two 13-episode seasons of Daft Planet, a 2D-animated sitcom for Teletoon. Production on the series about two teenage boys who are too old to stay at home and too young to move out will run until January 2003, says Michel Lemire, executive VP of creative affairs at CineGroupe.

The series, meanwhile, will be made with enhanced Flash technology.

‘It will use a ‘pushed’ 2D approach and be painted and in-betweened in Flash,’ says Lemire. ‘All the design development and storyboarding will be done in traditional 2D. We’re using Flash more as a rendering tool than an animation tool.’

Like his industry colleagues, Lemire says more sophistication in 2D will come from the storytelling.

‘We’re not at the end of 2D and not at the end of its development,’ he says. ‘The market is just looking for more economical and faster methods of production.’

-www.decode-ent.com

-www.studiobproductions.com

-www.cinegroupe.com