Most attribute the first 3D element in a 2D animated film to the clock gears in Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective. The use of 2D/3D at Disney predates The Black Cauldron and can be seen in a short test done by John Lassiter titled Where the Wild Things Are (1983).įIGURE 1.4 The bauble from Disney’s The Black Cauldron was one of the first 3D elements to be combined with 2D animation. Yet ever since the first appearance of a 3D glowing bauble in a 2D animated film, Disney’s The Black Cauldron, artists have been finding inventive ways to combine the animation media.

Disney’s Dumbo is an entirely 2D animated film. Pixar’s The Incredibles is an entirely 3D animated film. 2D and 3D animation media can be used, and are used, independently of one another.

Hybrid animation is the combination of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) animation media. FIGURE 1.1, FIGURE 1.2, FIGURE 1.3 Hybrid or 2D/3D animation examples can be found in many films, such as Iron Giant, Triplets of Belleville, and Treasure Planet.

Pencil animation samples