3D Animation

“Today is Nov. 21st, three days already since the Hand Drawn Animation Day held at Maltepe University in Istanbul.

We called it,  in our quaint Oriental tongue,  Çizgi Film Bayrami, which clumsily translates as “Line-Film Holiday” or something … “Line-Film” being what we call this kind of film. English lacks a direct equivalent, and the more generic term “animation” might have even facilitated the CG takeover (“it’s all animation, isn’t it?”)

Think of our concept of “line film” as closer to the French “dessin animé” (“animated drawing”) –  it’s French, language of culture, so it probably has more weight in the argument. Which argument?  Why, that hand drawn animation is a distinct art form, and not simply a step on the way towards something else. “

That is a good distinction and I wish the English language had such a term as “Line-Film”  or  ”le dessin anime” to denote animated drawings.

I usually try to make the distinction by using the terms “traditional animation” or “classical animation” , or “hand-drawn animation”. The one term I do not care for as much , but seems ubiquitous now is “2D Animation” . Animation can be completely CG , but also be 2D (such as vector-based animation in Flash or ToonBoom) .   For better or worse the Academy of Art University has designated our department as the “2D Animation Dept.” , so that’s the term I have to work with for now.  (hence, I am the Online Coordinator of 2D Animation at AAU ).