You might hear people asking “is 2D animation dead?” but it’s still used widely in commercials, corporate marketing and advertising, video games, and more. When you’re thinking about how to make a 2D animation of your own, think about the frame rate you’d like to use for the style of work you’re creating.Ĭlassic Disney movies are great examples of how to create 2D animation for the big screen, but it’s not only in cinema that you can find this type of work. For example, anime usually operates on “threes” rather than the conventional “twos”. This can differ based on the style of animation, though. In a standard 24 frames per second (24fps) film, animations usually show one drawing for every two frames, meaning that there are a total of 12 individual drawings being shown within one second of the film. So how do you get flat objects and characters to move? This is when the artist would move from the page or screen to specialist 2D animation software to sequence the individual images. Think about it this way: Everything you draw only has a width and a height, but no depth (as that would make it three-dimensional). This type of work involves drawing two-dimensional characters and objects within a flat space. You’re probably much more familiar with this style of animation than you think. To get us started, let’s look at the difference between types of animation and answer the question: “What is 2D animation?” What Software Is Best for 2D Animation?.

2d pencil animation