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"The rise and fall of 2D"

Realism has a lot to answer for. At first we had simple groups of pixels to represent our gaming characters and objects. Then there were more detailed sprites which had high levels of animation and hand drawn backgrounds. None of these were really that realistic, being on a 2D level only and often merely scrolling left and right. Since the late 8-bit era, higher polygon counts meant that more realistic looking games have been created and enjoyed by many.

One of the first to successfully incorporate polygons and detail (as opposed to the simple wireframe graphics of old) was Carrier Command. This led to many more attempts to re-create real life environments. Soon we were seeing games like Geoff Crammond’s Formula One (a game with many sequels) and Armageddon where you could control tanks, planes and other 3D vehicles against the computer’s forces or (if you were as lucky as me and had a link up with a mate) against other people. Realism crept in to more and more games. From the computers of the time, the Atari ST and Amiga, to the Megadrive and (to a lesser extent) the SNES, these games became more and more detailed and more interactive, allowing players to not only go forward into the screen but to also go damn well anywhere they pleased. This freedom was a great draw to the games player and would eventually lead to the success of the 32-bit consoles.

The Saturn and, to a greater extent, the Playstation both used 3D games with a higher polygon count and some neat new tricks to showcase their consoles. Virtua Fighter and Daytona were responsible for many sales of the Saturn during the first few months of its life. The Playstation, marketed successfully by Sony to a more mainstream audience, wowed many by showing them the future through Ridge Racer, Tekken and later in Wipeout. Once this took on, there was no going back. A few games appeared still using polygons, most notably SNK and Capcom titles, but it was a dying trend that would see 3D gaming becoming the norm.

While gaming had led to artists experimenting with 3D, it was also obvious that this was having an effect on the non-gaming community as well. Disney were very interested in this technology and approached a company called Pixar to work on a new film project called Toy Story. It was a massive success and even won Oscars for the artists. Soon we would be seeing 3D artists all over the world come up with new and exciting works, leaving the 2D cartoons for the small kids and daytime TV. Everyone wanted to work on a computer for their 3D modelling and tons of computer art magazines sprung up so that the bedroom artist could have their first stab at creating a masterpiece.

This left its mark on the 2D world. Less and less programmers wanted to work on 2D art and animation packages, more 3D packages appeared in the shops and took over as the main animator’s tool. We almost went through a stage where 2D artistry was lost forever, but it was saved by one important market and a development in the animation world that would see the joining of the two forces.

Anime was catching on in the west. The far eastern animated movies were a delight to audiences here in the west and we lapped them up. These weren’t 3D cartoons, they were 2D pieces of art. 2D was cool again and artists started to use the old ways once more. However, they had learnt things in their 3D days that would become invaluable in enhancing 3D animations and later games. With great effect they started using computers to plot 3 dimensional versions of their 2D animations. Backgrounds became fully rotational while the characters remained 2D, complex mathematical calculations were applied to the 2D figures to give them a more 3 dimensional feel, while at the same time keeping their 2D art form. In films this was used to pan around a character or apply a 3D background via computer animation over cel drawn graphics. Films such as Titan AE used this well and boy what a difference it made. Games took on this idea and created Cel Shaded graphics, mixing 2D and 3D animations and characters together in games such as Jet Set Radio. Other games took this on and used similar techniques to great effect.

Although 2D animation is not as popular as it once was, it has fought back, both in the animation and games industry. There are still far more 3D packages out there for Computer artists, but this has slowly changed, giving traditional artists reason to work on a computer rather than by hand. I believe that this is a good thing, all 3D animation may lead to a more realistic game, but without 2D we would have lost some of the greatest animated films in the world.

Samos, I think you'll find that SNK, one of the finest 2D game makers of current times, went bust over a year ago, and only a few of their games are being continued by other publishers.

2D gaming is getting far too close to death!

Sonic

I like the Paper Mario style appearence, and hope that we see a similar styled game on the GameCube. Maybe even a follow up to Paper Mario - one of several N64 games I still wanna get!

I just like how the 2D characters look against 3D backgrounds. It kinda adds another dimension to gaming.

2D still exists!

Take Capcom Vs SNK 2 for the PS2. A fantastic beat-em-up for a fantastic console.

Shows that 2D can still be a good innovation, especially for beat-em-ups. You can't imagine a football game being 2D because time has moved on and we're all used to 3D being the better of the two.

If more developers took the risk of producing 2D games for all genres then, just maybe, 2D might come back in gaming fashion.

Another topic named after a Bowie album! WOO HOO (or was the name just a copy of neilc's topic, without realising what the topic name was;)

Anyway, too many games are forced to use 3D just to gain sales- after all, what casual gamer would buy a game with simply 2D graphics over that of a 3D great looker.

The result is that too many games use 3D when it isn't needed, sticking to purely 2D gameplay. Why can't developers learn from the benchmark in all 3d games, Mario64, and fix problems with camera angles and control?!

sonic

"A few games appeared still using polygons, most notably SNK and Capcom titles, but it was a dying trend that would see 3D gaming becoming the norm."

Should't that be- 'A few games appeared still using sprites'???


Anyway, nice post, and yeah, 2D did rock! 2D games are also seeing a comeback on the GBA as well as in the cel-shaded look. hopefully people will realise that 2D games are still as fun as they were in the days of the NES.

Nice post pb.

2D gaming was the main source of gaming, about 10 years ago, and then 3D took over, but now strangely, 2D is starting to come back again, with all the cel shaded games. Well, I suppose they aren't the full 3D but they are sort of like it.

2D ruled!

Realism has a lot to answer for. At first we had simple groups of pixels to represent our gaming characters and objects. Then there were more detailed sprites which had high levels of animation and hand drawn backgrounds. None of these were really that realistic, being on a 2D level only and often merely scrolling left and right. Since the late 8-bit era, higher polygon counts meant that more realistic looking games have been created and enjoyed by many.

One of the first to successfully incorporate polygons and detail (as opposed to the simple wireframe graphics of old) was Carrier Command. This led to many more attempts to re-create real life environments. Soon we were seeing games like Geoff Crammond’s Formula One (a game with many sequels) and Armageddon where you could control tanks, planes and other 3D vehicles against the computer’s forces or (if you were as lucky as me and had a link up with a mate) against other people. Realism crept in to more and more games. From the computers of the time, the Atari ST and Amiga, to the Megadrive and (to a lesser extent) the SNES, these games became more and more detailed and more interactive, allowing players to not only go forward into the screen but to also go damn well anywhere they pleased. This freedom was a great draw to the games player and would eventually lead to the success of the 32-bit consoles.

The Saturn and, to a greater extent, the Playstation both used 3D games with a higher polygon count and some neat new tricks to showcase their consoles. Virtua Fighter and Daytona were responsible for many sales of the Saturn during the first few months of its life. The Playstation, marketed successfully by Sony to a more mainstream audience, wowed many by showing them the future through Ridge Racer, Tekken and later in Wipeout. Once this took on, there was no going back. A few games appeared still using polygons, most notably SNK and Capcom titles, but it was a dying trend that would see 3D gaming becoming the norm.

While gaming had led to artists experimenting with 3D, it was also obvious that this was having an effect on the non-gaming community as well. Disney were very interested in this technology and approached a company called Pixar to work on a new film project called Toy Story. It was a massive success and even won Oscars for the artists. Soon we would be seeing 3D artists all over the world come up with new and exciting works, leaving the 2D cartoons for the small kids and daytime TV. Everyone wanted to work on a computer for their 3D modelling and tons of computer art magazines sprung up so that the bedroom artist could have their first stab at creating a masterpiece.

This left its mark on the 2D world. Less and less programmers wanted to work on 2D art and animation packages, more 3D packages appeared in the shops and took over as the main animator’s tool. We almost went through a stage where 2D artistry was lost forever, but it was saved by one important market and a development in the animation world that would see the joining of the two forces.

Anime was catching on in the west. The far eastern animated movies were a delight to audiences here in the west and we lapped them up. These weren’t 3D cartoons, they were 2D pieces of art. 2D was cool again and artists started to use the old ways once more. However, they had learnt things in their 3D days that would become invaluable in enhancing 3D animations and later games. With great effect they started using computers to plot 3 dimensional versions of their 2D animations. Backgrounds became fully rotational while the characters remained 2D, complex mathematical calculations were applied to the 2D figures to give them a more 3 dimensional feel, while at the same time keeping their 2D art form. In films this was used to pan around a character or apply a 3D background via computer animation over cel drawn graphics. Films such as Titan AE used this well and boy what a difference it made. Games took on this idea and created Cel Shaded graphics, mixing 2D and 3D animations and characters together in games such as Jet Set Radio. Other games took this on and used similar techniques to great effect.

Although 2D animation is not as popular as it once was, it has fought back, both in the animation and games industry. There are still far more 3D packages out there for Computer artists, but this has slowly changed, giving traditional artists reason to work on a computer rather than by hand. I believe that this is a good thing, all 3D animation may lead to a more realistic game, but without 2D we would have lost some of the greatest animated films in the world.