Dude… in this very artstation post (and also the completely different one you decided to post under my comment) the both matte painting artists thanked the 3D/CG environment teams for their work on the show (even by name, in the one you linked for me). I as I said before, I think there are VERY FEW folks that would say there is no 2D matte paintings in the show (especially now cause of these posts). But in posting these links, you pretty much have proven yourself blatantly wrong, in saying “nope 100% 2D backgrounds”. They mention the 3D environment artists IN THE POST, but you didn’t check, cause you were probably just looking for something to back up you claims. idk why you are defending this point so much tbh. It’s not even a big deal. It’s just background art in a well made show. Folks make mistakes, but it only looks bad when you try to defend them (and prove yourself wrong in doing so) .
@@jordanadams9098 Like what I said in the description, there are very primitive 3D bases to be projected on in the first place. 3D artists are credited for preparing the rough 3D base and projecting the paintings, that's it. But the majority of the objects you see in Arcane exist only in painting, for example, the tree and the alter in the firelight gang hideouts: they are not 3D models.
@@andrewhu7770 He's not taking away from the fact that it's a 3D work. They just blended 3D and 2D extremely well. As he said, the backgrounds were made with 3D meshes, then painted over by 2D artists and finally projected back onto the UV of the 3D mesh. It's a new revolution in anime with them and Alberto Mielgo and other indie films. It's fucking sick.
I find it funny how part of the explanation for why this looks so good is "they don't have as much money". If it's both cheaper and better looking, I would think more studios would be using 2D backgrounds more often.
A good amount do. Arcane's 3d models have a painterly look to them which most studios shy away from. What looks better is very subjective. To some, the clean artistic direction of something like overwatch cinematics is more appealing (I highly disagree but to each their own). In that case the more common method of using 3d models for the environment would fit better. The reason why Arcane can get away with doing the cheaper 2D backgrounds and make it looks so seamless is because the 3D elements were made to match it, otherwise it'd feel out of place. Assets in 3D are also reusable so in some cases using 3D is more sustainable long term.
It is always going to be cheaper to make 3D assets and then reuse them. Although I do agree with what he is saying when it comes to artists being capable of painting real life lighting, enlisting the talent of great artists costs more than just path tracing accuracy. And if people already assume its 3D just by looking at it _and_ you can get the exact results in 3D, then this means that going through all of the trouble of having artists hand paint this stuff every single frame is more time consuming and more expensive.
@@pawprinting That's definitely not true. If you're projecting a 2d drawing onto a 3d plane that doesn't mean you're redrawing it every frame, you're just redrawing it for changes in perspective or lighting conditions. If you're just panning or zooming the camera and don't need complex dynamic lighting you can do a lot with billboards. Also, what's faster / cheaper depends on the complexity of the object and the style of rendering you're trying to achieve.
It's not that its beautiful because it's cheap to do, it's the style that Riot Games uses for their IPs. They are all meant to have that paintings coming to life feel, and well it just so happens to be perfect here. Plus Fortiche is a studio that specializes in 2D 3D blending. Riot is at the top of the industry when it comes to digital illustration and art so its to get that same effect to move. Really its just a style choice plus Riot makes 2 billion profit a year off of League alone, budget isn't an issue.
They're actually both. Their workflow involves paintovers of 3D scenes and camera projection. So they get accurate lighting reference from 3D, then paint over it to make it feel hand painted, then bring it back into 3D to give it dynamic camera movements.
In addition to that, that's the norm honestly, even in normal concept art and highly render artwork 3D is used as base, I know from experience 'cause that's what I do, and that's how my teacher who worked at Riot taught me.
I really don’t think that only the characters are 3D. The camera moves around so much in scenes and the environments and objects are clearly 3D in the fore ground and mid ground. The backgrounds are painted. And I’m sure that if the camera is stationary then other things are painted as well. But not everything is painted.
Most shots are still shots especially in dialogue scenes so it would makes sense if they are 2d paintings. I wouldn’t want to 3d model a whole room only for it to be seen from a few limited angles. Only during action sequences does the camera do crazy stuff and it would make sense to use a model
I agree, some were probably 3d and it is probably cheaper and faster to create a 3d model than to keep painting a new one and figure out the lighting and shot angle every time it is needed.
Some of the foreground and mid elements are also 3D, most probably a 2D projection on a 3D mesh to help with depth and movement. While as far as I can tell pretty much all background elements are 2D
I would still build a lot of this out in 3d and do a 2d paint over. Sometimes it's just quicker to paint over 3d, especially with paint conversion tools like Topaz Impression which can assist in breaking down the 3d look. Depends on the artist. Though agree most of Arcane appears to be 2d with simple card / low poly projections.
The Props are 3d, you can see in the breakdown shots in the behind the scenes ua-cam.com/video/7rAbZUZCnL8/v-deo.html The do use a lot of texture projection but those textures are being projected onto 3d models, some background assets are definitely 1d planes in 3d space with a painting on them but not as many as this video would have you believe. Also I don't think they are re-compositing the characters back into the scene after the fact since the characters have dynamic and accurate indirect lighting (shadows, bounce light, etc). ua-cam.com/video/RxD6H3ri8RI/v-deo.html They are probably doing something similar to what this guy does at 2:26 - 3:15 but with 3d characters and painted backgrounds projected onto geometry. I would still classify it as 3d, even if they use a non-standard texturing method for their models.
@@intensitydigital at 4:25 in that video though you can see how many details are actually impressed on the textures, but yeah this video is a bit misleading.
Man, all you need to do is look at the credits to see there are plenty of 3D environment and prop artists. Yes, there are a hell of a lot of matte painters and texture artists too, but it doesn't make as much as you claim to be 2D true. An animator outside the company who didn't work on this production can't really make claims like these.
100% right, i mean Spiderman into the Spiderverse is prettymuch 100% 3D confirmed and backed up by the studio itself, you can do a LOT with render engines if you have the programmers and shader artist who do the math and programming behind it.
Here's my small essay on why it wouldn't be mostly be 2D. Also nice detective work with checking the amount of 3D artists! ↓ Though I agree that the image projection being used is a plausible theory, I still believe that the props and sets are 3D with 2D texture work because even if in 1 shot the camera stands still the rest of the scene may have shots that move around much more requireing it to be 'true' 3D objects with textures instead of image projection. This is an interesting theory but the logic doesn't make sense when making a resuable texuture painting 3D scene instead of image projection which would look distorted as soon as the camera starts following the running characters. Also considering Riot Games is a relatively large corporation they are definetly not short of money and it is rumoured Arcane had 90-100 million dollars put into it. At 1:00 you talked about how the shading could also be done in 2D but the characters are not stills but animated characters which means 3D characters interact with COMPLETELY 2D backgrounds which makes no sense because it would require much more work for the scene shown on screen. It would be much easier to have everything in the scene be 3D texture painted objects and everything is shaded all together in a shading engine which is much easier than the proposed theory. The absence of character interaction contributing to shading larger scenes does make your theory more plausible but debunked bu the earlier statement made that the camera often shows more than one side of large objects such as buildings which means not only do the textures have to be complete on all sides (which is impossible with 2D image projection) but the building needs to be shaded which is impossible with 2D image projection and makes more sense with my theory of backgrounds being detailed 3D objects that are also painted for extra detail. Many scenes in Arcane prove your theory implausible and maybe the largest shots the stuff furthest away in the background where perspective is not a problem could just be painted 2D but the point of 'Arcane is mostly 2D (without 3D painted objects) is not possible with current evidence'.
@@PapasGatitothe video makes bold claims and is wrong but also right. The studio that worked on this confirms alot of the background is in fact 2d. The shadow effect on a 2d background can be created by having the 2d artist draw in the shadow frame by frame. Or they meld a 3d background with a 2d painting to allow for proper shadows. Im not saying thats whats happening, just saying its possible. To me the use of 2d is so much more obvious when I watched it a few weeks ago but the claim that everything outside of the chatacters is 2d is obviously wrong.
But he is right, it is mostly 2D backgrounds, there is moments where they basically make a simple 3D object using a 2D art, but they are still using a 2D drawing
Mind blowing how good it looks 🤯🤯 So much respect for the insanely skilled painters that worked on this show (and just for everyone who worked on it lol), everything seemed seamless even with the 2D 3D mixing.
- How? How they have so much cool graphics in their animated series? - Well, they don't have as much money as big studios... Understandable. Have a nice day.
*Arcane is as 2D animation as how Lion King is live action 🥲.* It’s 3D animation because the content is 3D. Fortiche tells the Arcane story primarily in 3D animation. There are a lot of 2D animation elements in the background and overall atmosphere. However, those aren’t what takes the main stage.
The first shining example of amazing 2D that ive ever seen was "Klaus". That had my brain scrambled for a long time. Amazing technique when done right.
then you've never seen akira, ghost in a shell, a satoshi kon film or any 90's anime obviously there hasn't been good 2D animation since they stopped using cels, everything looks bright, plastic and fake now
The Props are 3d, you can see in the breakdown shots in the behind the scenes ua-cam.com/video/7rAbZUZCnL8/v-deo.html The do use a lot of texture projection but those textures are being projected onto 3d models, some background assets are definitely 1d planes in 3d space with a painting on them but not as many as this video would have you believe. Also I don't think they are re-compositing the characters back into the scene after the fact since the characters have dynamic and accurate indirect lighting (shadows, bounce light, etc). ua-cam.com/video/RxD6H3ri8RI/v-deo.html They are probably doing something similar to what this guy does at 2:26 - 3:15 but with 3d characters and painted backgrounds projected onto geometry. I would still classify it as 3d, even if they use a non-standard texturing method for their models.
It's basically how some movies use matte paintings over 3D models. Truth is that it's is way cheaper to paint and match lighting in 2D than in 3D, unless of course, your camera is doing a crazy handheld 360 in multiple angles and direction then 3D would be a better solution.
I am actually suprised that such high detail paintings are cheaper than a 3D model with textures. But for me it also has a certain charme that comes with those 2D sceneries
Some 3D might still have been used to block things out that then get painted over. Pretty common in the industry, saves time and it's easier to iterate before settling on the final angle. Is why Blender is so popular with concept artists.
Agreed. I'm 43. I've never seen any animation done this beautifully in my life either. This hits in a way that hurts me. (in a good way) The closest I can think of is either Akira or Ninja Scroll. That comparison already places this in rare air and I know neither of those did what Arcane did.
The thing that gets me the most is the consistency. Every scene moves with a beautiful smoothness. There are scenes in other animated works that reach a higher peak of spectacular visuals, but then next scene might have nothing but characters with no movement besides their mouths. Arcane really raised the bar for what I believe animation can achieve.
I'm only 15 but th only animation feature that I think is better at animation is Spiderman into the spider verse because of the frame drops and noise on the lines
The title isn’t bait at all, you can definitely tell even if they use 3D, the foundation is clearly 2D, there’s something about the scenes and choreography that only would work if it was built upon a 2D foundation
Theres definitely 3D being used for backgrounds, i wont say every background is 3d cause i dont know, but some are for sure. it 100% would take longer to 2d paint every background for every scene very accurately. using 3d actually saves alot of time when making enviornments so i dont really think saying everything in arcane is 2d except characters is accurate. sorry to say
As a 3d artist it's hard to believe ALL OF THE BACKGROUNDS are 2d. I think he confuses 2d painting over 3d models as "2d painted backgrounds". That's what Arcane do. Model it, make artists paint over them like 2d..
Ah, that explains why I felt like the characters didn't quit mesh with the backgrounds. I felt like there was something off about the animation, and now I understand what I was experiencing.
i always saw it as 2D. when i was learning animation i learnt that doing 3D in a 2D animation can make it easier. even a stickman can be made 3D so that it has more realistic movement or placement of objects around it. i started doing it as well since im better at 3D than 2D. it makes it so much easier for me
1:01 But I think for the shadows there should be at least some invisible models (for the walls, floor and bed), even if they're added programmatically. Also a light source.
its reasonable to assume they camera projected their paintings on some rudimentary geometry to have the characters cast shadows. effectively turning it 3d
THANK YOU SO MUCH ZEYU REN YOU ARE THE BEST! I never knew art station existed, and when I found out about the free courses I was crying of happiness THANK YOU SO MUUCH :DDDDDD
A lot of 2.5D and projection mapping. So 2D, but often in a 3D space to make camera lens compression, parallax and other perspective phenomena seem more immersive.
Although I do agree that yes, there are some backgrounds that are 2D flat images, but not everything. The great thing about the show is that the 3D models aren't showing their details in more polygons, but they actually painted the 3d textures. Effects like Ambient Occlusion, reflections, highlights, and material texture are all painted straight on a very low poly 3D Model. Backgrounds that the character interacts with like boxes on the side of the road or the heist room, those are 3d (not exactly everything), but textured so well that they look 2d.
I think they choose which set make 3D and not, I was looking into it yesterday frame by frame and Jayce house is definitely a full set, same thing with the last drop and Vi and Pow's room, Benzo's etc. they choose which set is important enough and has the most scenes to be worthy of a model, the rest, mostly the outside or sets that are too big and would take forever to render, they paint it. There are mixed sets too, like when they are showing Piltover for the first time when Vi and Pow are on the rooftop, the place where they are it is a 3D model, while the rest of the city is composed by 2D planes that slides across in a incredibly smart way to make it look 3D when the 3D camera rotates around. It takes so much planning and coordination between all the departments to do something like this. No wonder it took them 6 freaking years.
Mate Fortiche isn't spending their money, they're paid by Riot to do it, they do it this way because it looks better and is more effective, not to save money, it's Riot afterall..
Having a budget and reducing costs are not mutual-exclusive. Besides, Fortiche is always the cheaper option for Riot when it comes to making cinematics compared to BLUR, DIGIC, and UNIT Image.
@@ZeyuRen Cool, how did they do it better though. This is better than any fully digitial animation I have ever seen. By a LONG margin. As a kid there existed two animations I loved (western) Watership Down. (obvious painted backgrounds with animation in the foreground) and Secret of Nimh which used color effects that I didn't see again until Akira. Arcane pulled off an amalgamation of those and Ninja Scroll/Berserk. IMHO (those animations captured the gravity of movement like no animation I had seen)
@@Thulgore Spiderman into the Spiderverse, Klaus from Netflix. Both are pretty much 90% 3D and show what you can do if you want to put effort in. Most studios simply A, dont want to. or B dont have the budget for it
I feel it's bold to say it's ''mostly 3D'', because the characters and facial expressions are what stands out the most. The backgrounds and elements may be 2D, but that's not what catches the eye. It's the characters than makes this show stand out ;)
Using 2D background is far more time consuming and costly than you might think. Thus, not as cheaper. Arcane uses so much view in different angles, using 2D background is just a pain in the neck.
not really, static plane backdrops can be used for the whole scene, its hardly comparable to painting 100's of thousands of cels like they did in 90s animation if you are a good artist drawing or painting a backdrop doesn't take that long as its usually not the focus of the scene it doesn't have to be perfect, its probably quicker than modelling an entire environment in 3D to be the backdrop and getting the sky, colours, atmosphere and lighting right
No because it’s simply more work to iterate in 3d vs drawing/painting when you just need to show one angle of something. When you see almost every angle of a character in a show then it makes sense to 3d model them so you can focus on animation rather than getting the perspective right.
The style reminds me of the animations world of warcraft did during Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor, all 2D but animated well to make scenes feel more 3D.
I mean this with no exaggeration, this show is an absolute masterpiece and imo one of the best pieces of fiction in the last decade, and up there as my favorite ever along side Spider Verse. I am lost for words as to how incredible this show is and what Riot did is nothing short of legendary and historical. The animation is drop dead gorgeous and revolutionary, the writing and story is superb and carry so much weight and emotion, the music is impeccable, the performances and voice acting is amazing, the sound effects are stellar and I can go on and on. Truly a remarkable piece of fiction that deserves every ounce or success they have received and continue to receive. I can seriously go on and on with this show. Although I am not emotionally ready for season 2, I hope it’s just as perfect if not more so than season 1. Riot truly did something special as Arcane really is something legendary. There is nothing like Arcane. This show is unbelievably special and will always hold a special place in my heart. It is peak. Chefs kiss😘🎊
This is literally the most expensive animated show EVER made, tf you talking about being on a budget? And also, just by looking at the most basic behind-the-scenes, you can clearly see 90% of the assets are 3D too, they juste have good texture artists, good compositing and a bold art direction (and tons of money), that’s it :/
This video has a lot of misinformation. Most of the show is 3d, with some 2d backgrounds being added sometimes. But most of the stuff you see is 3d objects textured to look stylized
I'm 99.99999% certain you're wrong! Based off the little snippet of BTS animation they've shown, and off how things look/move in the series, I'd say the majority of stuff in most shots is 3D. There's definitely a lot of 2D elements, and I'd say almost all of the wide landscape shots are mostly 2D, but it's definitely not just the characters in 3D. And also, you're wrong to say it would be cheaper to do in 2D; I guarantee you it's a lot more time consuming and expensive to create accurate parallax and walk-through shots in 2D than it is in 3D, this is why you never see that type of shot in older animated films like the Disney classics, it's just horrendously difficult to pull off stuff like convincingly in 2D.
To give a more real explanation, not all he is saying is correct. The characters and props are used by 3D models, but are hand painted to look stylized. The backgrounds are 2D with a mix of 3D to have a visual that fits the atmosphere of Arcane.
It might just be my utter incompetence when it comes to drawing/painting etc, but I would've thought it's harder(and therefore more expensive) to get good looking and accurate 2D paintings than a 3D environment(where the light physics work is done by the computer).
It is. Fastest workflow is to block out stuff in 3d with basic lighting included and polish it with over painting afterwards. Polishing 3d scenes can be very time consuming also, but not in the early block out stages.
I think how they have made the characters look painterly and blend in is as amazing as the wonderful matte artwork. I really wonder if or how 2D artists could be paid less particular with this level of honed ability to hand render these scenes. For people who think the loose or painterly style is easier… give it a go, there is quite some practice to having a sketchy style. And as Zehra pointed out their rendering of light by hand is impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could hand render to the accuracy of compute renders, but I’m glad they have embraced a humanness in their style. So refreshing to see this style on screen
What a quick but accurate summary of what it actually is! Here's my essay on why it probably isn't mostly 2D backgrounds and it probably is mostly 2.5D. (3D painted objects) Though I agree that the image projection being used is a plausible theory, I still believe that the props and sets are 3D with 2D texture work because even if in 1 shot the camera stands still the rest of the scene may have shots that move around much more requireing it to be 'true' 3D objects with textures instead of image projection. This is an interesting theory but the logic doesn't make sense when making a resuable texuture painting 3D scene instead of image projection which would look distorted as soon as the camera starts following the running characters. Also considering Riot Games is a relatively large corporation they are definetly not short of money and it is rumoured Arcane had 90-100 million dollars put into it. At 1:00 you talked about how the shading could also be done in 2D but the characters are not stills but animated characters which means 3D characters interact with COMPLETELY 2D backgrounds which makes no sense because it would require much more work for the scene shown on screen. It would be much easier to have everything in the scene be 3D texture painted objects and everything is shaded all together in a shading engine which is much easier than the proposed theory. The absence of character interaction contributing to shading larger scenes does make your theory more plausible but debunked bu the earlier statement made that the camera often shows more than one side of large objects such as buildings which means not only do the textures have to be complete on all sides (which is impossible with 2D image projection) but the building needs to be shaded which is impossible with 2D image projection and makes more sense with my theory of backgrounds being detailed 3D objects that are also painted for extra detail. Many scenes in Arcane prove your theory implausible and maybe the largest shots the stuff furthest away in the background where perspective is not a problem could just be painted 2D but the point of 'Arcane is mostly 2D (without 3D painted objects) is not possible with current evidence'.
so basicly they took the matte painting method that the old star wars films used .... and brought it to 2024 .... excellent! I'm now looking at blender's grease pencil with different eyes, and I think it might be worth investing a few months in, as (I think) that blenders 2D work flow combined with EEVEE and the fact that everything you paint in 2D can be assigned materials and interact with 3D lights might just make this a bit more easy .... (well, I hope I can get crita or something to be able to do the actual painting but I think there should be a way to bridge them together)
it literally IS 3D lol, you say it's 2D then proceed to show how they painted a 2D image into a 3D environment. What you're trying to say is that it's 3D painted to look 2D, where all the lighting and details are hand painted.
I don't know why you made another video on this. As I and many others have pointed out this show most likely uses a lot more 3D than you make it out to do (professional opinion, I don't work at Fortiche so I can't say for sure). In the previous video you did you made weird arguments for your case that didn't make any sense at all, based on the lighting (?) that I didn't even understand the logic of, and I've worked as a lighter on a shit ton of big VFX productions.
3d is useful if it's interactive media, but in controlled cinematic environment 2D assets can be as useful as 3d models. What matters is the keeping the illusion of the story alive after all.
I disagree. Arcane seems mostly a 3D animation that received post processing stack of filters to flatten and style everything. The same technique was used already over live actions like the movie "Van Gogh" and the "Undone" series. The advantage is that is faster and cheaper to get this gorgeous result. You can render the 3D animation with a low quality Phong algorithm (to stablish surfaces, objects, composition, colors, lights, shadows and points of view) and so apply the filters and maybe some handmade retouching when needed. What we know as 3D need to be rendered with very expensive and time consuming raytracing algorithms to have a decent visual with some realism. But a decent photorealism, although not impossible, is even more expensive. And we are a little tired of 3D "toy worlds". But yeah, the background scenes seems to be mostly billboards. Anyway, we can't see the differences.
He is 90% right arcane uses mostly 2D props in the mid and background but in the foreground with a lot of perspective shifts are 3D models wrapped with 2D textures the reason why shadows interact is because they roughly model the background then wrap a 2D texture around it make the shadows warp
There is little to none post processing done because all the lighting is done with the paintings so there is no lighting department so there would be no use for post
People were too focused on the characters to realize that a majority of the peripheral/background scene is mostly 2D. Which is good, means the artists knew what they were doing. It's just more efficient to paint in the details where they need to be rather than make every object 3D and then adjust each as needed.
Production costs: The first nine episodes cost over $80 million, and the second batch cost close to $100 million oh yeas it was super cheap to make cos it wanst 3d . it cost that much reason why hey might not be season3
While a lot of backgrounds would be hand painted. A good chunk would reprojected on to 3D models to provide more flexibility with shots and making changes, esp when a character has to interact with them. also arcane has a massive budget and has been in production since 2016 lol. at least read the credits jfc and to note: Alberto Mielgo used a similar projection method, 3D paint over, and a lot of layering & compositing to achieve the final look. saying a minimal amount is not 3D was used is completely wrong. also that is Albertos style, he's not trying to compete with blur at all, he's a literal god who just does what he wants.
Either one of the 3d artists also took part in painting, or they used a few tricks to perfectly match lighting to renders. It is not hard to put a simple box around a few places and render them for making references for the artists. Other than that, yeah. Painting stuffl ike that is possible. And riot has money to hire good painters that can do that stuff. Cheaper than 3d environment, and also helps painters to draw faster. It seems like, arcane is best of both worlds. A combination of 2d and 3d. It is smart. I wish riot would put even half of this effect on the game itself.
The phrase you’re looking for is matte painting They’re painted backgrounds for film and games in the industry that are basically illusions to grand scenes that would be too hard to create with other methods. In layman’s terms, yes, there’s a lot of 2D establishing shots, but not as much as you think. A behind the scenes showcase showed us that there’s actually quite an elaborate 3D stage they greybox. While painting huge establishing shots as 2D would be a huge time and money saver, having to paint that same environment from multiple angles in a scene is really not. The reason why arcane does it is just for a captivating style. Other studios in the industry wouldn’t be caught doing something as inefficient as making multiple paintings of an asset from different angles instead of just 3d modelling it.
This ain't like 1994's the Canadian/American 3D TV show Reboot. Of course, I think Reboot was the first 3D show ever made. But it's good to see tech from 1994 to today and see how it's has advanced through the years.
Zen ren: arcane dont have to much money me:google how much did is cost to make arcane google: The total series budget is $250M. Split across 18 episodes means approximate per episode budget is $18.34M. me: "falls off chair"
I could share it to my friends but it has some explicit scenes of love,death & robots, so if you wouldn't add that, i would definitely share this video. but now i can't.
As a traditionally trained animator, I'm less interested in what's 2d and what's 3d and more interested in how they composited it all together so well. Painterly skins on 3d models are done all the time but 9 out of 10 times the illusion breaks the moment a character moves in 3d space, which completely defeats the purpose of making it 3d in the first place. It's still not perfect in Arcane but it's much, much better than the average. Talented artists who clearly know their tools; very deft balance of compositing/shaders/skins. It's not just what's on screen, either; I'd like to know how they set up and manage a project like this. Something as simple as a door swinging open most of the way vs a foot or two could mean the difference between it being sent down a completely different pipeline. Takes lots of very precise planning. Either way, it's very refreshing to see they largely stayed away from those terrible, floaty 2d puppet-tool animations, and from mocap. I realize mocap has it's uses, but it gets applied to things it has no business being applied to. Imo the practical applications where the puppet tool can make something look good are so limited it might as well not even exist.
There are a lot of Painted 2D backgrounds in the show. But to say that only the characters are 3D is misinformation. You cant do those 360 camera shots during some fight scenes with just painted backgrounds. They actually modelled some of the background elements then painted over then to make them more cohesive with the look of the show. And no, 2D painted backgrounds are not always cheaper than 3D ones. With 3D it's way easier to populate a scene with pre modelled elements you already have and if you want a different angle of the same scene, It's as simple as moving the camera around. You can't do that with painted backgrounds. each angle is a new painting. and every painting is super labor intensive.
I think you are wrong , you have good references to say this is mostly 2D?, I looked for the environment artists of Arcane and in their portafolio they have different shots of the enviros , and we can see that textures are not projected and there are props in the scenes. Im sure they used a lot of 2D for matte painting and VFX tho. In fact even the enviros artists said in the project description "3D environments" , painted textures doesn't make an object 2D, it just makes it NPR, the official material released by Riot and the artists involved seem to contradict what you are saying , you have good references to state your point?, I'm legit curious , fortiche have protected a lot their in-house techniques so there isnt that much material about it , but the one I have found states it's 3D mostly (it haves lots of 2D that's true). Hope my comment doesn't read with bad vibes, peace ✌️
This guy doesnt know what hes talking about if im completley honest. Yes there is a lot of 2D in Arcane but mostly its 3D, its probably made the same way Spiderman into the Spiderverse was made. People forget that some studios have so called shader artists and programmers that know how to program certain shaders, Klaus from Netflix is also mostly 3D. You can do a lot of 2D styled looks with 3D render softwares like Vray, Arnold, you name it. Vray is one of the most used render engines world wide and is used for very special productions aswell, an example would be Spiderman into the Spiderverse.
@@ZeyuRen if you just read the whole post you linked you will see "Big high five to my teammates in 3D environment on those ones..." Of course it's true part of the environments are 2d. I think the coolest thing about Arcane's style is that we are not even sure which is 2d and which 3d, this just shows what of a good job the team did with planning and blending all of the elements.
This is not entirely accurate (this is why I hate the absence of a dislike count). What's going on is that Fortiche studios basically blocks out a scene in 3D. They project the different perspectives they need, and then paint over them. The painted images are then "baked" (which is to say projected) unto the 3D models in order to receive accurate lighting and shadows on them.
Behind the scene: www.artstation.com/artwork/6bNqdO
Dude… in this very artstation post (and also the completely different one you decided to post under my comment) the both matte painting artists thanked the 3D/CG environment teams for their work on the show (even by name, in the one you linked for me). I as I said before, I think there are VERY FEW folks that would say there is no 2D matte paintings in the show (especially now cause of these posts). But in posting these links, you pretty much have proven yourself blatantly wrong, in saying “nope 100% 2D backgrounds”. They mention the 3D environment artists IN THE POST, but you didn’t check, cause you were probably just looking for something to back up you claims. idk why you are defending this point so much tbh. It’s not even a big deal. It’s just background art in a well made show. Folks make mistakes, but it only looks bad when you try to defend them (and prove yourself wrong in doing so) .
@@jordanadams9098 Like what I said in the description, there are very primitive 3D bases to be projected on in the first place. 3D artists are credited for preparing the rough 3D base and projecting the paintings, that's it. But the majority of the objects you see in Arcane exist only in painting, for example, the tree and the alter in the firelight gang hideouts: they are not 3D models.
@@jordanadams9098 ua-cam.com/video/7rAbZUZCnL8/v-deo.html 4:24
Do you really know the pipeline of makeing an 3D and 2D animation? Arcane is definitely an 3D animation.
@@andrewhu7770 He's not taking away from the fact that it's a 3D work. They just blended 3D and 2D extremely well. As he said, the backgrounds were made with 3D meshes, then painted over by 2D artists and finally projected back onto the UV of the 3D mesh. It's a new revolution in anime with them and Alberto Mielgo and other indie films. It's fucking sick.
I find it funny how part of the explanation for why this looks so good is "they don't have as much money". If it's both cheaper and better looking, I would think more studios would be using 2D backgrounds more often.
A good amount do. Arcane's 3d models have a painterly look to them which most studios shy away from. What looks better is very subjective. To some, the clean artistic direction of something like overwatch cinematics is more appealing (I highly disagree but to each their own). In that case the more common method of using 3d models for the environment would fit better. The reason why Arcane can get away with doing the cheaper 2D backgrounds and make it looks so seamless is because the 3D elements were made to match it, otherwise it'd feel out of place. Assets in 3D are also reusable so in some cases using 3D is more sustainable long term.
the rumored bugget is 10m per episode, so about 100 million usd total. n
It is always going to be cheaper to make 3D assets and then reuse them. Although I do agree with what he is saying when it comes to artists being capable of painting real life lighting, enlisting the talent of great artists costs more than just path tracing accuracy. And if people already assume its 3D just by looking at it _and_ you can get the exact results in 3D, then this means that going through all of the trouble of having artists hand paint this stuff every single frame is more time consuming and more expensive.
@@pawprinting That's definitely not true. If you're projecting a 2d drawing onto a 3d plane that doesn't mean you're redrawing it every frame, you're just redrawing it for changes in perspective or lighting conditions. If you're just panning or zooming the camera and don't need complex dynamic lighting you can do a lot with billboards. Also, what's faster / cheaper depends on the complexity of the object and the style of rendering you're trying to achieve.
It's not that its beautiful because it's cheap to do, it's the style that Riot Games uses for their IPs. They are all meant to have that paintings coming to life feel, and well it just so happens to be perfect here. Plus Fortiche is a studio that specializes in 2D 3D blending. Riot is at the top of the industry when it comes to digital illustration and art so its to get that same effect to move. Really its just a style choice plus Riot makes 2 billion profit a year off of League alone, budget isn't an issue.
They're actually both. Their workflow involves paintovers of 3D scenes and camera projection. So they get accurate lighting reference from 3D, then paint over it to make it feel hand painted, then bring it back into 3D to give it dynamic camera movements.
In addition to that, that's the norm honestly, even in normal concept art and highly render artwork 3D is used as base, I know from experience 'cause that's what I do, and that's how my teacher who worked at Riot taught me.
I really don’t think that only the characters are 3D. The camera moves around so much in scenes and the environments and objects are clearly 3D in the fore ground and mid ground. The backgrounds are painted. And I’m sure that if the camera is stationary then other things are painted as well. But not everything is painted.
i think the backgrounds and other stuffs beside (mostly) characters is just a 2d paint which placed on a 3d layer, it's not modeled in 3d.
Most shots are still shots especially in dialogue scenes so it would makes sense if they are 2d paintings. I wouldn’t want to 3d model a whole room only for it to be seen from a few limited angles. Only during action sequences does the camera do crazy stuff and it would make sense to use a model
I agree, some were probably 3d and it is probably cheaper and faster to create a 3d model than to keep painting a new one and figure out the lighting and shot angle every time it is needed.
They put 2D planes into a 3D stage
Some of the foreground and mid elements are also 3D, most probably a 2D projection on a 3D mesh to help with depth and movement. While as far as I can tell pretty much all background elements are 2D
I would still build a lot of this out in 3d and do a 2d paint over. Sometimes it's just quicker to paint over 3d, especially with paint conversion tools like Topaz Impression which can assist in breaking down the 3d look. Depends on the artist. Though agree most of Arcane appears to be 2d with simple card / low poly projections.
The animation style looks alot like borderlands game, where they have 3d model with painted texture on top of it.
The Props are 3d, you can see in the breakdown shots in the behind the scenes ua-cam.com/video/7rAbZUZCnL8/v-deo.html The do use a lot of texture projection but those textures are being projected onto 3d models, some background assets are definitely 1d planes in 3d space with a painting on them but not as many as this video would have you believe.
Also I don't think they are re-compositing the characters back into the scene after the fact since the characters have dynamic and accurate indirect lighting (shadows, bounce light, etc). ua-cam.com/video/RxD6H3ri8RI/v-deo.html They are probably doing something similar to what this guy does at 2:26 - 3:15 but with 3d characters and painted backgrounds projected onto geometry.
I would still classify it as 3d, even if they use a non-standard texturing method for their models.
@@intensitydigital at 4:25 in that video though you can see how many details are actually impressed on the textures, but yeah this video is a bit misleading.
Man, all you need to do is look at the credits to see there are plenty of 3D environment and prop artists. Yes, there are a hell of a lot of matte painters and texture artists too, but it doesn't make as much as you claim to be 2D true. An animator outside the company who didn't work on this production can't really make claims like these.
100% right, i mean Spiderman into the Spiderverse is prettymuch 100% 3D confirmed and backed up by the studio itself, you can do a LOT with render engines if you have the programmers and shader artist who do the math and programming behind it.
Here's my small essay on why it wouldn't be mostly be 2D. Also nice detective work with checking the amount of 3D artists!
↓
Though I agree that the image projection being used is a plausible theory, I still believe that the props and sets are 3D with 2D texture work because even if in 1 shot the camera stands still the rest of the scene may have shots that move around much more requireing it to be 'true' 3D objects with textures instead of image projection. This is an interesting theory but the logic doesn't make sense when making a resuable texuture painting 3D scene instead of image projection which would look distorted as soon as the camera starts following the running characters. Also considering Riot Games is a relatively large corporation they are definetly not short of money and it is rumoured Arcane had 90-100 million dollars put into it.
At 1:00 you talked about how the shading could also be done in 2D but the characters are not stills but animated characters which means 3D characters interact with COMPLETELY 2D backgrounds which makes no sense because it would require much more work for the scene shown on screen. It would be much easier to have everything in the scene be 3D texture painted objects and everything is shaded all together in a shading engine which is much easier than the proposed theory.
The absence of character interaction contributing to shading larger scenes does make your theory more plausible but debunked bu the earlier statement made that the camera often shows more than one side of large objects such as buildings which means not only do the textures have to be complete on all sides (which is impossible with 2D image projection) but the building needs to be shaded which is impossible with 2D image projection and makes more sense with my theory of backgrounds being detailed 3D objects that are also painted for extra detail. Many scenes in Arcane prove your theory implausible and maybe the largest shots the stuff furthest away in the background where perspective is not a problem could just be painted 2D but the point of 'Arcane is mostly 2D (without 3D painted objects) is not possible with current evidence'.
Yeah, when he talked about ambient occlusion he kinda ignored Silco's projected shadow deforming with the 3D volume in the background
@@PapasGatitothe video makes bold claims and is wrong but also right. The studio that worked on this confirms alot of the background is in fact 2d.
The shadow effect on a 2d background can be created by having the 2d artist draw in the shadow frame by frame. Or they meld a 3d background with a 2d painting to allow for proper shadows. Im not saying thats whats happening, just saying its possible.
To me the use of 2d is so much more obvious when I watched it a few weeks ago but the claim that everything outside of the chatacters is 2d is obviously wrong.
But he is right, it is mostly 2D backgrounds, there is moments where they basically make a simple 3D object using a 2D art, but they are still using a 2D drawing
Mind blowing how good it looks 🤯🤯 So much respect for the insanely skilled painters that worked on this show (and just for everyone who worked on it lol), everything seemed seamless even with the 2D 3D mixing.
- How? How they have so much cool graphics in their animated series?
- Well, they don't have as much money as big studios...
Understandable. Have a nice day.
basically they work in 3d space with well draw images. Impressive work ngl. For me its peak
*Arcane is as 2D animation as how Lion King is live action 🥲.*
It’s 3D animation because the content is 3D. Fortiche tells the Arcane story primarily in 3D animation. There are a lot of 2D animation elements in the background and overall atmosphere. However, those aren’t what takes the main stage.
"only the characters" that's like a huge part of the whole thing.
the 2d painting is so beautiful i hope they keep it up
The focus is on 3D elements, so it's still 3D. This title is just bait.
so u mean a 3D 2D illustration? lol
@@kieranidris1103 other way around.
The first shining example of amazing 2D that ive ever seen was "Klaus". That had my brain scrambled for a long time. Amazing technique when done right.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had a similar technique too.
@@osmanyousif7849 Into the spiderverse was a great animation, but it was 3D. Klaus was completely flat 2D animation.
then you've never seen akira, ghost in a shell, a satoshi kon film or any 90's anime obviously
there hasn't been good 2D animation since they stopped using cels, everything looks bright, plastic and fake now
@@ANUBASS girl huh??? Klaus is phenomenal 2D what are you even talking about
The Props are 3d, you can see in the breakdown shots in the behind the scenes ua-cam.com/video/7rAbZUZCnL8/v-deo.html The do use a lot of texture projection but those textures are being projected onto 3d models, some background assets are definitely 1d planes in 3d space with a painting on them but not as many as this video would have you believe.
Also I don't think they are re-compositing the characters back into the scene after the fact since the characters have dynamic and accurate indirect lighting (shadows, bounce light, etc). ua-cam.com/video/RxD6H3ri8RI/v-deo.html They are probably doing something similar to what this guy does at 2:26 - 3:15 but with 3d characters and painted backgrounds projected onto geometry.
I would still classify it as 3d, even if they use a non-standard texturing method for their models.
!⅚
It's basically how some movies use matte paintings over 3D models. Truth is that it's is way cheaper to paint and match lighting in 2D than in 3D, unless of course, your camera is doing a crazy handheld 360 in multiple angles and direction then 3D would be a better solution.
this is the best art and visual composition i have ever seen i want the whole world rendered this way
I am actually suprised that such high detail paintings are cheaper than a 3D model with textures.
But for me it also has a certain charme that comes with those 2D sceneries
Some 3D might still have been used to block things out that then get painted over. Pretty common in the industry, saves time and it's easier to iterate before settling on the final angle. Is why Blender is so popular with concept artists.
Arcane is the best looking animated series I've ever seen in my 46 years of life of watching animated series, so this technique works incredibly well.
Agreed. I'm 43. I've never seen any animation done this beautifully in my life either. This hits in a way that hurts me. (in a good way) The closest I can think of is either Akira or Ninja Scroll. That comparison already places this in rare air and I know neither of those did what Arcane did.
The thing that gets me the most is the consistency. Every scene moves with a beautiful smoothness. There are scenes in other animated works that reach a higher peak of spectacular visuals, but then next scene might have nothing but characters with no movement besides their mouths. Arcane really raised the bar for what I believe animation can achieve.
I'm only 15 but th only animation feature that I think is better at animation is Spiderman into the spider verse because of the frame drops and noise on the lines
Funny how the money saving option is what looks so much better than if it was all 3d
The title isn’t bait at all, you can definitely tell even if they use 3D, the foundation is clearly 2D, there’s something about the scenes and choreography that only would work if it was built upon a 2D foundation
It’s great example on why Arcane took years to make this show. It’s very detailed
Theres definitely 3D being used for backgrounds, i wont say every background is 3d cause i dont know, but some are for sure. it 100% would take longer to 2d paint every background for every scene very accurately. using 3d actually saves alot of time when making enviornments so i dont really think saying everything in arcane is 2d except characters is accurate. sorry to say
As a 3d artist it's hard to believe ALL OF THE BACKGROUNDS are 2d. I think he confuses 2d painting over 3d models as "2d painted backgrounds". That's what Arcane do. Model it, make artists paint over them like 2d..
Ah, that explains why I felt like the characters didn't quit mesh with the backgrounds. I felt like there was something off about the animation, and now I understand what I was experiencing.
i always saw it as 2D. when i was learning animation i learnt that doing 3D in a 2D animation can make it easier. even a stickman can be made 3D so that it has more realistic movement or placement of objects around it. i started doing it as well since im better at 3D than 2D. it makes it so much easier for me
1:01 But I think for the shadows there should be at least some invisible models (for the walls, floor and bed), even if they're added programmatically. Also a light source.
its reasonable to assume they camera projected their paintings on some rudimentary geometry to have the characters cast shadows.
effectively turning it 3d
"The only 3D is the character" I love how lightly you throw the word "Easy"
THANK YOU SO MUCH ZEYU REN YOU ARE THE BEST!
I never knew art station existed, and when I found out about the free courses I was crying of happiness
THANK YOU SO MUUCH :DDDDDD
you changed my life
A lot of 2.5D and projection mapping. So 2D, but often in a 3D space to make camera lens compression, parallax and other perspective phenomena seem more immersive.
This actually makes me appreciate the series even more. I honestly couldn't imagine a person who would wine about this revelation.
Although I do agree that yes, there are some backgrounds that are 2D flat images, but not everything. The great thing about the show is that the 3D models aren't showing their details in more polygons, but they actually painted the 3d textures. Effects like Ambient Occlusion, reflections, highlights, and material texture are all painted straight on a very low poly 3D Model.
Backgrounds that the character interacts with like boxes on the side of the road or the heist room, those are 3d (not exactly everything), but textured so well that they look 2d.
I think they choose which set make 3D and not, I was looking into it yesterday frame by frame and Jayce house is definitely a full set, same thing with the last drop and Vi and Pow's room, Benzo's etc. they choose which set is important enough and has the most scenes to be worthy of a model, the rest, mostly the outside or sets that are too big and would take forever to render, they paint it.
There are mixed sets too, like when they are showing Piltover for the first time when Vi and Pow are on the rooftop, the place where they are it is a 3D model, while the rest of the city is composed by 2D planes that slides across in a incredibly smart way to make it look 3D when the 3D camera rotates around. It takes so much planning and coordination between all the departments to do something like this. No wonder it took them 6 freaking years.
I just discovered this yesterday watching it frame by frame, is so fucking INTERESTING.
Mate Fortiche isn't spending their money, they're paid by Riot to do it, they do it this way because it looks better and is more effective, not to save money, it's Riot afterall..
Having a budget and reducing costs are not mutual-exclusive. Besides, Fortiche is always the cheaper option for Riot when it comes to making cinematics compared to BLUR, DIGIC, and UNIT Image.
@@ZeyuRen Cool, how did they do it better though. This is better than any fully digitial animation I have ever seen. By a LONG margin. As a kid there existed two animations I loved (western) Watership Down. (obvious painted backgrounds with animation in the foreground) and Secret of Nimh which used color effects that I didn't see again until Akira. Arcane pulled off an amalgamation of those and Ninja Scroll/Berserk. IMHO (those animations captured the gravity of movement like no animation I had seen)
@@Thulgore Spiderman into the Spiderverse, Klaus from Netflix. Both are pretty much 90% 3D and show what you can do if you want to put effort in. Most studios simply A, dont want to. or B dont have the budget for it
@@klauszwegert6382 Klaus is 2D tho
The power of layers.
I feel it's bold to say it's ''mostly 3D'', because the characters and facial expressions are what stands out the most. The backgrounds and elements may be 2D, but that's not what catches the eye. It's the characters than makes this show stand out ;)
I love how the create the 3D looks like 2D and the 2D looks like 3D
With a bit of a mo-cap/rotoscoping look too. Because a lot of the characters have some realistic human like looks.
Using 2D background is far more time consuming and costly than you might think. Thus, not as cheaper. Arcane uses so much view in different angles, using 2D background is just a pain in the neck.
not really, static plane backdrops can be used for the whole scene, its hardly comparable to painting 100's of thousands of cels like they did in 90s animation
if you are a good artist drawing or painting a backdrop doesn't take that long as its usually not the focus of the scene it doesn't have to be perfect, its probably quicker than modelling an entire environment in 3D to be the backdrop and getting the sky, colours, atmosphere and lighting right
0:22 Isn't that actually more time consuming to paint the entire environment for every new shot over using a 3D set?
No because it’s simply more work to iterate in 3d vs drawing/painting when you just need to show one angle of something. When you see almost every angle of a character in a show then it makes sense to 3d model them so you can focus on animation rather than getting the perspective right.
You are wrong, it's mostly 3d, and 3d is not that expensive as you would think
The style reminds me of the animations world of warcraft did during Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor, all 2D but animated well to make scenes feel more 3D.
I mean this with no exaggeration, this show is an absolute masterpiece and imo one of the best pieces of fiction in the last decade, and up there as my favorite ever along side Spider Verse. I am lost for words as to how incredible this show is and what Riot did is nothing short of legendary and historical. The animation is drop dead gorgeous and revolutionary, the writing and story is superb and carry so much weight and emotion, the music is impeccable, the performances and voice acting is amazing, the sound effects are stellar and I can go on and on. Truly a remarkable piece of fiction that deserves every ounce or success they have received and continue to receive. I can seriously go on and on with this show. Although I am not emotionally ready for season 2, I hope it’s just as perfect if not more so than season 1. Riot truly did something special as Arcane really is something legendary. There is nothing like Arcane. This show is unbelievably special and will always hold a special place in my heart. It is peak. Chefs kiss😘🎊
As a 3D artist, I will say that there is much more 3D here than stated in this video.
Basically, it's the same trick they used on Donkey Kong Country on SNES. Making 2D look like 3D.
This is literally the most expensive animated show EVER made, tf you talking about being on a budget? And also, just by looking at the most basic behind-the-scenes, you can clearly see 90% of the assets are 3D too, they juste have good texture artists, good compositing and a bold art direction (and tons of money), that’s it :/
now that you say It I can't unsee it and its genius
This video has a lot of misinformation.
Most of the show is 3d, with some 2d backgrounds being added sometimes. But most of the stuff you see is 3d objects textured to look stylized
I'm 99.99999% certain you're wrong! Based off the little snippet of BTS animation they've shown, and off how things look/move in the series, I'd say the majority of stuff in most shots is 3D. There's definitely a lot of 2D elements, and I'd say almost all of the wide landscape shots are mostly 2D, but it's definitely not just the characters in 3D. And also, you're wrong to say it would be cheaper to do in 2D; I guarantee you it's a lot more time consuming and expensive to create accurate parallax and walk-through shots in 2D than it is in 3D, this is why you never see that type of shot in older animated films like the Disney classics, it's just horrendously difficult to pull off stuff like convincingly in 2D.
I think when they said accurate lighting, they meant the models, not the background
Why does he sound like he’s going to cry about this holy shi.
To give a more real explanation, not all he is saying is correct. The characters and props are used by 3D models, but are hand painted to look stylized. The backgrounds are 2D with a mix of 3D to have a visual that fits the atmosphere of Arcane.
That's why it's look so beautiful
the 2d painters and 3d animators are amazing, not gonna lie.
Fortiche production
It might just be my utter incompetence when it comes to drawing/painting etc, but I would've thought it's harder(and therefore more expensive) to get good looking and accurate 2D paintings than a 3D environment(where the light physics work is done by the computer).
It is. Fastest workflow is to block out stuff in 3d with basic lighting included and polish it with over painting afterwards. Polishing 3d scenes can be very time consuming also, but not in the early block out stages.
@@ZalvaTionZ oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. Basic 3d as the reference then draw over it.
I think how they have made the characters look painterly and blend in is as amazing as the wonderful matte artwork. I really wonder if or how 2D artists could be paid less particular with this level of honed ability to hand render these scenes.
For people who think the loose or painterly style is easier… give it a go, there is quite some practice to having a sketchy style. And as Zehra pointed out their rendering of light by hand is impressive. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could hand render to the accuracy of compute renders, but I’m glad they have embraced a humanness in their style. So refreshing to see this style on screen
I think there are a lot of 2.5D and 3D background and foreground elements.
What a quick but accurate summary of what it actually is!
Here's my essay on why it probably isn't mostly 2D backgrounds and it probably is mostly 2.5D. (3D painted objects)
Though I agree that the image projection being used is a plausible theory, I still believe that the props and sets are 3D with 2D texture work because even if in 1 shot the camera stands still the rest of the scene may have shots that move around much more requireing it to be 'true' 3D objects with textures instead of image projection. This is an interesting theory but the logic doesn't make sense when making a resuable texuture painting 3D scene instead of image projection which would look distorted as soon as the camera starts following the running characters. Also considering Riot Games is a relatively large corporation they are definetly not short of money and it is rumoured Arcane had 90-100 million dollars put into it.
At 1:00 you talked about how the shading could also be done in 2D but the characters are not stills but animated characters which means 3D characters interact with COMPLETELY 2D backgrounds which makes no sense because it would require much more work for the scene shown on screen. It would be much easier to have everything in the scene be 3D texture painted objects and everything is shaded all together in a shading engine which is much easier than the proposed theory.
The absence of character interaction contributing to shading larger scenes does make your theory more plausible but debunked bu the earlier statement made that the camera often shows more than one side of large objects such as buildings which means not only do the textures have to be complete on all sides (which is impossible with 2D image projection) but the building needs to be shaded which is impossible with 2D image projection and makes more sense with my theory of backgrounds being detailed 3D objects that are also painted for extra detail. Many scenes in Arcane prove your theory implausible and maybe the largest shots the stuff furthest away in the background where perspective is not a problem could just be painted 2D but the point of 'Arcane is mostly 2D (without 3D painted objects) is not possible with current evidence'.
This reminds me of prerendered backgrounds in old school games, cool!
Hi there its actually a combination of both... Basic geometry with 3d projection mapping in most scenes.
I don’t know anything about art but WOW THIS IS SO COOL
Me an animator: it’s mostly 3D mixed with 2D such as the effects(which are awesome by the way-)
Screaming «dis is achtcually 2D» over and over again
2:27 So similarly to the Deep Canvas technology Disney used in Tarzan and Treasure Planet?
so basicly they took the matte painting method that the old star wars films used .... and brought it to 2024 .... excellent! I'm now looking at blender's grease pencil with different eyes, and I think it might be worth investing a few months in, as (I think) that blenders 2D work flow combined with EEVEE and the fact that everything you paint in 2D can be assigned materials and interact with 3D lights might just make this a bit more easy .... (well, I hope I can get crita or something to be able to do the actual painting but I think there should be a way to bridge them together)
it literally IS 3D lol, you say it's 2D then proceed to show how they painted a 2D image into a 3D environment. What you're trying to say is that it's 3D painted to look 2D, where all the lighting and details are hand painted.
I believe they combined all these ways, and that's why Arcane looks so good.
I don't know why you made another video on this. As I and many others have pointed out this show most likely uses a lot more 3D than you make it out to do (professional opinion, I don't work at Fortiche so I can't say for sure). In the previous video you did you made weird arguments for your case that didn't make any sense at all, based on the lighting (?) that I didn't even understand the logic of, and I've worked as a lighter on a shit ton of big VFX productions.
3d is useful if it's interactive media, but in controlled cinematic environment 2D assets can be as useful as 3d models. What matters is the keeping the illusion of the story alive after all.
Too bad there are no subtitles 😥
So like, it’s the opposite of shows like Futurama which are 3D made to look more like 2D.
I know the work is hard but can I make a short clip like arcane myself?
Arcane was a fantastic series.
I disagree. Arcane seems mostly a 3D animation that received post processing stack of filters to flatten and style everything.
The same technique was used already over live actions like the movie "Van Gogh" and the "Undone" series.
The advantage is that is faster and cheaper to get this gorgeous result. You can render the 3D animation with a low quality Phong algorithm (to stablish surfaces, objects, composition, colors, lights, shadows and points of view) and so apply the filters and maybe some handmade retouching when needed.
What we know as 3D need to be rendered with very expensive and time consuming raytracing algorithms to have a decent visual with some realism. But a decent photorealism, although not impossible, is even more expensive. And we are a little tired of 3D "toy worlds".
But yeah, the background scenes seems to be mostly billboards. Anyway, we can't see the differences.
He is 90% right arcane uses mostly 2D props in the mid and background but in the foreground with a lot of perspective shifts are 3D models wrapped with 2D textures the reason why shadows interact is because they roughly model the background then wrap a 2D texture around it make the shadows warp
There is little to none post processing done because all the lighting is done with the paintings so there is no lighting department so there would be no use for post
Oh, so thats where the 250 Millon dollars went
People were too focused on the characters to realize that a majority of the peripheral/background scene is mostly 2D. Which is good, means the artists knew what they were doing. It's just more efficient to paint in the details where they need to be rather than make every object 3D and then adjust each as needed.
"They didn't have enough money."
- Meanwhile, the budget of $250 million makes Arcane the most expensive animated series in history😲
2:09 not too much money?? bruh they already said it costs like 90-100 million for the whole show
~ Literally the highest budget animated show ever made
~ Doesn't have as much money
rip
Holy shit where can I learn to do that
Production costs: The first nine episodes cost over $80 million, and the second batch cost close to $100 million oh yeas it was super cheap to make cos it wanst 3d . it cost that much reason why hey might not be season3
This guy has no idea what he is talking about. This show is almost entirely 3D and there is nothing wrong with that
While a lot of backgrounds would be hand painted. A good chunk would reprojected on to 3D models to provide more flexibility with shots and making changes, esp when a character has to interact with them. also arcane has a massive budget and has been in production since 2016 lol. at least read the credits jfc
and to note: Alberto Mielgo used a similar projection method, 3D paint over, and a lot of layering & compositing to achieve the final look. saying a minimal amount is not 3D was used is completely wrong. also that is Albertos style, he's not trying to compete with blur at all, he's a literal god who just does what he wants.
Idk if you're right about this. Simon magnum is a 3D supervisor at fortiche and he recently just posted some 3D background shots.
Why am I subscribed to you? Not that I care, I love the content, but who are you?
Savage. 😂
Now THIS is what I call 2.5D
so the 3D is basically to the animators, to make the moves realistic and smooth.
Either one of the 3d artists also took part in painting, or they used a few tricks to perfectly match lighting to renders. It is not hard to put a simple box around a few places and render them for making references for the artists. Other than that, yeah. Painting stuffl ike that is possible. And riot has money to hire good painters that can do that stuff.
Cheaper than 3d environment, and also helps painters to draw faster. It seems like, arcane is best of both worlds. A combination of 2d and 3d. It is smart.
I wish riot would put even half of this effect on the game itself.
I actually like it more this way
The phrase you’re looking for is matte painting
They’re painted backgrounds for film and games in the industry that are basically illusions to grand scenes that would be too hard to create with other methods.
In layman’s terms, yes, there’s a lot of 2D establishing shots, but not as much as you think. A behind the scenes showcase showed us that there’s actually quite an elaborate 3D stage they greybox.
While painting huge establishing shots as 2D would be a huge time and money saver, having to paint that same environment from multiple angles in a scene is really not. The reason why arcane does it is just for a captivating style.
Other studios in the industry wouldn’t be caught doing something as inefficient as making multiple paintings of an asset from different angles instead of just 3d modelling it.
This ain't like 1994's the Canadian/American 3D TV show Reboot. Of course, I think Reboot was the first 3D show ever made. But it's good to see tech from 1994 to today and see how it's has advanced through the years.
How do they project the shadows of the characters on the planes in the set?
Zen ren: arcane dont have to much money
me:google how much did is cost to make arcane
google: The total series budget is $250M. Split across 18 episodes means approximate per episode budget is $18.34M.
me: "falls off chair"
my man, mielgo was booted from spiderverse, because doing stuff in 2d was too pricey
Ahora me fijare más en saber si está o no en 3d, gracias por este video 😍
I could share it to my friends but it has some explicit scenes of love,death & robots, so if you wouldn't add that, i would definitely share this video. but now i can't.
As a traditionally trained animator, I'm less interested in what's 2d and what's 3d and more interested in how they composited it all together so well. Painterly skins on 3d models are done all the time but 9 out of 10 times the illusion breaks the moment a character moves in 3d space, which completely defeats the purpose of making it 3d in the first place. It's still not perfect in Arcane but it's much, much better than the average. Talented artists who clearly know their tools; very deft balance of compositing/shaders/skins.
It's not just what's on screen, either; I'd like to know how they set up and manage a project like this. Something as simple as a door swinging open most of the way vs a foot or two could mean the difference between it being sent down a completely different pipeline. Takes lots of very precise planning.
Either way, it's very refreshing to see they largely stayed away from those terrible, floaty 2d puppet-tool animations, and from mocap. I realize mocap has it's uses, but it gets applied to things it has no business being applied to. Imo the practical applications where the puppet tool can make something look good are so limited it might as well not even exist.
"They don't have as much money"? Really? The second season costs about 250 Millions, from what I've read. This is serious money.
There are a lot of Painted 2D backgrounds in the show. But to say that only the characters are 3D is misinformation. You cant do those 360 camera shots during some fight scenes with just painted backgrounds. They actually modelled some of the background elements then painted over then to make them more cohesive with the look of the show. And no, 2D painted backgrounds are not always cheaper than 3D ones. With 3D it's way easier to populate a scene with pre modelled elements you already have and if you want a different angle of the same scene, It's as simple as moving the camera around. You can't do that with painted backgrounds. each angle is a new painting. and every painting is super labor intensive.
I think you are wrong , you have good references to say this is mostly 2D?, I looked for the environment artists of Arcane and in their portafolio they have different shots of the enviros , and we can see that textures are not projected and there are props in the scenes. Im sure they used a lot of 2D for matte painting and VFX tho. In fact even the enviros artists said in the project description "3D environments" , painted textures doesn't make an object 2D, it just makes it NPR, the official material released by Riot and the artists involved seem to contradict what you are saying , you have good references to state your point?, I'm legit curious , fortiche have protected a lot their in-house techniques so there isnt that much material about it , but the one I have found states it's 3D mostly (it haves lots of 2D that's true). Hope my comment doesn't read with bad vibes, peace ✌️
www.artstation.com/artwork/YKBnmP
This guy doesnt know what hes talking about if im completley honest. Yes there is a lot of 2D in Arcane but mostly its 3D, its probably made the same way Spiderman into the Spiderverse was made. People forget that some studios have so called shader artists and programmers that know how to program certain shaders, Klaus from Netflix is also mostly 3D. You can do a lot of 2D styled looks with 3D render softwares like Vray, Arnold, you name it. Vray is one of the most used render engines world wide and is used for very special productions aswell, an example would be Spiderman into the Spiderverse.
@@klauszwegert6382 Klaus isn’t 3D at all , strictly 2D.
@@leflexican its mostly 2d but there are some 3d things in Klaus
@@ZeyuRen if you just read the whole post you linked you will see "Big high five to my teammates in 3D environment on those ones..."
Of course it's true part of the environments are 2d. I think the coolest thing about Arcane's style is that we are not even sure which is 2d and which 3d, this just shows what of a good job the team did with planning and blending all of the elements.
This is not entirely accurate (this is why I hate the absence of a dislike count). What's going on is that Fortiche studios basically blocks out a scene in 3D. They project the different perspectives they need, and then paint over them. The painted images are then "baked" (which is to say projected) unto the 3D models in order to receive accurate lighting and shadows on them.
riot release behind the scene on their channel..
They can be 3D with UV projection paint over! end of story!