WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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In the genre of Japanese animation, Nichijou
is an anime that’s famous among animators

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for where it spent its animation budget.

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While other cartoons put all their money into
fight sequences and making sure the first

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and last episodes look spectacular, here comes
Nichijou like hey, I’m going to put all

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my money on spilling a pot of curry.

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There are lots of interesting and funny sequences,
but I wanted to take a closer look at the

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penny soccer scene.

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I’m going to play it for you.

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This is a scene that goes seamlessly from
3D to 2D.

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I’m dumbfounded.

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I want to see exactly where or how they did
this, or when it switches from 3D to 2D, so

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let’s take a look here.

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We start off with the 2D show style.

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Go to pure 3D, where the background and the
characters are 3D models.

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There is actually no animation here at all.

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The only thing moving is the camera.

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At some point in here the character animation
becomes 2D.

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Is that also true for the background?

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No.

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No, it’s not.

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The background stays 3D.

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The part that gives it away is when the camera
comes back around to its final resting spot.

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Look at how perfectly those desks align with
zero changes in line quality.

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If they were drawn by hand those lines would
wobble.

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Compare the desks with the characters.

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Line motion, no line motion.

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Has this classroom setting always been 3D
and we didn’t realize it until now?

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Backtrack to the setup before the scene I
played.

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Is that desk the same as this desk?

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It’s really hard to tell.

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Look at the white feet here and the gray feet
here.

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That’s the only thing that suggests to me
this desk is hand drawn and this one is not.

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And maybe the fact the hand drawn desk outline
better matches the characters than the 3D

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desk.

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If we leave the soccer scene and go earlier
into the episode, a shot like this shows the

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hand drawn nature of the desks.

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There are lots of little differences between
chair backs.

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How do the backgrounds stay so accurate?

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The background artists draw on top of a 3D
model to begin with.

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You can make a 3D setting in a program like
SketchUp and use it as reference for drawing

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the same classroom at any angle accurately.

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Alright, back to soccer and I think I know
where the character animation changes.

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These highlights in the hair are painted directly
on to the 3D model.

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They stay in the same place even as the camera
moves.

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And it’s right… here… that it changes.

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Now you can also see a change in the lines.

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From here to here they do get a little bit
thicker.

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The reason the rest of the rotation looks
like it’s still 3D is because the character

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animators have the 3D models to draw on top
of for reference.

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Animating on top like that is called rotoscoping.

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For the final animation, the 3D characters
are removed and all we see is the 3D classroom

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and the 2D characters.

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As for why this is the switching point, it’s
likely because the characters don’t look

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believable in 3D once the camera gets this
close.

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There aren’t any lights or shaders in the
3D setting, so shadows like this wouldn’t

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show up unless somebody drew them by hand.

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2D animation also lets you reposition anatomy.

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This mouth would not show up on the side of
the face on the 3D model.

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And that’s the secret to switching between
2D and 3D animation.