Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-28831435-20160703040107/@comment-4010415-20160703111816

If they re-animated the entire series in a 2D style, there wouldn't be much point in watching it, but I can bet that there would still be Americans watching the 2D version if it was produced by Japan, simply because "It was made by Japan, therefore it's inherently better than the shitty American version! If they dub it, I won't watch the dub! Subs only! Japan woohoo!"

If the 2D version had completely new stories, it would be interesting.

However, the 3D style of RWBY actually kind of gives it an advantage over 2D. With 2D, the artist has to figure out for themselves what the positioning and actions would look like and attempt to illustrate it. They also have to remember to draw in details in the background if they want there to be some attention to detail. With 3D, the animator doesn't need to do that. The sets and character models are like a digital version of an actual Hollywood set with actors. There's no need to visualize and figure out how that would look because all you have to do is pose the characters and put them in the spot they're supposed to be in, and you can physically see what it's supposed to look like. This makes fight scene animation easier because they can more easily translate the idea from their mind into the animation without having to focus on whether or not it looks right.

Plus, with 3D, they don't have to keep up with animating what's going on in the background of the shot as much as they have to with 2D. They just load up the set, place the moving models where they're supposed to be, tell the models what animations they're doing, and if they're going somewhere, set a route. Then, place the camera wherever they want for the angle they want and don't worry about the background character's who are supposed to walk by in the shot because their animation and route are already set up.

It's like, in It's Brawl in the Family, Ironwood is actually physically present, walking toward Qrow and Winter's fight, when Winter had her glyph up behind her! No one had to sit there and try to draw in how that would look, when viewed between the transparent portions of her glyph. All they had to do was load in Ironwood's model, set the walking animation, and set his route to be walking toward Winter. Then, they placed the camera in front of Winter, with her glyph rotating behind her. That's it. The detail of being able to see Ironwood's legs through the transparent parts of her glyph was already taken care of without anyone having to work really hard on it. They could focus their attention on animating Winter's facial expressions instead.