The Stonecutter utilizes 3-d characters on top of 2-d painted backgrounds.

this allowed me to have very detailed, textured backgrounds without having to actually construct them as models. i enlisted the services of Jason Cheeseman-Meyer to produce the painted elements.

the difficulty with this approach is in producing parallax, the change of angular position of two stationary points relative to each other as seen by an observer, from the 2-d backgrounds.

to overcome this, i've utilized a technique known as 2 1/2 D. i picked up this approach from Eric Hanson's VFX classes at USC. many of the background pieces are just cards, flat planes with images on them placed in 3-d space.

however, for certain large pieces, it became necessary to use camera projection. this involves creating simplified 3-d geometry of the object involved, then projecting a texture onto it.

an example of these techniques can be seen here.

for shot009, the camera had to move a great deal.

to achieve this effect, the actual 3-d environment looked like this

the trees and rocks are simple planes, while the ground surfaces are 3-d geometry with images projected onto them. if you move the camera too far from the point of projection, the illusion begins to break down.