For a long time ago now, I have watched cartoons like: Papyrus, Astroy Boy, How To Train Your Dragon, Cloudy With The Chance of MeatBall etc I have referred to these cartoons as 3D. Not untill recently when my cousin and I were gisting about "RANGO" and I said I like 3d rango cartoon so much and he was like, NO, RANGO IS AN ANIMATED CARTOON, NOT 3D AND THAT 3D CARTOONS/MOVIES ARE WATCHED IN THE CINEMA. So, whats the difference and can you site examples of each?

I would like to answer your question by re-phrasing or clarifying a few things.
1. There are 3D movies they could be animated or live footage.
And of course there is the 2D movies you watch on your Tv.
2. Both can be watched at the cinemas and at home provided you have a 3D player and TV.
You will however need 3D glasses to view 3D images in its glory.
Animated movies could be Computer generated or hand drawn. And as I said they could be 3D. Hand drawn animations like Lion king are generally 2D
Most of the animated movies you mentioned are 3D movies (though you'd mainly get to see the 2D version). Examples of 3D live footage movies are Hugo, most of the harry potter, Avatar, the Hobbit was shot in 3D etc.
I think the confusion comes as a result of the software used to generate CGI (computer generated images) or animated images they are generally called 3D software. examples of 3D software are Maya, XSI, Cinema 4D, and 3D Max. I hope this helped you can ask for clarification or follow @somadino

Thanks so much. *tips hat*

animation is 2D, i think.

meaning two dimensional- length and breadth only.

3D would be three dimensional characters and setting, giving a more realistic feel to the movie.

There's the illusion of depth which a 2D doesnt have.

A good example of 3D is legend of the guardians, which while needing a little fine-tuning on the storyline, has very impressive 3D animation.

somadino: I would like to answer your question by re-phrasing or clarifying a few things.
1. There are 3D movies they could be animated or live footage.
And of course there is the 2D movies you watch on your Tv.
2. Both can be watched at the cinemas and at home provided you have a 3D player and TV.
You will however need 3D glasses to view 3D images in its glory.
Animated movies could be Computer generated or hand drawn. And as I said they could be 3D. Hand drawn animations like Lion king are generally 2D
Most of the animated movies you mentioned are 3D movies (though you'd mainly get to see the 2D version). Examples of 3D live footage movies are Hugo, most of the harry potter, Avatar, the Hobbit was shot in 3D etc.
I think the confusion comes as a result of the software used to generate CGI (computer generated images) or animated images they are generally called 3D software. examples of 3D software are Maya, XSI, Cinema 4D, and 3D Max. I hope this helped you can ask for clarification or follow @somadino

nice write up.

Let me clear the air by making u understand it in a more clearity way. Just note that when it comes to cartoon we have
1. 2D cartoon e.g beauty and the beast, The lion king, all these categories of cartoon are known as 2D animation or 2D cartoon but as we develop in technology that brings us to ....
2. 3D cartoon e.g Shrek, Ice age and the likes are known as 3D and what your brother mean to say is 3D movies
3. 3D movie : Now the new platform of television now is called 3D tv and you can only enjoy a 3D movie or feel you are watching 3D movie through the wearing of 3D glasses either at home or cinema and both 2D and 3D cartoons can be converted to 3D movies example of this is The beauty and the beast cartoon which is now in 3D movie. If you happen to watch the movie on a 3D tv without a 3D glass u won't notice any difference but with the 3D glass you feel you are in the movie scene seeing it live.
4. The latest technology in TV now is the 4D known as hologram but not yet on commercial. With this technology you can bring death person to live to perform a live show and watch the person live

I don't have the technical know-how to clarify the difference for you so I will give you a visual explanation instead.

Animated
http://m.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&clien=mv-google&gl=NG&v=ZeqYxxD3tF4



[color=#0066000]3D[/color]
[url]m.youtube.com/results?client=mv-google&hl=en&gl=NG&q=Avatar&submit=Search[/url]

Thanks. I understand fully well now.

I've noticed this too for long. If it's 3D cartoon, the mouth movement kind of pair with the words as they are saying it...just like real humans.