3D Icons And 2D Icons Fight

2D and 3D icons design - what's the big difference?

Speaking about 3d Icons we need to point out that the source of light plays a very important role for creating authentic three-dimensional images. Certainly the using several light sources in web site design nowadays is more effective but bear in mind that they should follow basic rules of physics and be truthful. So if you would like to make 3D web icons look softer and more realistic - use several lights.

Both 2D and 3D icons represent the volume found in the three-dimensional world but use different means of creating this illusion. 2D Icons can surely represent volume to less extent than 3D Icons. More often the images are flat and show just one perspective. To this disadvantage you can also add one more - detailed highlights and imperceptible soft shadows are missing. The shades usage is limited as well.

3D web icons can be proud of all these features instead. But 3D is mathematical replication of the data which anyway limits its usage. Sometimes you can easily replace 3D Icons by 2D ones or by the videos with the sounds - but all this depends on situation. The sounds give some extra dimensionality to the videos that actually use 2D images.Software used for 3D modeling allows to make that 3D dimension. Bear in mind that 3D icons need to be depicted in correlation with the other objects and the environment they're placed into.