Every Thursday we're opening the studio doors and answering all of your questions. Technical, industry, fandom or otherwise - drop your question in the comments below - and we'll hop to it. (We're fielding Q's on Facebook, Twitter and G+ too, if that's easier!)

Got some questions for us? Throw 'em our way!

From the comments below we have: A few questions for your animators (junior and senior!)

We got our Lead Animator Rob Byrne to field these:

What are the three most important things that you have done to get yourself where you are today (and why)?

The three most important things I have done were probably:

1) Been willing to start at the bottom and work really hard. When I started in 3d animation, I had only done hand drawn and flash animation, a visual effects company gave me a chance because they liked my 2d work but they explained to me that they didn’t do 2d there so I would have to come in as a runner and try and learn 3d myself. I joined and spent the day making coffee and taking out the bins and in the evenings the supervisors would leave me old shots (ones that had already been completed so I could not do any damage) to practice with. I asked people for help when they could spare the time, I watched tutorials and I did my best with the shots. In the mornings I would show the supervisors and get their opinions. After a while they gave me some real shots to do and they said I could stop making coffee (I made really bad coffee). 

2) The second most important thing is to talk to other animators, find out what they like, what they are influenced by and try and learn something from that. It’s easy to only be influenced by a handful of styles or people/studios. It’s important to keep your influences as broad as you can.

3) The most important thing of all is to learn to accept criticism and to take advice on board. Often (almost always) this will mean changing a lot of work which can be a pain, but it’s important to recognise good suggestions and not be precious about your work. That’s the only way your work will improve.

What do you do to keep improving?

I keep animating to keep improving! The more you do the better you will get. Watch Films, do life drawing, study animation from your favourite films. Find people who have the same interest as you (college is a good place to start).

How often do your tools and techniques change?

Tools and technologies change quite rapidly but usually it’s a process that evolves rather than changes dramatically. Every year the main 3d packages will release new versions, and these will have new features. Animators are lucky as these are not absolutely essential to know inside out as they might be for say riggers or lighters. Once you are familiar with the main principles of animation then the 3d package you use should not matter too much. Technique is something that is always evolving and developing and you learn more and more useful techniques as you go.

Where do your ideas for new IPs come from? Are they typically in-house, external submissions, or from some other avenue?

Our Development Producer Jennie Stacey previously answered this one: We develop a lot of projects in-house with members of the Brown Bag team. For short films, we only develop projects that come from our staff as our talented crew generate a lot of great ideas for films, for example Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, Bird Food, Anya and our latest upcoming short An Ode To Love. Unfortunately for legal reasons we can only accept projects from outside our studio through recognised agents or other animation producers or broadcasters.

See this previous AMA post for a full answer on this!

Next question from Sam from the comments below:

How do you feel about the industry moving away from 2D animation? Do you think we'll ever see a resurgence of 2D or is it 3D from here on out?
What are some of your favourite 2D and 3D animations? Shorts, features, anything goes - but try to pick at least one from another studio! ;)

We asked the big boys Cathal and Darragh what they thought:

From Cathal Gaffney: 2D and 3D animation will sit together in harmony like TV and Radio. They are both beautiful forms of animation, equal in their own right and it entirely depends on the audience why a director or producer would choose a technique. 3D and stop-motion animation tend to work best for pre-school and 2D animation tends to work best for 6-11 year olds, there are no “rules”. The only certainty is change and even with the fast pace that animation technology is moving at, there will always be a home for 2D animation. Much as I love the technology and flexibility of 3D animation, I can't imagine I would enjoy Toy Story if it was a hand drawn film and similarly, Give Up Yer Aul Sins would not work if it was animated by a computer. I hope that helps.

From Darragh O'Connell: I don’t think 2d animation will ever go away and it is certainly preferable in a lot of cases.

However, I do see digital taking it further & further away from full productions being done as traditional hand drawn animation. All the traditional skills still apply but the use of Photoshop, After FX & various 2d animation softwares are used all the time to PLUS the animation.

I’ve always been a huge fan of old school 2d shorts like the Big Snit & The Cat Came Back!