Sonder and Cycles represent very interesting takes on the medium that is animation. By combining a variety of techniques, methods, and ideologies, both of these projects have stuck at as unique pieces of narrative art. Animation has always been this medium in which things are edited together or rendered before consumption, meaning that everything is done and ready to go before it’s ever consumed. Sonder, Cycles, and other films that employ similar methods instead rely on this idea of playing content back in real time. It’s almost as if you’re watching a play, but rather than real actors and sets, you’re instead seeing these digital stories unfold before you. From a technical standpoint, it is very impressive. These short films that would’ve once taken weeks to render can now be played in an engine at real time. Sonder was created in the Unity gaming engine, which it uses to create the playback at the time of consumption. Cycles pushes the idea of realtime playback even further by turn using the concept to its advantage. The film takes place in virtual reality, so you are essentially thrown into the middle of the scene and then have the ability to freely look around you as the story unfolds. Such storytelling would only be possible with it playing back in a virtual environment that you could navigate and move to adjust parallax and other depth effects. Again such effects would only be possible with real time creation techniques.
https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/news/sonder-introduces-gaming-tech-film-world
Nick's Art 3001 Sketchbook 