This My Little Pony Character's Bizarre 2D/3D Look Will Break Your Brain
Twilight Sparkle, but DOOM-style.
This Schrödinger's pony appears to use an old trick from games like DOOM and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall: a multi-angle billboard sprite. Despite looking very three-dimensional, it's not a true 3D model: it simulates a 3D look by switching between multiple flat images.
The concept is pretty simple: a flat sprite that always turns to face the camera, with several pre-drawn views of the same object, showing it from the front, side, back, and other angles. As the camera moves, the engine calculates the viewing angle, selects the closest matching image, and displays it on a camera-facing quad. This creates the illusion of a rotating 3D object even though it's just a 2D image.
Inspired by cladur's Twilight, another artist tried rotating a Sonic head model in a similar style:
"The logic is to detect the facing angle to the camera and use that transform to switch frames mainly. The idea is simple, it's all about how to set that up. And yes, it's a rig that, if I wanna I can actually add body and stuff, like how a normal 2D rig works."
Blender is actually way more suited for 2D than you might think:
BeyondDev's CamKeys, an add-on that links shape keys and object properties to camera angles, can apparently pull off a similar trick with its latest update. You need to add a mesh or lattice in the top panel, enable Forced Perspective, then turn on Stepped Turn Around in the same panel. This feature will soon be renamed Billboard Emulation.
You might also find this recent talk from Blender Conference 2026 useful:
Want to see more mind-bending camera tricks in Blender? Check out this viewport vs. final render comparison of a character from an independent Japanese sci-fi animated short by Eit Mitsufuchi, and learn why it's flat here.
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