Futurama was presented to our eyeballs via image projection devices that only transmit two dimensional visuals, and even though the projected images are strictly reruns these days there is still a lot of fan love out there for the Adventures of the Galaxy Express gang.
If those image projection devices were able to transmit the show’s visual code in 3D it probably would have looked a lot like these amazing CGI Futurama visualizations by Alexy Zakharov, with lots of fine details and shiny bits.
But since the show was created by Matt Groening, a guy who appreciates the value of super flat characters, two dimensional character art was a given.
The fine humanoids who worked on the show rendered the buildings, vehicles, and some of the space effects in 3D, using a technique called Toon Shading to make the 3D models look more like 2D drawings, but their CGI looked nothing like Alexy's incredibly realistic version of Futurama!
-Via Gamma Squad