Two-dimensional animation has generally been the poor relation of three-dimensional animation, as far as computer-assistance is concerned. The Animachine project is an attempt to view the whole production process of 2D (cel) animation as ripe for computer-based help, while still allowing artists to retain as much of their traditional way of working as possible. In this paper, we summarize our progress on a renderer for such multi-layer animated graphics. There is little emphasis on the movement aspects of our work. We discuss the various results which can be achieved without recourse to full 3D techniques, we show that the approach is versatile and can be used to achieve a wide range of useful effects. >