Sure, you've made flip books before, but have you ever made flip books in 3D? Come summer you'll be able to do that, when Nintendo launches Flipnote Studio 3D on Nintendo 3DS. A new Nintendo Direct video today revealed the launch and detailed the online services it'll offer, including a paid subscription for people who are really, really keen on animated gifs.

The main feature Flipnote Studio 3D boasts over plain old Flipnote Studio is, of course, that it can make animations in faux-3D, messing with layer depths to mess with people's heads. But wait, there's more! Studio 3D also boosts the colour palette from two tones to a spectacular six. You can export animations as AVI video files.

Nintendo's already having fun with Flipnote Studio 3DS internally, as Shigeru Miyamoto used it to create mock-ups of the planned Pikmin cartoon shorts.

Users will be able to share their creations with pals through the online Flipnote Gallery: Friends portal, rating, commenting on, and downloading them. If you're a real animaniac, hoping to see or even create the very best of the world's Nintendo 3DS flip books, you'll need to pay.

The Flipnote Gallery: World portal will charge what Nintendo president Satoru Iwata calls a "small" monthly fee to view and upload animations outside your network. It'll "help cover the costs of maintaining the servers and service operations," he explained.

A free thirty-day trial will be on offer, so you have time to decide just how serious you are about flip books, and Nintendo plans to open access on special days too. To encourage the cream of the animating crop, Nintendo will give a free month to people who consistently create popular animations.

Sadly, the circle of life demands deaths follow births, and the original Flipnote Studio's online service will shut down on May 31.

Here's the Nintendo Direct video announcing it all, but if you have a 3DS you should go view it through the eShop to see the animations in all their 3D glory: