Found this thread again, bit of history in here at the beginning of it. I wonder what that Hobgoblin project was that animator did was for if it was for a Sony Spider-Man cartoon. I found the page with that stuff archived. There's a couple of images of a Hobgoblin model and an animation test, notably with the cel shaded 3D look of this series.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060513152938/http://www.splinegod.com/spiderman.htm
I was watching this show again because it had its 15th anniversary recently. I kinda forgot how much of a guilty pleasure it was for me and found myself appreciating it more for what it was.
It's such an oddity in the canon of Spidey cartoons because it's supposed to be in the same continuity of Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie because that was huge the year prior, and it often doesn't really fit but that adds to the appeal for me because it operates as it's own weird quasi-sequel.
It had little restrictions in terms of violence, language, sex talk, alcohol- and I don't think they were gratuitous with it, either. But when they do include things those kinds of things it's interesting because I don't see another Spider-Man animated series like this happening ever again that's geared towards a teen audience/adults. It's such a snapshot of the early 2000s- early CGI animation with techno/club/trance sountrack, edgy and on MTV, locked between SM1 & SM2 but doesn't really fit at all...
It has to be said though that Neil Patrick Harris was great as Spidey, and one of the only actors besides Paul Soles to really give a great distinction between Peter and Spidey's voices where I can feel like they could be two different people. Spidey himself looked great in this series, with really exaggerated and graceful movements that really benefited from the 3D animation. While the cel-shaded CGI animation is spotty at times with the normal humans, for the most part when Spidey is on screen or when it's neon-lit at night in New York it looks gorgeous and really unique.
End of the day watching it again I do wish we would have gotten that long-gestating in the rumor mill second season, because that cliffhanger bummed me out when I was younger watching it and seeing Peter give up. Now we all know he wouldn't have given up permanently but things looked pretty grim for everybody at the end and that's just no fun. The show's director Brandon Vietti said he pitched a Mysterio story for the 2nd season and I wonder if that could have been the episode to bring Spidey out of his retirement, would have been cool to see more comic villains in a 2nd season. Would have only gotten more interesting from there I'm sure, but at least we'll always have this one weird very 2003 season.
Right now we have a fine Disney Spidey cartoon running on Disney XD and that's as apt of a description as you could use to define it, too: "fine." It's just so bland and safe to me, both with writing and animation. I can watch it and enjoy it and it's fine.