2d animation in blender

#1

Hi everyone I was wondering if creating a 2d animation in blender would save time? if so how can i make a 2d animation in blender? I can draw fairly well( but still need to improve) and i want to make a anime mini webisode( 10-15min)…something like naruto and bleach visual wise. I want to hand draw my characters and use blender to animate the characters since 3d cartoons is a little time consuming. Here are the software i plan to use:

google sketchup- for the city, and the sets( if it can import in blender or i may use blender in toonshade it)
Gimp- to paint the sky,characters, and environments
blender- to animate/composite the animation( or i may use after effects for composititng)
Audacity- for voices and sfx

  • don’t know any free music programs, but any cheap suggestions would be nice

any suggestions, advice, and help would be nice on making a 2d short anime series…I am not planning on making the cartoon now( i am still learning blender and drawing to improve a bit) but soon once i know blender well, thank you

sorry for any poor english and grammar

#2

Hmm, Just trying to imagine how one can use a 3D app for 2D.
Two approaches come to mind:

[ol]
[li]Create the characters in 3D and render with toon shaders[/li][li]Do the 2D drawings (per frame) outside Blender then use Blender’s ‘Video Sequencer’ to assemble them.[/li][/ol]
Else, you might want to check out Synfig. I’ve not used it before, but I hear its good

#3

thanks for the advice…more is welcomed :slight_smile:

#4

Perhaps you should consider Anime Studio Pro or the standard version if you’re on a budget.

I typically prefer to use that program for 2D since it uses bones for deformation giving me a similar experience to working with a 3D app, plus I also prefer vector artwork over pixel where possible since its more object oriented compared to painted pixels.

If you still prefer using Blender, then I’d create “3D flat” characters; think Gumby or better, a gingerbread man laying flat on a cookie sheet - you can still texture map it similar to a flat cartoon character but after rigging with bones, it would be movable in Blender since its a regular Mesh object.

Just don’t turn render from the side since there wouldn’t be any real depth to the model(s).

-Will

#5

thank you…that was really helpful

#6

I agree with WillBellJr - Anime Studio Pro seems best suited to your ideas. Though Blender actually offers more functionality, albit at the expense of more complexity! Don’t forget, South Park was and is animated in Poweranimator/Maya.

These tutorials can provide you with a head-start:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=77196&page=1

#7

I know I’m late on posting but I figured someone might find it helpful.

Yes, Blender (or most 3D programs) can do 2D animation by creating flat objects and applying textures (your drawings) to them. You can then rig the shapes with bones for character animation. This gives you all the animation tools that blender has (timeline, dope sheet, graph editor…)
some tuts on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6PLWQOaEOI&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

look around its been done to one degree or another

#8

Another advantage to the whole 2D animation in a 3D environment is that you get a lot of things for free.

If you’re doing a scene that needs to portray a lot of depth, well instead of scaling and moving items around you can simply move objects further back and you get realistic depth across the whole scene.

This is a good way of doing the city backdrops, you could have a matte at the very back, followed by layers of library buildings (Just have one a blend file that contains all of the building assets, and link them in), then the mid & foreground and then your characters and setting up a scene wouldn’t take too long as it would simply be a case of linking in assets, and even if you wanted to modify and entire library (a blend file) you modify them in their host file and the changes would be taken across to all of your scene files.

And then there are things like the compositor which works exceptionally well with the 3D view-port, and you can use render layers to great effect, and things like light linking/ local-lights-per-material, and all kinds of cool things which could give Blender the edge over dedicates 2D packages.

One thing you’ll need to do before jumping in to creating assets though is test out which file format Blender accepts with out artefacts as on some occasions image formats with alpha channels can cause a problem in the view-port and/ or render.

EDIT: Also, there is an add-on that allows you to import an .xcf (Gimp file) directly into Blender and it’ll create a UV mapped plane (with alphas) for ever layer that exists in .xcf file. That right there could be your file type of choice, as the alphas work perfectly, and you can also, on import set-up things like alpha properties, shadeless, as well as having a render layer per image layer!!

#9

Yes I concur with DanielWray. Actually that emulates how traditional Disney animations did parallax. They had separate paintings on glass plates for the background, mid, and foreground and shot it with a camera. Check out this video of Disney’s Multiplane camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d4-AUwkKAw

So with Blender you can basically do the same thing in 3D.

#10

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.