Blender 2D Style Animation

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:32 pm

Hey Guys,
I wanted to run something by you, regarding the 3D animation/modeling program Blender. A while back I saw an animation that was done on Animation Master (a 3D program) a few years ago, and it was an incredible piece of work, but what was particularly interesting is that it looked like a traditional 2D animation. That got me thinking, theoretically you should be able to do the same thing in Blender, right? Make it look like a 2D animation but have the flexibility of 3D. It's an interesting thought. Sometimes it's just so valuable to have that extra plane to work in, like when you need a character's limb to cross over his body ( ie: while punching, etc).

Anyway, any thoughts are appreciated.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:44 pm

Hello Matsuemon.

I basically wrote the manual on toon shading for Animation Master, back in the nineties and I believe my toon shading tutorials are still available on Hash ftp.

It really depends on the 3d render engine. Mentalray has a quite decent toon shader, so does lightwave and Max has a few commercial toon shaders, and of course so does A:M, which has a terrible 3d renderer, but a fast and good 2d shader.

Never used Blender, but chances are you will never get the same results as you can get in A:M, or any other package for that matter.

What was that animation that you saw?

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:47 pm

Hey thanks for your comments! I can't quite remember the name of it, but it was one of the animations featured on their website, and it was like a "Princess Bride" kind of feel: the main guy was wearing black and the two characters were in an awesome sword fight. Really impressive work. In fact, it almost made me guy A.M. despite the lack of recent development/support.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:34 pm

You're best off with Blender, it is free, has huge support and development.

A:M has the worst renderer out there, so if you ever want to get into 3D you would be stuck with it as nothing plugs in it.

All the pros went away from it.

Also, it uses splines for modelling, not polys or nurbs, it needs a bit of getting used to!

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:58 pm

Here is a toon render test I made in A:M back in 99, it is still on hash FTP_

ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/movies/rooster.mov

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:20 pm

Hey Gilles, wow that's pretty cool looking. How long did it take you, do you remember?
Yah I hear those negative things about A.M., the same things you mentioned, but I'm always so impressed with the work I see coming from it. Oh, I wasn't sure what you meant by "it is still on hash FTP"?
Thanks again for your input and have a good day!

--Jason

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:04 pm

As far as I remember it did not take long.

Yeah, Hash keeps most of everything on a public ftp, which is nice, and remember we<ere talking the 90's here, Hash was quite in advance for it's time regarding the use of the web!

Matsuemon · Post by **Matsuemon** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:35 pm

GCharb wrote:As far as I remember it did not take long.

Yeah, Hash keeps most of everything on a public ftp, which is nice, and remember we<ere talking the 90's here, Hash was quite in advance for it's time regarding the use of the web!

Oh that's right, Hash is the name of the company, isn't it?

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:15 am

Nooo, it is the name of herb sometimes used in medicinal therapy!

Martin Hash, founder and original developer of Animation Master.

I have kept over 40 emails I got from him back in the days!

A:M is a fun app to use, was buggy as hell around version 7, got me in lots of trouble with the company back then!

Probably the easiest and most fun 3D application I have ever used.

crsP · Post by **crsP** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:28 am

Blender can do toon shading with edges in the 'standard' version. But also there is a module called 'freestyle' which has a lot more advanced options and styles [sketching etc.]. Probably best to search youtube for blender + freestyle and check out the results.

These toon effects look like 2d in stills, but as soon as the start to move, you can tell it is 3d. You can limit the movement and make it look similar to something like AS point animation, but if you're going to do that, why bother?

To me, the best thing to come out of Animation Master was Jeff Lew's Killer Bean 2. But from the article in 3dWorld about his process, it seems he got away with that quality through way of workarounds, which could only be guessed with intimate knowledge of Animation Master.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:41 pm

Many of the A:M pros did amazing stuff, like Joe Cosman, Weg Eggingnton, Jeff Lew, TAK and the power of juju, Avalanche, alen song etc.

It is a really good 3d animation software and could kick ass if it did a better job at rendering and playing with other software.

Also, because it was so unstable, we had to find workarounds for about everything, which was a pain and counter productive.

Now Martin nearly stopped the development of it, stating, as usual, that it is the best piece of 3d software out there!

patricia3d · Post by **patricia3d** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:31 pm

Both with Blender Same file.

This Image No Composit Node

With Composit Node ( 2D Style Render ) same Render setting only Composit Node.

ruscular3d · Post by **ruscular3d** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:39 am

http://www.mikegreen.name/MyAnims/StreetComp.mov

using Lightwave with front projection shader to the dark area with a animated sketch texture. I am just repeating what was said but don't fully understand it.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 12:48 pm

I remember playing with LW toon render some 10 years ago, it was pretty good even back then!

LW renderer is pretty good overall.