Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

A place to discuss non-Moho software for use in animation. Video editors, audio editors, 3D modelers, etc.

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Psmith
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by Psmith »

Grease Pencil Layers can be Parented to any other object - like one single bone or even an Empty. And, multiple Grease Pencil Layers can be Parented to the same Bone or Empty.

The basics of such parenting (rigging) are to be found in my video:



The web can make or break a product. I'm seeing with my own YouTube Channel - unless people are continually gratified with new "anything" - they quickly lose interest and move on.

Such has been the case with OpenToonz and its Official Forum. No activity breeds no interest.


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exile
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by exile »

It was good to review this material - I actually reconstructed that tutorial on my computer, but have done nothing more with armatures since. At the moment I'm trying to breathe life into an "all on one layer" character. After hours of work, I had three seconds of animation, much of which I lost through a mishap. But the knowledge gained is priceless ... shouldn't be all that difficult to reconstruct.

My wife is a good example of a creative person who lives as though computers hadn't been invented. I told her, "Look, with this digitizer pen you can actually draw directly on the screen." She paid brief respects to nifty technology, went and picked up a brush and proceeded to paint on real paper. It would be hard to interest her even for a program 10 times as intuitive as anything yet invented. My bouts of loud expletives directed at the computer are probably not a great motivator for her to go digital.

There have been a couple of new tutorials for Open Toonz, beginner level stuff (nothing new even for me) for which the guy hopes to get support on Patreon - not sure what that is, but it must be a monetizing scheme. Hopefully there will be more activity soon.

I'll try to get the word out in the Blender forum, but as a new user I have to wait days before posts are approved. I can't be "exile" there, somebody else is.
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Psmith
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

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The moment I begin speaking about any software or new computer technique - whether the focus is artistic or otherwise - my Wife's eyes begin to glaze over and wander slightly to the right. When I say something like "are you listening to me?" - she always assures me that she is.

I always wondered why she wouldn't even use a computer for writing - she's a good writer. I also wondered why, after decades of reminding her about the power and function of "copy & paste" - she never seemed to retain that information.

It's been nearly 30 years since I first introduced her to "copy & paste" - and only this year did the light come on in her head - and she exclaimed, "Oh, now I know why it never works for me . . . I've been using "Ctrl-C" to Copy - and "Ctrl-P" to Paste." "It's "Ctrl-V" ! ! !

She's also seen me shouting expletives at my computer - beating on tables and going on rants about "what were these guys thinking when they made this? !!!"

Though even my health and vision have suffered from this technology - I persist in using it. Digital Purgatory.

Many times, through the years, I've had to abandon everything digital for lengthy periods - and make something PURELY with my hands. Ceramics is good, focused and meditative. I've even managed to sell some of the things I've made. They are REAL and you can hold them in your hands and drink out of them.


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exile
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by exile »

Imagine there was a race to be the most up-to-date and efficient and nobody came. OK, it would ruin parts of the economy, but who knows, if we were more laid back, we might be more productive in the long run. Our wives, by keeping out of digital purgatory (I like the term, not the condition) are probably the wiser ones.

In that vein I actually enjoyed trying to reconstruct those two seconds of lost animation. The difficulty is less software-related and more a problem of visualizing motion. My pencil pre-drawings were inadequate. Fortunately, the cost of pencil and paper is not prohibitive yet.

Nonetheless, the new offer on Moho 12.1 has me calculating back and forth ... fortunately my landlord blundered when he raised the rent. The tenants' union said to refuse to pay until he sends a claim in accordance with the law. I might celebrate that reprieve by capitulating to the upgrade ... won't decide before Monday.
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Psmith
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by Psmith »

Steve:

You let me know if you do upgrade - and, if so, maybe there will be the appearance of a few more Moho 12 videos from a certain source.

You could also, if you do upgrade, make a list of things you would like to see demonstrated.


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exile
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by exile »

A very tempting offer indeed, thanks very much! What I most appreciate about your tutorials is the way animation essentials are always included. I'll let you know without delay.
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exile
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by exile »

Psmith wrote:Steve:

You let me know if you do upgrade - and, if so, maybe there will be the appearance of a few more Moho 12 videos from a certain source.

You could also, if you do upgrade, make a list of things you would like to see demonstrated.


Greg Smith
Today I bit the dust and upgraded to Moho 12. Not least in helping me overcome my chronic indecision were your comments about Anime Studio / Moho being the best option if you just want to start animating (in the OT forum). Open Toonz and Grease Pencil have impressive features - I really like those GP sculpting tools - and great potential, but both have quite a ways to go to become complete packages for people of modest artistic abilities. I could have stuck with AS Version 11, but the improvement of the drawing tools was what roped me in. I'm a bit skeptical as to whether the warping mesh is really a game changer. I'll know more in the days and weeks to come, and will have a growing wish list for tutorials - there are quite a few to work through in the meantime. I appreciate your support during my Odyssey of searching for the best solution.
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by Psmith »

Many of us are seeking to animate 2D characters for use in an interactive environment, (I think).

Linear animation for entertainment is a good, but an extremely difficult goal for an individual animator to reach. The Story must be excellent. The pacing must be excellent. The Music and Sound must be excellent. The animation must be excellent, as well.

Somewhat more realistic for the individual animator may be the creation of an interactive "adventure" of some sort - featuring an animator's best characters and animations - able to interact - even simply - with a user's input. I remind you all of the classic Mac adventure (by Rand & Robin Miller of "Myst" fame):



It still has immense appeal as a storytelling vehicle. It is even available for sale (at this late date) on the Steam website.

What would any of you (Steve) think of a series that focused on Moho 12 as the Production Center for all assets - and Unity (Free) - with Playmaker - as the code-less basis for making such an interactive adventure?

Both Unity and Playmaker are now fully equipped to make, (without coding), a 2D interactive environment or adventure.

If there is enough interest - I would embark on the production of a Step-by-Step video series - leaving no stone unturned - all the way to the completion, presentation and marketing of such an interactive adventure.

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exile
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by exile »

That's a generous offer that will be sure to interest some advanced animators. I'm a bit overwhelmed - like a sandlot player looking at a major league stadium. I haven't done more than start the program and try to figure out how the new characters work.

Even a very simple grammar game or interactive quiz would be a major project for me.

But if I haven't put everybody to sleep, this thread is being read by others. Let's see what they say about this interesting suggestion.
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jahnocli
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by jahnocli »

Isn't programming in Unity a bit - um - nerdy? You could try Fungus. Fungus is a free Unity plug-in. There's quite a good Udemy course on using it to construct a simple interactive game: Make interactive games with Fungus & Unity3D - no coding. I tried it, and it is impressive, but every time I wanted to step out of the mainstream areas I was asked to consider coding...
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exile
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by exile »

Jahnocli - please read Greg's mail again, I understood him to mean without coding.
Psmith wrote:Many of us are seeking to animate 2D characters for use in an interactive environment, (I think).

Linear animation for entertainment is a good, but an extremely difficult goal for an individual animator to reach. The Story must be excellent. The pacing must be excellent. The Music and Sound must be excellent. The animation must be excellent, as well.


Greg Smith
If we put the minimal standard that high, 95% of us can quit before we get started. And: Can we really lower the standard for a quest or story game? I suggest the one-person studio can take on short productions of various kinds. Fables with few characters, comical pet and owner episodes (maybe you've seen Simon's Cat), short visualized mishaps, satirical cartoons with a motion sequence, short spoofs on advertising, possibly a music video (with a pre-existing sound recording and story line).

But yes, we should be self-critical. Not to the extent I've run into in this forum, though. If I had a cent for every project users have started and never finished, I wouldn't have to worry about affording upgrades for the rest of my life. Pardon that digression.

The least forgivable sin - which I'm committing here - is too much length. Look, I can lip sync, and that gives me the right to subject you to 15 minutes of inane dialogue with nothing happening on screen. Equally bad is thoughtless use of language, such as a fairy tale told with no attention to the choice of words - although good traditional sources are easily available. There are many animated Biblical stories on YouTube interpreted in a one-sided way because the fundamentalists who created the videos don't trust the stories to speak for themselves. (We all have our allergies and need them to do something differently from what's out there).

Good clean sound is not a question of expensive equipment. An expensive microphone in a home environment picks up more frequencies you don't want which are hard to filter out.

A positive example of a successful project in spite of rather basic but IMO effective animation (the art work is admittedly professional)
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil ... rix-potter

So what am I getting at? Whatever we do, the chances are it will not be excellent in every respect. Hopefully it will be better than the last attempt - and that is good enough.
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jahnocli
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by jahnocli »

exile wrote:Jahnocli - please read Greg's mail again, I understood him to mean without coding.
Steve, most of my last post was about using Unity without coding...I *was* trying to have a little fun at Greg's expense after his NERDS! response to one of my previous posts, but hey, sometimes humour needs more than written cues, I guess.
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by Psmith »

Janochli:

There are NERDS and then, there are nerds. I don't consider myself worthy of the title - but everyone who knows me (my entire family, at least) thinks I am a nerd.

I think I have been searching for any program which promises and keeps its promise of "no-coding" - for at least 26 years, now. They made Cosmic Osmo using Apple's HyperCard - which, for me, was coding - despite its deceptive English-like structure and Card-Based metaphor.

The gap between the sort of person who can code at all and those who simply cannot grasp (or want to grasp) the strange mindset of writing code to instruct a completely stupid machine to do relatively simple things is as wide as the Grand Canyon. (I've seen it).

If you tell a TRUE NERD, "Make me some software that instructs the computer what to do - using Visual Elements to do so - they come up, every time, with a Flow Chart System. Every single time. Or, because they think someone who would use such a program to be quite childish - they make wonderfully colored Blocks that fit together like a puzzle . . . How Cute!

It's the Gap at work again. The Minds of NERDS and the MINDS of the Creatives will never, ever meet. Or, if they do - it will be somewhere amid the Gulf that separates the North Rim of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim - and, after a very brief handshake - both parties plummet - like Wiley Coyote and the Road Runner - to the bottom of the depths (getting up completely unscathed, I might add).

The attempts I've seen to make a programming system that works without the use of cryptic code do not Hit the Nail on the Head. Inevitably, they strike the Thumb, instead. So, each and every program that promises to let you "PROGRAM" without the use of code ALWAYS sneaks in the small paragraph, at the bottom of their sales presentation, which specifies that to provide your game or application with higher functions - you can always try coding with C++.

I have no idea how many corpses line the Road that leaves the Unity Camp, but there are many. Like the aftermath of a Zombie Apocalypse. Some, due to loyalty programming obtained while still living, wander aimlessly in smaller and smaller circles - tripping on the bodies of the strewn carcasses - toward the general direction of the Unity Stronghold - searching for even one bite of "food".

Playmaker, for Unity, (let's return to the land of the living), is about as close as it comes to making things work - in 2D or 3D - without coding. It still requires martial arts training and mind-twisting exercises before anything really begins to click. But, Hey!, we are nerds, here. We form the ranks of the "Wandering Survivors".

In my younger years, I watched, over and over again, those first tutorial videos made by Playmaker's Inventor, Alex Chouls. I couldn't help but notice, in the tone of his voice and the monotony of his delivery - that he seemed to be exhausted, disheartened and bored - nearly to a state of Zombie Existence. I hoped this was a temporary state - and not at all indicative of the overall Playmaker Experience . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkyUbY3 ... 763F77BDE0

but, after all of these years - I've not "heard" a word from him, since.


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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by herbert123 »

Unless you need a true 3d environment, I would not waste my time with Unity and Playmaker for developing point-and-click adventure games. One of the industry standards right now is Visionaire, and it is capable of creating professional level adventure games, without ANY coding - it is very easy to learn.

Visionaire supports both 2d and 3d characters. And it is very inexpensive: 49 euros for the Indie version that can compile your adventure to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.

http://www.visionaire-studio.net/

Daedalic Entertainment (large German game studio) develop all their 2d adventures with Visionaire.
http://www.daedalic.de/en
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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Post by herbert123 »

Psmith wrote: The attempts I've seen to make a programming system that works without the use of cryptic code do not Hit the Nail on the Head. Inevitably, they strike the Thumb, instead. So, each and every program that promises to let you "PROGRAM" without the use of code ALWAYS sneaks in the small paragraph, at the bottom of their sales presentation, which specifies that to provide your game or application with higher functions - you can always try coding with C++.

Playmaker, for Unity, (let's return to the land of the living), is about as close as it comes to making things work - in 2D or 3D - without coding. It still requires martial arts training and mind-twisting exercises before anything really begins to click. But, Hey!, we are nerds, here. We form the ranks of the "Wandering Survivors".
Greg Smith
For 2d game development without any coding, Construct 2 is easy to learn. And powerful enough to create most 2d type games. I mean if a graphic designer can do this all by himself:

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