Hi,
I want to make an animation with a 2D, motion graphic effect (like the effect here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saHbqr8743o). Is there a way in Blender that I can create this effect?
Thanks
Well…there are only a hundreds effects there in that short video which one do you want to do? All of them can be done in Blender, but I would guess each one was hand crafted in After Effects. There is no shortcut to art. Just pick one and make it. For instance, the scaling circle. Create a circle and scale it up. Use the new bounce out-of-range type for a mograph kind of look. Then move to the next one, a ring that grows. You can achieve this by animating an extrude along a path or by using a boolean modifier to reveal over time.
The camera in the example video is “locked” to an orthographic view.
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I was more questioning how to do the 2D effect in Blender. Would I use the compositor, if so how?
Thanks
As I mentioned, you could use an orthographic camera instead of the default perspective based camera. Just pick a view and start placing animated geometry in front of the camera. You can composite if you like and that is a great way to add glows and blurs. If you stick with Blender Internal there is also a nice MASK feature for materials to achieve 2D effects.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Materials/Properties/Mask_Transparency
I agree with everything Atom said.
I will add the suggestions of trying Cycles motion blur (since many of the animations in your reference video include motion blur) and also rendering with transparent backgrounds so you can use Alpha Over blending in the Video Sequence Editor to lay what you make on top of something else. Adding a background is easy, whereas taking one out later can be a pain.
While doing the effects shown are very possible in Blender… You may be in danger of trying to build a paper house – that is, you might be trying to use Blender for a job Blender’s just not geared to do efficiently.
For 2D effects, use a 2D tool. After Effects, Motion, several others, are tools geared to generate 2D effects fast, effectively, for a lot less CPU overhead. To use another analogy: A big, heavy monkey wrench CAN be used to hammer in nails, but that’s not what it’s for. If you attempt to use Blender, you’ll be faced with an enormous learning curve before you can even get adequate results, whereas a 2D app will not only deliver the animations quickly, it will allow you to stack different animations together in a tidy, easy-to-understand way… But with Blender, you’ll have a node tree looking like the US fiber connection system.
it comes down to complexity, speed and planning. As Atom said, the animation shows a few hundred effects.
Plan exactly what you want done first. To help you plan, divide the effect up this way: shape, color, special effect, timing. Shape is just that: hard-edged polygons done in Object/Edit Mode. Color should also be self-explanatory: that’s material and texture work. Special effects include blur, glow, dissolves: now you’re into the output compositor. And finally, timing: this is where you move your shapes, change your colors and alter the degree of your compositor effects.
There’s a whole lot more… But the more precisely you can plan your action, the easier it will be to do… in Blender OR a 2D tool.
But if the wrench is free and a hammer costs $600, it’s probably worth giving the wrench a try.
Steve S
If hammers cost $600 where you are, I’d find a place with cheaper hammers.
Such as http://www.jahshaka.com/