2d Characters in 3d

Support Modeling
1

I have seen a number of blender animations in which characters that look 2d are animated in blender, see examples below. I am very keen to create a 2d character that is rigged for animation and would like some pointers if anyone has any

Thanks

The blender art mag 15 with design heros animation (see picture)
http://meanwhile.beds.ac.uk/dav/pic.jpg

most of this here

the 2d section here (about 2 mins in)

These here
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=98502

2

Hi,
Well, a good way to start would be to design/scan your character with a 2d software (gimp…), then save the different parts of the body you want to animate in different image files but all with a transparent background (so in .png). Then, in blender, create a few planes, map accordingly your pictures on them, switching on the “use alpha” in the texture panel and set Ztrans on and the alpha to zero in the material panel.
Now, I’m not quite sure how a rig, as in an armature, would work in this case, but you definitely can animate the planes/limbs in a normal way.
Was that clear?

3

Like Jack said you can use cut-out style animations and by parenting your planes to bones you can use an armature if you like. You can also create a 2D character mesh and rig it like you would a 3D mesh.

4

All sounds good - I guess I want bendy arms like the characters above so I need some bendy bones … ill start by getting my characters in as planes and see what happens :smiley:

5

I believe this is really nice… 2D in 3D!
Hope you can make a tutorial on how to do it!
Rigging and all the rest!
Or we can find some tutorial on it?
:spin:
Thanks in advance!

6

Ill try and make a tutorial of my exploits

7

This may be of interest:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=77196
(new download links on last page)

also http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=99626
.

8

forgot about those - looked at them before - looks good I also found this http://www.respower.com/page_blender_tutorial_fat_boss_03

9

Still working the armature and bendy arms - have video tutorial pretty much done on making 2d character in Blender - Ill post once I get bones figured out properly

http://forum.nystic.com/blender.php - number 20 looks intresting

10

Hope on your videotutorial!
:spin:
An interesting tutorial you can find here:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=77196&page=5
Go to LarryPhilips and you can download 21 Mb on 2D in 3D:
http://adrive.com/public/e8afe85844b18b8d4a0fb41470861d890d0948d4473ad10d33b0ab23e300f45f.html

And you can find this tutorial:
replacer.swf
interesting - reminds me of Puppeteering in DAZ3D - hope Puppeteering will find its way into Blender - fast and easy animating:



:spin:
Now the result of the tutorial on 2D in 3D only is a 2D-guy jumping - not much of story telling!
Why not have a look on my tutorial for newbies on a jaw synced talking head?
http://ia311243.us.archive.org/2/items/blender_talking_head_tutorial01/talkinghead.htm
:spin:
Letting characters say something I believe in - not just jumping!!!
11

This can be interesting:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=114409
:no: