Hi all. Do any of you guys know where I can find the 2d version of blender? Last time I saw it was about 2 years ago. Someone had taken the blender source code and created a strickly 2D version. I can’t find any references to it anywhere anymore.
It would be great if Blender had one more window just for graphics editing, making textures, etc…
UV/image editor?
EDIT: I sometimes use blender for 2d stuff, you just make a plane and put the camera in ortographic mode above the plane. Good for making tileable normal/displacement maps etc. You can also use 3d paint and sculpt directly on the plane.
Yeah, that camera technique is nice, but it messes with the scene, unless you do a new scene just for that. Not to mention it requires for that setup, which takes time. One could also save that setup, but would have to import it if wanting it to belong to the same .blend file.
We know the UV Editor doesn’t have the same functionalities as Photoshop or Gimp. It is a window to map 3D models. One could debate about extending the UV Editor’s capabilities for building textures. But we could also mention having a new window just for that, with new tools, such as various types of selections, cloning and painting brushes, layers…
Well, I guess GIMP exists for a reason… A dedicated 2d graphics program that can be used very nicely along with blender…
Anyway, I can see why some people find it more practical to have a slightly constrained version of blender to do pure 2d stuff, not everyone can handle the third dimension that well.
This is a very interesting topic. How about starting a thread on this? We could discuss tools, look and feel, if it feels right for Blender to have a Gimp like extra window, but with Blender like tools and visuals.
I say that Blender development should not focus on extra 2D image creation tools right now with all the open bug reports.
But for the future…
Well, blender’s image editor has actually recieved some upgrades, especially to the brush system, and works quite well when painting with a tablet. Features like layers and integration with the node editor have been proposed, but they are not that urgent right now.
this is great! I’ve always found that many applications would do better with a blender-like interface, instead of all those loose messy windows…
I’d say you are free to try to bring a bunch of functionality typical of 2D painting programs into Blender providing you can find a developer who’d be dedicated to this sort of task.
The trick would be to easily mesh GIMP/Photoshop-like 2D painting and manipulation functionality with the 3D capabilities, it may not be just a matter of simply expanding the image editor as there’s a ton of features seen in programs with the likes of Photoshop that’s more designed for 2D apps. How would you design the UI to fit them all without making a mess of things (like too much mixing of 3D features with 2D features)
Or you can use Inkscape to make nice vector graphics.