Am I good to use Blender for modeling 2D eyes?

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1

Hi.

I’m a robot developer and totally newbie on modeling software include Blender.

I want to create a robot which is something like an ‘Eve’ at WALL-E movie.

And, what I’m trying to create for that robot with Blender is ‘eyes’ of the robot.

like this one?http://www.oafe.net/artemis/art/wallesnpe2.jpg

But, I’m not sure if the ‘Blender’ is right tool in my case.

I need 2D model of the eyes with some animations. ( blink, wink, happy, angry, sad,… etc)

And then export the model to use it in the python application. ( animate with python. )

Am I good to choose Blender for this work?

Any kind of example or tutorial or link would be really helpful!

Thanks.

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2

there are multiple ways to do this. one would be to use multiple sets of eyes and keyframe their position with an f-curve set to interpolation mode ‘constant’. another way would be to use shape keys. yet another way would be to use a video texture. but the way I would use, would be to make a single image file with all the eye shapes arranged in a grid-like pattern, then after loading it in the UV editor activate the anim-all add-on ( comes bundled with blender ) and animate your UV cords over the image, again using ‘constant’ interpolation mode.

3

Thank you for your kind reply.
Actually, I couldn’t understand all of your explanation because I don’t have experience on Blender.
But, it seems like you gave me important keywords to achieve my goal!
I’ll try to learn Blender for my work.

p.s.
I wonder if you read this thread again…
but, can you tell me how long would it take to make that? for totally beginner.
Anyway I’ll try! Thanks!

4

I’ll explain the first way a little more. I am now thinking to key a parenting constraint would be best, but that’s slightly more complicated, so in the interest of keeping it simple, I’ll just explain how to ‘zap’ objects in and out of view using location keyframes set to ‘constant’…sorry I was unclear…:
So, lets say we had a couple of different sets of eyes which we wanted to switch back and forth. one is in view, and one is hidden inside the head…
So, on frame 5, we want them to switch…
first give them keyframes on frame 1 by selecting an object and pressing I
now advance 5 frames, switch their positions and make another keyframe.
When you cycle through the animation, you’ll see them sort of slide into their positions, interpolating between the old and new positions as they go. You don’t want that, obviously, so…
With one of your objects selected, go to the graph editor, and you’ll see the F curves for that object. They will bee smooth curves.
Hit T to get some options, and change the interpolation mode to ‘constant’. you will notice your f curve will lose it’s curviness. And now when you cycle through the anim, you won’t se anything until frame 5, when the objects are instantly switched.

So…see if you can make this happen, and then from there we can go through a couple of other methods ( keying parent constraint )

5

I would suggest making animation in vector software, saving them as set of images, and than using them as Dynamic Painting map. I’m not pro in those, so I won’t give any more advices that may be wrong, but I recomend Blender Guru’s (Andrew Price) tutorial about Dynamic Paint.