How would you make this Grease pencil animation? (Workflow optimization)

Support Animation and Rigging
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1

Is there some better way to make this animation than what I did? What I did was:

  1. Draw the slime moving to the right

  2. In object mode, copy this grease pencil object and rotate it in Z axis for 180degrees to get the slime moving to the left side(without drawing it again)

  3. Now get back to the first (right moving side) and set up a Time offset modifier, mode Chain and first segment to mode PingPong, second segment001 to regular(since that segment is an empty frame for when the second object is starting to move to the left side)

  4. Set up Time offset modifier for the left side of animation also ping pong etc

Now, was there a way to, for example instead of making 2 objects, duplicate the keyframes that go to the right within the same object but just batch flip the drawings along the X axis(mirror) in edit mode or something and use the modifiers etc. I made a second object because it was much faster to flip all the keyframes when in object mode rather then to flip them all one by one if I just duplicated the frames within the first object.
I hope this makes any sense for you people.(first YT link is the animation, second is the preview of what I’ve done in Blender) :sweat_smile:

2

You could have made one drawing and deform it with an hook animated with a cyclic animation.

You could have drawn deformation on one side, then use Time Offset modifier to create a loop. And, after Time Offset modifier, you could use an Offset Modifier with a Scale on X axis, animated with an FCurve, with a constant interpolation and a Cycles modifier.
So, basically, Offset Modifier is used to mirror second animation loop (rest → stretching on the side → rest), at each global cycle (move to the right → move to left).

You could have copy/paste keyframes.
Mirror them over time to create basic loop.
Then copy/paste them all again.
Select keyframes of second loop in dopesheet.
Go into edit mode, enable Multiframe editing, select everything in 3D Viewport.
Mirror geometry of keyframes according to 3D Cursor.

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3

Well the method with Multiframe editing I understand and I completely forgot I could also batch edit them that way in edit mode with mirror from the right click! That is also a time saver, thank you! :sparkles:

The first ones though, not gonna lie, I don’t understand. I will have to look into those hook, offset and cycles modifiers. If you can think of any tutorials or demos post the link if you can. The Multiframe method solves my troubles but I am curious to learn about the other ones.

4

That should be easy to find videos about Hook Modifier for meshes.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/modifiers/deform/hooks.html
Shortcuts should not work for Grease Pencil object, but principle is the same.
You create a vertex group in edit mode. You smooth it in weight paint mode. You precise an object as hook and the group to influence in modifier.
And then, moving object moves the GP points.

Offset modifier is a modifier specific to Grease Pencil object.
It was one of first modifier created.
It is absolutely not spectacular. It gives ability to transform Grease Pencil data like an object
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/grease_pencil/modifiers/deform/offset.html
So, it is not shown a lot in tutorials.

Cycles modifier is a modifier for F-Curves visible in Graph Editor.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/graph_editor/fcurves/modifiers.html#cycles-modifier
There is a chance to see it used in tutorials about animating with Graph Editor.

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5

Thank you very much for the information and your time! It is clearer now what you were talking about. Since I am generally new to blender it can get overwhelming with all the different features so your help was much appreciated.