New Project - music video

Artistic Support Lighting and Rendering
1

Blender Artists Community,

I am working on creating a music video animation for my bands song to be released shortly. I am not going to get too ambitious with it, but I want to use blender and maybe other open source tools for the animation.

One thing I am thinking and would like to go with is the use of using images as back drops to save time - I am thinking of going for a 2D or 2.5D style animation in blender.

So one problem I am having is the colors seem to get washed out - I am using the import as plane user add-on, a simple camera pointed directly at the plane, and a hemi light pointed downward on the scene. Below is a screenshot. I fingure I am probably setting my light or render settings wrong and it is a simple fix.

If someone could give me a tip, or point me to a post that may have already covered this, that would be very helpful.


Thos

2

Set your image plane to shadeless. Properties > Material > Shading > Shadeless.

Welcome to Blender Artists Forums :slight_smile:

-LP

3

LP,

Thanks! That did it alright - now it looks just like the image file.

I knew someone would know an easy fix for this.

Thos

4

I wanted to outline what I am thinking for the music video.

What I want to do is have backdrops as images on planes. Then I will give several planes different depths to give the “cartoon depth” feel to the rendering.

The I will have a simple character appear in this setting and sing and dance along with the music.

Maybe I will also have the lyrics scrolling by on the screen or something.

Like I said, nothing too fancy, but I want it to look slightly better than amateur.

Thos

5

Here is a list of software I am currently sure I will be using for this project:

  1. Blender - for the animation, staging, and rendering and probably the compositing.
  2. Inkscape - for creating the backdrops and lyrics
  3. The Gimp - for post-processing if any and for tweaking the final product if needed.

One cool idea I thought might work is to run the end result through a filter to make it look like an old 35mm movie.

Ideas?

Thanks,

Thos

6

So just so everyone knows my starting point for this project.

  1. I take an image I have made in png format.
  2. I import this into blender as a plane
  3. Aim a camera directly at this plane
  4. set the plane as shadeless as per above
  5. If you do the above, you don’t even need a light and it will render.
7

4 posts in 10 mins ! Note the Edit button at the bottom of each post, please use it.

8

I would have, but my post wasn’t visible because it needed to be reviewed by a moderator before being posted.

My last post yesterday was an accident because I accidentally hit submit before I was finished and then the aforementioned problem happened.

Sorry, I am trying not to be a newb.

9

Have you considered using GLSL rendering? You can do layout and testing in the timeline using scene strips. Checkout these tutorials. Only drawback is lack of decent alpha channel support.



10

I will have to check that out. I am still in the scoping phase though so deciding on a redering engine or even strategy for overall look is a bit premature.

Thanks for the info though it looks like this could speed things up if I need it.

11

Well, I had to change directions, and ended up with a lyric video. I did this all in blender - I think it came out pretty good considering my time constraints:

Have a look. And big thanks to everyone who has ever helped me with Blender.

12

Pretty cool. Lots of work there, how did you achieve the typewritter effect? Was it a wipe of each line or new letters (build effect)?

13

thanks for the kind words. i bet there was an easier way. but i found a free typwriter font, wrote the text, converted to mesh, seperated by loose pieces, then moved into position letter by letter. it appears instantly if you do it in a frame.

a wipeprobably would have been easier, but i didn,t know how.

14

Hmmm, the reveal effect I was considering would need mono spaced fonts to make the reveal work one letter at a time (yuck).
But check this cool blog with lots of tips on kinetic typography.