Questions on 2D to 3D

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hello. Being new to Blender (and animation generally) I’ve been trying to figure out if its possible to take one’s 2D artwork rendered in bmp, or jpg, or whatever image file type, and load it into either Blender or any other animation program to be used as a template, or even as a model, for animation purposes. Can Blender/ other Animation software do this? If not, are there plugins, or otherwise software that when used independently converts the bmp or jpg to a .blend or appropriate file format, such that you can do this?

Thanks in advance. :smiley:

#2

Sorry, you can’t take a picture and turn it into a model. But you can still use the picture in your animation probably as a background or something. I guess I’m trying to say 2d pics are useable, just not to make models.

-Jason

#3

You could map your images to a Plane (a 2D Object that can be animated in 3D) of the same shape and animate that. Blender can also use movies as textures while leaving the object that they are linked to transparent. Either way, you could have multiple characters running around 3D-Space among trees and buildings with a groundplane and a background.

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#4

in 3d max you can make a 2d model… and bevel it to 3d
for example i create the shape the chess piece. is (the outline in 2d) then bevel and its a round chess piece

#5

How can I do that, please?

#6

Well, making a template is the idea, but I find it rather annoying that I have to remake the template in the program. If I could just load the files somehow such that just an image was viewable in the animate program it would make life about a million times easier.

#7

Sounds closer to my approach anyway. Thanks. Btw, what do you do for skins? Details like clothing and finer model work? I’m a novice so I don’t know, but the animate software seems very clumsy for fine details, such that I was hoping it had jpg or bmp abilities.

#8

If you are talking about turning a 2D character into a 3D mesh object which you plan to animate, Blender cannot do that directly. You might find a program called Hexasuper useful (google it). If you’re particularly careful how you draw your models, you can google other sterioscopic scanning programs.

The other way would be to use the (3D View menu bar) View --> Background Image floating panel to load a picture to model from. If you split your screen down the middle and load a front view in one and a side view in the other it is very easy to model.

If you are talking about just showing your 2D picture in an animation, your best bet is to simply map it to a plane. If it is to be animated, you can map an AVI or MOV to the plane and manipulate it using the “Anim and Movie” panel in the Texture Buttons (F6). [The panel is only available once you have mapped the movie in a texture channel.] Apply a track to constraint to the plane to always angle it perpendicular to the camera and keyframe the location of the plane and not the rotation.

Hope this helps.