So I’m working on a little cartoon show that has a definite South Park style. I chose to use Blender even though it’s not 3D because I’m already familiar with animating in Blender in it seems to look fine. Any ways this is just a very short test video to try out some techniques. Now I just need to think up some stories and jokes, then I can release an episode :yes: The backdrop in this video I just threw together… not really trying to make it look really good yet.
Don’t they use 3D for South Park anyway? What with the infinitely zoomable “cardstock” textures and soft shadow on everything. I seem to recall it being mentioned somewhere. Anyway, not bad at all - are those just filled curves?
Actually it’s all just textures applied to planes split into groups. Like hands, body, head, eyes, and mouth. So you can move them around or swap in a different texture (for blinking and talking). Now that you mention it though curves would work better probably. At least for some of the props. Also, I think that South Park was made using Flash… not sure though.
It’s a few years old but a write up that includes quotes from south park studios technical director includes their list of software as -
Maya
Photoshop
Illustrator
Corel Draw
Qube
Pro Tools
Final Cut Pro
Motion
Shake
Thanks for the list! Thats awesome you can see exactly what software they use.
Sorry, but right now that video is down. I’m uploading a new one now (with more content).
A couple of pages that may interest you
Thanks for the links. I’ll check them out later. Though I am thinking that after I take a class on Flash next term I will probably convert this project over to Flash.
Here is the newest video. It now includes a speech test and a typing sound when he uses the computer. I’ll update the link on the first post also. Crits and comments welcome!
That 2D animation rig looked cool but the only problem is that it is still 3D. I’m going for a completely 2D effect… like south park! It’s awesome to see what you can do with blender though. That music video was incredible. :evilgrin:
The look depends on how you do things. His kit uses flat 2d pictures, I think on planes (it’s been a while since I read it) The ‘3D’ effect in the video is from the placement of different objects in relation to the camera. If they are all located at the same distance from the camera and at 90 degrees it will appear more like a flat 2d drawing.
You could even create a 3d mesh and adjust textures to give the flat drawn look, makes side profiles and character turning shots look better.
The advantage of using blender (or other 3d app) over say photoshop or gimp is you get to use armatures and bones as well as other modifiers etc. to do the animation.
im pretty sure they dont use 3d for south park just pic by pic animation of pieces of paper but the vid u did was pretty close i havve to say good job
South Park uses Maya. I did a master class with Trey Parker / Matt Stone. They use Maya.
They use the fancy software in a primitive way so they can animate a whole show, from no script to completed and on the air in under 4 days. (Roughly 6 minutes a day finished animation).
Thanks guys!
South park used paper cutouts for the first episode (which sucked by the way) and then they switched to computer animation but just kept the same art style. You can definatly tell a diference between the first episode and all the rest. I wouldn’t expect them to use maya though! Thats crazy!
Do you guys know of a way I can get the lines to stay the same width when you zoom in though? Because that would really be awesome :yes:
Been wonderin that myself for 2D stuff. It’d be crazy cool to have photoshop style layer effects (Bevel, drop shadow, Line etc.) on individual elements. Catering to the 2D crowd isn’t really high on the agenda I suspect though. Not tried Inkscape since I killed my Ubuntu Laptop, but I’m sure that had some beginnings of Flash-like animation.