Hello all. Reading this forum and watching others people artworks in finished project section I’ve noticed that most artworks made by people are still images - rendered static scenes (btw there a lot of great artworks between them), and it’s understandable - creating believable animations is not trivial but very tedious work, and if we speak not only about simple animations like walk or run cycles, but something more expressive - things gets much-much harder. And if we will think about combining these expressive animations and wrap them into some kind of story, with certain mood and feelings - let’s say short 3d movie - with voices, music, plot, kind of lore, one or more characters, - we’re getting how much work and knowleges it would take to make something good, especially if it’s single artist making his art in spare time. No wonder we have not much fully animated 3d movies (even shorts) from individuals, but still we have and some of them are really great, made not only with professionalism but also with heart. But still there is not much such movies.
Remember I am not speaking about profesional studios but rather than about individual enthusiasts like most of people here I believe. Majority of people like to tell stories, everyday when we have conversation with other people we tell stories, express ourselves and proving our points, it’s in our nature. Art is kind of language with which helps we express ourselves and tell stories to others. 3d art is not exception. Even simple still image is telling something that author wanted to say, but still image is pretty limited for this task, it has no dynamic, no sound, no voice, no progression. Yet still image is relatively easy to produce in terms of time and efforts. On other hand in fully animated 3d movie we have almost all we need to express our idea and tell story we have in mind. But to produce 3d movie is task beoynd abilities of majority of people interesting in 3d. At least I see it like this.
But there are also 3d comics, - series of still images showing story progression and characters interactions. 3d comics more advanced way of telling stories, than still renders they are way easier to create than 3d movie and way more advanced way to express idea, though 3d comics have lack of sound, voices and animations.
In the end we have two ways for tell more or less complete story in 3d artwork - 3d comics or 3d movie.
There is one more 3d art “genre” which is lying somewhere in between these two is visual novel, interactive story with dialogue branches selected by player. But most visual novels I saw were made in 2d style. So it’s a bit another topic. Also we have 3d games, but create good 3d game is almost impossible task for for individuals. Tho we have haidme and some other people who made wonderfull 3d games all alone, but it’s more like exception for me.
So I have two questions for BA users:
Why we don’t have much 3d comics here on forum made by blenderartists? Why most people limit their self-expression yet well made but still renders or short animation loops and don’t bother to wrap their skills and ideas in something more advanced.
Is there some kind genres between 3d comics and fully animated 3d movies? For example voiced still renders with background music put in video container, and maybe with some animated scenes in key moments of the story. It’s like when 3d studios after creating storyboards are making 3d layouts (animatics) in timeline and then filling it with keyframes creating actual animations. It would be interesting to see some kind of animatics from indi producers but not as stage of 3d movie but more like finished produc with sound, music maybe voice and complete story. I am sure most people has lot of things to tell the world. To be honest I don’t care about big studios 3d production. They are ruled only by money and thoughts of profit, they has nothing interesting to tell except this.
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I liked this short made by one man very much. Short but very expressive:
You may be surprised to hear this, but making and maintaining a comic series is just as much work as animation. First of all, cranking our content on a weekly schedule is difficult no matter the medium. It’s also extremely hard, if not impossible, to monetize something like this, and you have to be able to write a good script (the writing of a comic series is far more important than the art.)
Most importantly, why would you go to all the hassle of doing a 3D comic - and note, you still have to rig and pose and do all that, just like animation- when you can whip out a quick 2D series in a tenth the time? I would recommend you to XKCD, one of the most popular indie comic series of our time. It’s faceless stick people and doodles. It probably takes 20 minutes for Munroe to do each of those strips. Doing that in Blender, with rigged and posed characters, would take hours at least.
You are correct in your terminology- what you’re describing is an “animatic”, or animated storyboard. Because these are used as pre-vis for animation work, they’re not detailed enough to be “art” generally speaking. Why would you spend hours perfecting the details on an animatic that’s just going to get axed by the director and re-written? Animatics are quick and easy- they guide the animators to make the actual art, and so they should be as low effort as possible. Once again, it’s much faster to do that in 2D, why pose when you can roughly draw a person in a few seconds?
I just posted something not similar, but related. I sort of fear that communities of any kind just develop habits, and Blender has a habit of elaborate 3D still art. A friend and I just noticed that people with different interests, even within single communities like BlenderArtists, do not communicate that much, everyone sticks to what they know. I understand the mentality, but I think like you I feel we isolate ourselves in creative echo chambers, where we focus narrowly on a few, even single, ways of artistic expression. I have some future work that is meant to bridge communities, but to be honest, I am starting to fear that everyone just wants their own little social niche to stick to…
Compare the time to make one still and to make an animation… and everybody wants instant applause… an animated short over 6 minutes is aprox. 9000 images additional flow in the animation needs additional work… so one person have to spend >10000 times for it than a still and the answers are:
Oh (really) nice.
See your own comment: short but very expressive and not:
Biological not 100% correct because squirrels do not hibernate but just do a winter rest and of course leafs don’t have own personalities or trees in general and also don’t rebirth in spring but nonetheless quite nice to look at using nothing like piano music and some humming language to express some feelings.
Comics artist → creating comics → uses Blender → for comics
3D character artist → creating 3D characters → uses Blender → for figures/games/movies
3D environment artist → creates environments → uses Blender → for games/movies
So the logic means that 3D artists focus strictly on the output (the theme/the quality) whatever this entails that they do not know exactly where is their work will be requested or put in use if they get hired to work on some piece.
Comics artists on the other hand focus strictly on the end-product and they know in finite terms exactly what they have to do and in what capacity.
But I must agree that indeed I rarely I have seen 3D comics. If I have seen some of them from time to time they were usually slapped together with Daz. And this suggests that they were created by non exclusive comicscreators/2Dartists/3Dartists, but something like a mixture of everything.
There is also the concept of the boundaries:
Usually artists do not get into the fields of story tellers, because they want to focus only on technical mastery, also in order to promote their work, they won’t indulge into following personal interesting ideas, but usually go with the safest top-notch IP of commercial products.
On the other hand comics artists /mangakas, brag about their technique (and usually they are very masterful and good) so using somekind of 3D is like an inferior technique, the highest of achievement is to print your mind directly into pixels.
All of these mindsets are “unwritten rules” so you are kinda obliged to follow them even if you don’t want, or you don’t know that they exist at all, but certainly because is “how the world works” you just go with it and try to figure the details along the way, hopefully.
So perhaps the real secret here is to explore a new way of working, that breaks all boundaries and limitations that exist. It has to do mostly with Egoism (what you are supposed to do to meet the standards) rather than doing what you are free to do in your own personal way (what you want to really do to express yourself).
I was seeking something like this, some creative people invented some new art style combining movies and still images for telling their stories. But I didn’t found such inventions yet. At least at BA forums
Did you read my initial reply? 3D comics might save on animation but you still have to rig, pose, and do all the writing. It’s the same amount of work- with comics, you’re just rendering the key poses, but you still have to make all the key poses
I’ve done comics, in the past, and I wouldn’t ever use 3D to create the final page.
I did once and using B/W grease pencil only for a specific experiment, in which I tried to design the pages as containers rooms, and just for fun.
While 3D is a useful tool if you have a realistic goal / style, to build the reference for your art, beside the time that it would require to do that for a whole comic, as explained by @joseph above, you would lose the fun aspects that have to do with actually drawing after the composition and references are set.
Why even do it?
I don’t think that 3d comics demands same amount of work as do 3d movie. You don’t have to animate things, you don’t have to voice characters, you don’t have to put music in comics, and many other things that you don’t have to do. For quick riging we have rigify, you can easily rig few characters in short time. For posing you can use online services like mixamo. It’s make no sense for me comparing 3d movie production with 3d comic production. It’s still not easy but defitetily much more easier than creating 3d short. Hell we have 3d shorts made by single persons, why we can’t see 3d comics made by people and posted here on forums? That’s what I wonder.
Well I meant not 2d but 3d comics. It’s not about using 3d models and 3d environment as reference for actual 2d painting. It’s all about rendering 3d assets and put them together in final product.
You seem to have a really good roadmap for making a 3D comic, so again I say- why wait for other people to do it? Make it yourself, prove how easy it is, and set an example for everyone else to follow. If you want to see more 3D comics here, showing how it can be done yourself is the way to make that happen
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Hell we have 3d shorts made by single persons
The misunderstanding is in the definition of shorts, and in the definition of comics.
Yes, a single artist might do a short movie; short how, though? usually, it’s a single scene, or a few, with linear action. With a number of variables that might complicate or not the thing.
Still: depending on the type and on the quality of art, and from whether that art is self made or borrowed from sources that might take from a few days, to a few months.
That’s the time for maybe a scene. Now, a comic unless very minimalist (for instance, I remember a magnificent comic by Scott McCloud with 4 panels, and a Circle, a Square, and a Parallelogram as characters) you would need a large number of scenes.
Let’s say you do it all, spending a few months on a single comic, now you have a thing, that by itself has not maybe the appeal of a single illustration, to use for portfolio reasons, and also, it’s bound to be judged on the additional aspect of storytelling, which is the most important one of comics, and has nothing to do with well rendered art, 2D or 3D.
Well, I think it depends on story. Is it impossible to make some short funny comic inside one or two scenes? I am not talking about huge scale creations with huge universe with hundreds of scenes. I mean something not too big but rather small and funny. Even few pages to complete some short story would be already something more fun than still render. Am I wrong?
impossible not at all, as in the example I’ve written above, but imho, aside the tradeoffs already discussed (time, lack of immediacy), you have to answer yourself: what more can the 3D approach bring to the story I want to tell, that the 2D approach can’t? and what else of organic does it takes away?
If you are confortable with your answers, you should really do it.
Before blender developers removed game engine from blender, I used to read a lot dedicated to BGE forums here on BA. And downloaded dozens great creations from people. It was not only fun, but also very creative way to tell stories. But who among you who is arguing with me now will argue that creating a game is less difficult than creating a short but creative 3d comic?
I’m not arguing with you, it very well could be easy to make a 3D comic. I’m just reluctant to accept your claims that it’s so easy to make a 3D comic when you have no evidence that it is. As people say - “put up or shut up.” If you’ve found a good way to make 3D comics quickly and easily, then show us. Otherwise, this whole conversation is hypothetical- ie, pointless
Style. Lighting. Freedom to find good camera angles. Many things. In 3d you don’t have to worry about perspective at all. Hell, you can even grab free assets for 3d. Can you do the same with 2d painted art? I doubt.
Did you read my posts? I claimed that creating 3d comics are easier than creating 3d short movie. It’s different things. And I would add that creating complete 3d game is even harder than creating 3d comics. Tho we had lot of great 3d games here on BGE forum thread. But since then something have changed, after blender removed game engine. But I wonder why people stuck with still renders and don’t want to go further to advance their skills or simply express themselves in more advanced ways.
To be honest I don’t care about big studios 3d production. They are ruled only by money and thoughts of profit, they has nothing interesting to tell except this.
