[Bf-committers] GSoC 14 Project

Sat Mar 8 11:46:23 CET 2014

Hi Greeshma,

first of all - I don't get the headline? Was that your application for
GSOC? Or your wish for it?

In fact, the functionality you're asking for was different from the
functionality you're referring to in "Pencil". But one is sure: The basic
need for this functionality is there too! I think we have to dissect two
use cases here:
1) For preparing animation work and doing quick annotations the current
tool is awesome already - we use it in our studio often and are very
satisfied with it!
2) For doing some motion graphics stuff (like drawing frame by frame and
then exporting it as an image sequence / having it as a seperate render
pass) it could be equally awesome - every bit is there, but it's too
cumbersome to work with. I already talked with Sergey about this feature a
while back - but my lack of time made it impossible to tackle the
implementation. I'll append some information about how and why this second
use case would be useful - and how we are doing it at our studio at the
moment (btw.: we could use AE for it but we love Blender too much to use AE
;) )

Our use case
-------------------
Say we got a video file with an actress in front of a green screen. She
moves her finger to the music and I want to draw the outlines of the finger
as an overlay like on traditional 2d animation. I can do all this perfectly
with the current system (onion mode, strokes persisting only one frame..)
but when it comes to rendering we're almost lost... What we would need is a
GP layer that would contain only the strokes and an alpha mask. Then we
could easily compose them over a footage and alter it when needed.

That's exactly the effect in AE http://youtu.be/rAhFDMDwzl0?t=4m26s

How are we doing it atm
-----------------------------------
We're doing it by stroking with the GP first, then deleting all objects,
assigning this GP Datablock to the scene, set the "transparency" setting on
the render Tab to "transparent" and render out an OpenGL animation (that
contains only the drawing) through the camera. Then I import it back into
the compositor and add it to my footage... hope you see how useful it could
be and how cumbersome it is atm - too much importing - exporting to be
quick and easy..

Greetings, Thomas

2014-03-08 4:56 GMT+01:00 Joshua Leung <aligorith at gmail.com>:

> Hi Sean,
>
> I have checked that link, and yes, the large proportion of functionality
> present there is available in some form (specifically, try combining Grease
> Pencil sketches in the 3D or Image Editors with the relevant mode in the
> Dopesheet, and with the relevant panels open (to adjust
> layers/colours/etc.) and all of the basic functionality necessary is
> present). Sure, we can't exactly have bitmap fills in the current system,
> but then again, that's starting to encroach on simply being a full-blown 2D
> animation tool for final output. In that case, a dedicated tool is probably
> better suited to the job.
>
> >From the context provided in the original mail, it sounds to me like
> Greeshma was more interested in the basic case - sketching for motion
> planning - than the full-blown sketch-based 2D animation tool. (Greeshma:
> Correct me if I'm wrong about this :)
>
> Regards,
> Joshua
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Sean Olson <seanolson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Joshua, not sure if you clicked his link.  It looks like it's much more
> > in-depth than grease pencil.  It's basically a full 2D Animation Suite
> > called "Pencil".
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 10:24 PM, Joshua Leung <aligorith at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Greeshma,
> > >
> > > We already have the Grease Pencil functionality [1] for this.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Joshua
> > >
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> >
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/3D_interaction/Sketching
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 4:11 PM, greeshma <greeshmabalabadra at gmail.com
> > > >wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello everyone,
> > > >
> > > > why can't we add a feature like pencil for sketching in the blender
> > > similar
> > > > to http://www.pencil-animation.org/  ...
> > > > it would be cool and helpful for budding animators.
> > > >
> > > > We can also make UI and basic navigation between projects more
> easy,so
> > > that
> > > > people can work upon different projects simultaneously.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Greeshma Balabhadra
> > > > Sophomore Undergraduate
> > > > IIT Guwahati
> > > >
> > > > fb.com/greeshma <http://facebook.com/greeshma.balabadra>
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