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Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 9:03 am
by herbert123
Psmith wrote: People have accused me of using speech synthesis, as well.
Greg Smith
That was me, and I regret my comment to this day. I humbly apologize a second time.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 6:30 pm
by exile
herbert123 wrote:
Btw, Turtletooth restored the all-in-one transformation handle function (finally!!!). And a nice change to the function editor as well - no more graph editor popup. https://gumroad.com/l/TZmmM

Also, Nvidia and AMD cards are better utilized in this latest portable version.

I have to mention that on Nvidia cards it is best to create a separate OpenToonz profile in Nvidia's control panel, and set the performance to maximum. It can make a heck of a difference - did for me.

As for Blender's GP tool and 2d animation: the point of the Blender Foundation's officially sponsored 2d animation project is meant to get the tools to production-proven state. it is going quite well. Together with v2.8 and the realtime render engine "Eevee' 2018 is looking to become another very interesting year for Blender.
Thanks, Herbert, for the interesting infos and outlook on things to come. This thread got me playing with Open Toonz again, it has progressed well recently. When OT was first released, after a flurry of excitement and initial tutorials, the interest seemed to fade quickly, posts in the Google forum went unanswered, development seemed to have stalled. It's picked up now.

I also have a Nvidia card on this old machine, but had no luck with the portable version of OT. It simply wouldn't render past frame one. Yesterday's update did not help. But there is a new nightly build of the regular OT, in which the issue of the blank drawing canvas was resolved, and the render test was successful, including formats mp4 and gif. So if the same happens to anyone with the portable, the regular is an option. To export to mp4 and gif, you will need the free software ffmpeg.

All very tempting to try out, but it also distracts from work in progress in Moho. Just to warn others: Abandon hope, ye who splinter (your energies).

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:09 pm
by herbert123
@Exile

That very first release did far more damage than it did good: expectations among animators had risen to sky-high proportions, only to plummet flat on their faces due to Studio Ghibli's "adjustments". It was, in short, utterly and completely geared towards and adapted to Studio Ghibli's internal animation workflow, and honestly, that first release was unusable outside that particular studio environment.

How things have changed for the better. But I still see the backlash from that first disappointment linger on the net. It is as they say: only one change for first impressions.

That said, OT is having an impact, I believe. Even Adobe is finally improving AnimateCC's animation functions. Well, they'd be crazy not to. In my opinion OT crushes AnimateCC in terms of drawing and animation. Not even mentioning the nodes and animation management options. Combine it with ClipStudio, and you really don't need anything else - aside from Moho or Blender for cut-out animation, that is ;-P

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 11:59 am
by exile
herbert123 wrote:@Exile

That very first release did far more damage than it did good: expectations among animators had risen to sky-high proportions, only to plummet flat on their faces due to Studio Ghibli's "adjustments". It was, in short, utterly and completely geared towards and adapted to Studio Ghibli's internal animation workflow, and honestly, that first release was unusable outside that particular studio environment.

How things have changed for the better. But I still see the backlash from that first disappointment linger on the net. It is as they say: only one change for first impressions.

That said, OT is having an impact, I believe. Even Adobe is finally improving AnimateCC's animation functions. Well, they'd be crazy not to. In my opinion OT crushes AnimateCC in terms of drawing and animation. Not even mentioning the nodes and animation management options. Combine it with ClipStudio, and you really don't need anything else - aside from Moho or Blender for cut-out animation, that is ;-P
Something incredible happened - one day after I complained that the new portable version of OT was not exporting properly, the creator (Turtle Tooth/Jeremy Bullock) apologized and released one that worked.

I paused with OT for over a year, and obviously a lot has happened. Active developers, active community, better user interface, nice pencils and brushes. Last night I rediscovered an old feature: full-screen drawing canvas with Alt+F. Like Moho, it does well with old computers and not-recommended graphic cards.

There are good new tutorials geared to the latest versions by Darren T. Maybe your old sparring partner Greg Smith will be inspired to jump into the fray again. I noticed Blender tutorials get many times more views than OT, which I guess is still the new kid on the block.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 4:45 pm
by InfoCentral
exile wrote:Morevna is trying to convince them to invest in open source products that already exist and retrain studio artists.
Any update on how things are progressing?

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 6:33 pm
by exile
InfoCentral wrote:
exile wrote:Morevna is trying to convince them to invest in open source products that already exist and retrain studio artists.
Any update on how things are progressing?
None, although I'm also in a Facebook group where
Morevna posted the same statement. I must confess to having very mixed feelings about the participation of that particular state, although I have absolutely nothing against Morevna.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:34 am
by herbert123
Hero Trailer and GP 2d workflow demo.


Workflow demo (starts at 10:00)

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:32 am
by exile
herbert123 wrote:Hero Trailer and GP 2d workflow demo.


Workflow demo (starts at 10:00)
For some reason the links were invisible (in three browsers) until I clicked on "Quote". The trailer is impressive, although I couldn't help thinking any software could look pretty good if you have a professional team capable of a frame-by-frame production. One thing I noticed from the 2nd video is that Blender is able to raise significant funds. OpenToonz only attracts a small percentage of that development money. Considering that, OT developers deserve a lot of credit for the strides they've been making.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 7:14 pm
by InfoCentral
exile wrote:Morevna is trying to convince them to invest in open source products that already exist and retrain studio artists.
Since they are being totally silent about the visit, presentation, and outcome. I assume things did not go well. :roll:

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:07 pm
by exile
InfoCentral wrote:
exile wrote:Morevna is trying to convince them to invest in open source products that already exist and retrain studio artists.
Since they are being totally silent about the visit, presentation, and outcome. I assume things did not go well. :roll:
Here's the latest, just posted today: https://morevnaproject.org/2018/04/12/s ... el-report/

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:52 am
by InfoCentral
Sounds like they are not too hopeful of realizing any grant money and instead are going to moving on their own in partnership with another animation studio.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:11 am
by exile
InfoCentral wrote:Sounds like they are not too hopeful of realizing any grant money and instead are going to moving on their own in partnership with another animation studio.
I guess they have to do everything on a shoestring. Gotta give them credit for not giving up. Young hopefuls are similar all over the world.

"Hero" short film has been released (Grease Pencil 2.0 proje

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:11 am
by herbert123
After a series of successful short film production focused on high-end 3D computer animation pipelines, the Blender team presents a 3 minutes short film showcasing Blender’s upcoming Grease Pencil 2.0.

https://www.blender.org/press/hero-blen ... -showcase/
https://cloud.blender.org/p/hero/blog/h ... ie-project

Grease Pencil means 2D animation tools within a full 3D pipeline. In Blender. In Open Source. Free for everyone!

The original Grease Pencil technology has been in Blender for many years now, and it already got the attention of story artists in the animation industry worldwide. The upcoming Grease Pencil is meant to push the boundaries and allows feature quality animation production in Blender 2.8.

The Hero animation showcase is a fruit of the collaboration between Blender developers and a team of artist based in Barcelona, Spain, led by Daniel M. Lara. This is the 6th short film funded by the Blender Cloud, confirming once more the value of a financial model that combines crowdfunding of artistic and technical goals through the creation of Open Content.

The inclusion of Grease Pencil in Blender for mainstream release is part of the Blender 2.8 Code Quest, an outstanding development effort that is currently happening at the Blender headquarters in Amsterdam. The first beta of Blender 2.8 will be available in the second part of 2018.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:13 am
by exile
Thanks, Herbert,that's major news.

Re: Blender New Innovative 2d Animation "GP Tools"

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 5:40 pm
by Greenlaw
Wow, that's VERY cool.

Wish I had time to take a closer look at Blender. Definitely must make the time for it later this year; the short film and the new tools look amazing.