2D in 3D?

[bleupencil]

This is a noodlescratcher for me :(

If I wanted to incorporate a 2D character animation into a 3D background with camera actions, how do you suppose I would go about doing this?

Kinda like in Pyrats
http://www.pyrats.net

Is the 3D planned out before 2D, then you somehow animate the 2D over the 3D, or vice versa? I can't work out which goes first.

So if anyone knows about this process or knows where I can find info (cos google didn't seem to reveal much), I would reallyyyy appreciate it :3

[Terro]

Pyrats used projection mapping to paint 2D style textures on their 3d models. But I think your question is more based on getting the 3d background in there.

I would definitely do the background first. Animate it in 3D and render it out as a batch render in sequential image files (jpg's or tiffs) not movie. Then import those files into flash or AE, what ever you will be using. Then incorporate your sketches on top of that. I can talk you through it in detail if you need. I'll be pulling an all niter tonight, so just hit me up on msn or we can skype it out.

Make sure your frame rate is the same on both the 2d and 3d app. Most likely 24. This will force you to animate on 1's, but it will produce awesome results.


Edit: Yup I was right, here's a post Fiked did here a while ago regarding the Pyrats process.

For the 3d camera moves ,we printed every frames of the 3d layout and we used it as a base for 2d animation

[flashcartoons]

i think terro answered it best, that pyrats is great stuff, i saw it awhile back, fun to watch again and again

[ZigOtto]

idem than Terro, the 3D BG with camera moving in first,
also, if your 2D animated character is moving in the BG,
you can put a silly 3D "stickman" at key's positions
as template in the scene, to help you to get the right
size/pers when you will go to animate her/him.
(a draft reference that of course you will remove later
when rendering the final 3D sequence).

[bleupencil]

They printed every frame????

Oy that's gotta be a lot of paper :(
Is there a less frivolous way to do it, but animating on paper?

I'm guessing not. Might have to talk to my project partners about using 3D backgrounds after all. Thanks for your input guys!!

[Terro]

I don't think he meant actual printing, although it could be. I think he was meaning it in terms of baking / rendering out each frame which is automatic.

[bleupencil]

Lol. Ok... that still doesn't make sense on how they did it. Excuse my stupidness :(

I've been trying all morning to do a little test in flash... unfortunately the creation/rendering of the 3D took up most of that cos this is totally foreign to me. I only have a few badly timed keyframes drawn in at the moment. And it's chugging like mad in spite of having 4Gb RAM! Maybe I should downsize the resolution (currently 1024x768).

Still not sure how to do it from paper though.

[bleupencil]

Here's my first attempt :rolleyes:
http://bleupencil.animationforum.net/anim/200806082D3Dtest01.mov

[Terro]

Looks really good Amanda. ME likes.

A frame counter would help you greatly as far as the 3d renderings go, that way you can just work completely in digital and not get lost.

Only way to do this in traditional pencil/paper is either to print out each frame or to use a projector that will shoot the BG frames down over your paper.

Or if ytou have a spare LCD monitor, take the stand off, lay it flat down and use it like a lightbox while displaying the 3D frames under your paper.

[NOOB!]

hi bleu,

they way this is done traditionally,is not printing out every frame,but printing out every three frames or so.or the frames with key poses/breakdowns (to save paper)

In the 3d program,a basic cube or rough model of the character is used to represent the character in the scene.
this cube/rough model is used to place the character movements so that it doesn't trail off,like it seems to in your example.Then its all printed out.

tarzan did the best job at this.

but ben fiquet's "making of" makes it more clear towards the end .. the use of a basic model to place the characters.... http://pyrats.net/making-fiquet.html look for "layout 3d plan 12"

its requires some planning,and you really need to know what you want before dealing with something like this.

You remind me of myself bout 2 years ago "wtf? geometry,polygons,baking,huh?!?!" lol.....now i'm a little scared that i understand all of that.

[bleupencil]

but ben fiquet's "making of" makes it more clear towards the end .. the use of a basic model to place the characters.... http://pyrats.net/making-fiquet.html look for "layout 3d plan 12"

its requires some planning,and you really need to know what you want before dealing with something like this. Yeah, I was watching that last night, but it still didn't make a lot of sense to me. The explanations in this thread have helped clear it up a fair bit though, even though I'm still slightly confused.

I'll be discussing this with the director to find out wtf is going on. He's trying to take a lot of shortcuts, but as I said to Greg on msn, I think it's complicating things more than he wants.

You remind me of myself bout 2 years ago "wtf? geometry,polygons,baking,huh?!?!" lol.....now i'm a little scared that i understand all of that. I still don't know what baking is.... unless it involves cakes and cookies ;)

[Ferx]

Baking is a term used on 3D. For example when you create textures for a model, you use bump maps, normal maps, procedural textures, reflections maps, etc. When the textures on model are finished you can "bake" all that textures in one texture file. This really useful for example on game aplications. Baking is used too for Radiosity lighting, background effects ( like sky and clouds generators), motion control, particles effects and particles systems. I hope that this is not confusing you more. :D

[doffer]

To clearify a little bit more :)
When you light your 3d scene, you obviously have lights that cast shadows.
When you want to render a sequence of images (an animation), these shadows needs to be calculated at every frame, which makes rendertimes pretty big.

Especially if you use advanced lighting, such as global illumination, where light bounces around, based on the surface it meets.

You can then bake the shadows into the texture of your objekt, so that the shadow is projected into you texture map.
That way you can turn of the shadows on you light, and you do no longer have to calculate them at every frame, since they are now "drawn" on your texture.

Now, this doesn't work if you model changes (such as a character), since the shadows will only be calculated once when it's baked into you texture, and therefore, if your object moves, the shadows won't!
If you have static objects though (such as backgrounds), you can easily apply this method :)

Hoped it helped a bit.