Add "Text" as a Grease Pencil object

I am no developer / coder, so in term of code-wise I can't really go into details... but as I said, the idea is that, since fonts are vectorial pictures, it would make sense to use a tool which is a 2D vectorial picture (the Grease Pencil) as base for that.

The utility:

• Since Grease Pencil is a feature Blender worked seriously on since the 2.80 version, this could be useful in many ways: Text for Comics, for Storyboards, for 2D animations with subtitles (in case you animate an Extra-terrestrial creature talking for example, or just someone talking a different language in general, and you want the watcher to understand).

The reason it makes sense for me:

• Grease Pencil is a vectorial 2D tool. And this is exactly, if I don't make mistakes, how softwares like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Write and all other office softwares, display text.
• If I don't make mistakes, displaying more than 100.000 GP strokes is lighter for Blender than displaying 100.000 faces. So using Grease Pencil as base for text should be lighter to display (but lighter for the code, though, I have no idea. I'm no coder). Normally, it's not a big deal, since we need a LOT of words to reach 100.000 faces with a text object, but in the case of a 2D comic drawn with the Grease Pencil, I already saw some comics with a lot of words.
• In the case it is used for subtitles in a 2D animation, or storyboard: you won't need to use several text object and to hide / unhide them. You write with the Grease Pencil, and once you write again, you replace the previous GP Text keyframe. VERY useful in that case.

And, as a conclusion, no, I don't want Grease Pencil to convert "hand-gestured GP stroke into text", this is not what I request. What I request is that when we type, the text is made natively with Grease Pencil, not with 3D mesh and faces. It would be great if it could understand hand-gesture GP strokes, but even if I'm no coder, I bet that THAT would be a hell to code, indeed. ^^' The only thing I want, is that adding Text becomes a very useful tool for comic maker, storyboarder and 2D animators using Grease Pencil.

This is not necessary at all. It will not make anything lighter, as Grease Pencil is made of curve points very similar to vertices in mesh. Look at the Grease Pencil stroke in edit mode, look at the Grease Pencil objects that were converted from image shapes in edit mode and you will see what I mean. You can already type in a Text Object in Edit mode and then in Object mode, Convert to Grease Pencil with Alt-C shortcut the same as converting to mesh. The only problem I see there is the fact that the curves are not handled as being compound any longer so holes in letters are separate GP shapes.

"Not necessary at all" for you. But could be useful for others. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have suggested that idea, and I wouldn't have a Blender artist friend who would agree with me and said "Yes, that's weird, why isn't the text tool natively available in Grease Pencil since it's vectorial?".

To be honest, this is not a feature I need absolutely. I can perfectly work without it. But the fact that you precise "not necessary AT ALL" kinda gives the feeling that you didn't read or don't care about what I said regarding how useful it can be with storyboarding, subtitles...

Because YES, you can convert the text in Grease Pencil (not in 4.3 though. They forgot to code the conversion into Grease Pencil for Grease Pencil 3). BUT if you do, the text won't disappear automatically when you start a new keyframe in your Grease Pencil layer. Instead of

• adding a text, writing, next keyframe, writing a text, next keyframe, writing a text... (6 steps for 3 texts in animation)

you'll need to

• add a text, write a text, convert it, add a text, write a text, convert it, join the 2 Grease Pencil objects, merge the layer down, choose the keyframe to display text A, choose the keyframe to display text B, add a text, write a text, convert it, join the 2 Grease Pencil objects, merge the layer down, choose the keyframe to display text C... (15 steps for 3 texts in animation)

I agree that this won't be useful to everyone, including you, but how can reducing the steps for creating and animating text in a storyboard or subtitles (or anything else) by more than half be not be necessary “AT ALL”?

Also, let's not forget that, by converting, you cancel all possibility to edit it. So if you need to edit a text converted into Grease Pencil, you need to delete the converted text, fix the mistake in the 3D text object (if you thought of not deleting it. Otherwise, you need to rewrite ALL the text) and repeat the previous process: Convert, Join with the Grease Pencil object, merge layer down, choose the current keyframes for that text.

While if we could write natively with the grease pencil, I could just fix the text in the keyframe it's displayed and TADA! It's fixed! (1 step to fix it, instead of 6 steps)

One last thing... Maybe I should have said it, so it would be easier to understand, and clear. What I request is simple (in its concept): Grease Pencil arrived to offer the possibility to animate in 2D, and thus to make animatics, storyboards, etc... so I suggest that like the similar softwares: ToonBoom, Animate, TV Paint, OpenToonZ, ... it offers a decent 2D text tool that we can animate with in 2D.

My suggestion is not JUST an idea. It's a completion for the Grease Pencil, a very loved and used feature which was added from the 2.80 version. That's it.

And if that idea was "not necessary at all", I doubt that ALL the 2D animation softwares would have that tool.

Not since they updated Grease Pencil to Grease Pencil 3. So it worked with Blender 4.2, but it doesn't work any more with Blender 4.3.

But that's not the problem. Converting doesn't fix the fact that if you write a long text, it becomes too heavy with the number of faces it displays. I don't want to convert the text in Grease Pencil. I want to WRITE with the Grease Pencil. So it's lighter and more adapted to what a text initially is, to know, a vectorial element.

That's at least my suggestion.

I precise also, I know that this feature request is not very important... and maybe needs more work than I suspect it would, but I had this idea I was discussing about with another Blender artist friend, and we both thought this would be a good idea. And of course, I don't want the current text tool working as a 3D object to be "replaced" by a text tool working as a Grease Pencil, I just find it'd be great to have the possibility to have an additional text object which would work from the Grease Pencil directly.

And personally, I know exactly how I would use that new Grease Pencil Text if it was possible to add it.

Where do you find that they reverted away from allowing Text Object to be converted to Grease Pencil? Press Alt-C, choose Grease Pencil, and then tab to edit mode and discover a very refined control point scheme in your text. They didn't eliminate the option at all.

Edit: Yes, there is a problem with 4.3.0 - I will need to test 4.3.1 now and see what it returns.

They didn't eliminate the option, but currently, as you probably noticed, converting in Grease Pencil converts to curve instead. I tested on 4.3.0, 4.3.1 and 4.3.2.