Grease Pencil - Extra Brush-Engine ?
As a 2D Animator, I've animated in many pro 2D Animation Software before like many other animators, for example: TVPaint and currently Toon Boom Harmony.
As soon as I heard of the upgrade of Grease Pencil I was so excited I grabbed my Digital-Pen and wanted to animate something fun, BUT! As soon as I got into 2.8 one thing bothered me RIGHT AWAY:
The BRUSHES... the lines, the way they work, or should I say FEEL and Render in realtime? to be honest it puts me away. It feels like I'm drawing some dots and lines, so I tried to ignore that "feeling" but where I got to erasing, I kept fighting blender trying to erase some lines while it's actually removed partial sections / lines from point 1 to point 2 instead of smooth erasing vector or raster accurate pixels on the screen, it wasn't accurate and felt horrible as a brush and as an eraser.
Please understand, I'm not here to complain but I must share my personal experience as a 2D Animator so maybe there is a way to use / develop? another better Brush option or should I say Brush Engine? I'm no programmer so I don't know how these things works, I only know as a user how it feels compare to any other vector or raster digital drawing software such as TVPaint, ToonBoom Harmony, Photoshop, Krita, OpenToonz, etc..
Maybe it's already exist and it's coming in the future? (A secret feature?)
BETTER Brush Engine: Unfortunatly I can't explain the "feeling" but if you will download a trial version of ToonBoom Harmony for example just to FEEL the brush while you draw in Vectors using it's default "Brush Tool" (not the Pencil) you will notice how accurate it is, consider it's not even raster like in Photoshop or TVPaint.
To be honest, I don't mind if it's vectors or raster bitmaps but the Brush must at least have a decent emulation of drawing and erasing, as I said the current state of Grease Pencil Brush (no matter which one) feels weird, especially when you draw many fast mini lines (pencil like) or just trying to accurate erase sections... it's very rough.
Technoligy Inspiration (MUST HAVE): Toon Boom are the ONLY application right now that I used that have this amazing tool called "Cutter" which allow you to overwrite a line that is overlapping and erase it immediately while not damaging the original shape, it is hard to explain but you can it on this example from one of my videos:
Example here:
youtu.be/QNiWvhVMKqE
Please watch the first few seconds from this point to understand
I cannot explain how many hours drawing / animating with this mighty tool is saving for me as a Frame-By-Frame Tradigital animator.
As a long user of Toon Boom Harmony (way before they called it Harmony) this 'Cutter Tool' was there for over 2 decades now, it is not a new technology but still I didn't see it in any other professional animation software yet, so... why not in the future of Blender? :)
CONCLUSION:
- If possible to either Add a vector / pixel normal brush beside the current one it will be amazing!
- A 'Cutter Tool' to cut rough lines as we draw or animate will be PERFECT!
I hope that somebody will help make the very basics of Grease pencil which is a decent way to draw with a more pencil / pen natural emulation feel.
If it's coming... I'll be VERY HAPPY to animate a short cartoon in Grease Pencil to show the world what can be done and encourage many other 2D Animators to join the party! (just let me know via Twitter or something).
Thanks for reading and sorry about my bad English.
BETTER EXAMPLE: (edit update post) So I made this short introduction to Harmony almost a year ago, but it's the PERFECT EXAMPLE to show what extra Brush Engine we should have in Blender-2D features, I show how I draw rough outlines and scrap'em with ease to cleanup the mess:
It's obvious that the current vectors or points-based limited brushes or the all engine behind doesn't feel good to draw or cut, so if there is a way to make another / extra engine for better 2D Brushes and Dynamic Cutter tool... Many 2D Animators like myself will be extremely happy.
I hope to see something like that come soon because I can't really draw with the current limited brush and I REALLY want to do a short cartoon with within Blender! :)
9 Comments
Cutter tool looks very useful, worth a feature request of its own!!
@mistajolly: Once you use it, it's almost impossible to do anything without it! :)
@alondan: Do you know that the Cutter tool is in GP now?
The current GP problem compared to other professional software is that GP uses point vector lines not Beizer lines. I suppose that with time it will arrive, GP is very young.
@ricarte: I just updated the post with another example (much better and clear video) I hope it will inspire some developers to get us a different / new / better Brush Engine! This could be be amazing. :)
I know what you mean, as digital artist myself, drawing in Blender isn't feels right, I haven't tried ToonBoom, but in CSP there is Vector layer, and drawing in it just feels just right!
@qs2435: Exactly! it is hard to describe but Grease Pencil doesn't feel natural or at least Pen/Pencil emulation like other software, both Vector and Raster. For example Krita uses multiple Brush-Engines! why Blender can't? so they don't have to replace it but to add extra brush engine that is up to date and can have extra control such as the "Cutter" as I've mentioned and showed.
yes the brushes are horrible.And their behavior as well.Still it's just one year in development.Big hopes for the future.
This has been included into GP 2.8 beta. It's outstanding! Thank you developers!