Sculpt Mode and Grease Pencil for animation
Sculpture mode and grease pencil could work in conjunction with automated morph (shapekey) animations in the program to make it easier to control characters and their expressions and movements in an animation. Even keeping volume for squash and stretch. The same could be done to help animate particles and various other physics animations, such as fluids, smoke, fabric and ocean.
EDIT:
Now watch the video below:
This video shows someone cheering the classic bouncing ball exercise. And this being done frame by frame. Now also see that this person sculpted the circle at certain times. And we know that within object mode it is possible to animate the same circle by interpolation, right? And that this facilitates the animation just because you do not need to animate frame by frame. You only position some keyframes and the software calculates the values of the changes that the object will receive for each inbetween frame. Specifically on things like position, rotation, and scale. Now let's go back to the sculpture mode where this person has determined specific shapes for the circle to assume in each frame. Now imagine that it is possible that each new shape that the circle received in each frame becomes a keyframe, and that through interpolation the circle gradually changes shape. That would be a motion sculpt mode. Something that can also be brought to the 3D part of the program.
Now, imagine this in more complex animations like this:
"You would enter in sculpt mode, sculpt something, select the frame (I do not know if before or after sculpt) and mark the frame with 'I'. Then you could go to another frame, make another sculpture, and mark a new frame. And gradually you would be animating with a sculpture tool !"
"Below you can see some videos that may clarify the concept: See the part, from 1:00, where Murray, the mummy, from the movie Hotel Transylvania, is positioned for a frame of animation through something like sculpture:
See the ChronoSculpt doing this mainly in the part of the puffer fish. In fact, this software does even more than this:
youtube.com/watch youtube.com/watch
In the LightWave video below we have an abstract red shape with a transition between different shapes (at 0:20). Regardless of the method they used to come up with that result, I believe it is a good visual example of how an animation through interpolation through sculpture could work.
As you can see, this would work in a similar way to morph even from Adobe After Effects. But this part for animation, unlike a tool for video editing, could have a simpler and faster use as described above.
12 Comments
Would be really interesting to create moprh videos to key the phase of the sculpted mesh. A new way to make timelapse videos!
You should look up the AniSculpt script that was used way back in Blender 2.58. Most of that functionality is already in Blender now.
That combined with mesh controls on rigs and you've basically already got what you're asking for.
* @Jason van Gumster * I found this video here: vimeo.com/27100314 But it's not 100% like I said. My point is precisely that it is no longer necessary to create these shapekeys for each frame. I raised the hypothesis that you simply use the 'I' key to automatically mark a sort of morph keyframe. Having, for example, 3 keyframes checked, you could see an animation by interpolation between each of the keyframes by changing the shape of the object progressively. Perhaps a motion sculpture mode was needed (Or a complete animation mode that involves all the animation elements in Blender). Then you would enter that mode, sculpt something, select the frame (I do not know if before or after sculpt) and mark the frame with 'I'. Then you could go to another frame, make another sculpture, and mark a new frame. And gradually you would be animating with a sculpture too This would also be useful in Grease Pencil in 2D animations. For example: A circle that is all deformed about 10 frames later. Through interpolation animation the frames between these two forms would be filled with a mean between the initial circle and the final form in a progressive way. I hope I did not get confused.
* @Jason van Gumster * Below you can see some videos that may clarify the concept: See the part, from 1:00, where Murray, the mummy, from the movie Hotel Transylvania, is positioned for a frame of animation through something like sculpture: youtube.com/watch
See the ChronoSculpt doing this mainly in the part of the puffer fish. In fact, this software does even more than this: youtube.com/watch youtube.com/watch
In the LightWave video below we have an abstract red shape with a transition between different shapes (at 0:20). Regardless of the method they used to come up with that result, I believe it is a good visual example of how an animation through interpolation through sculpture could work. youtube.com/watch
* @thiagocavalcantecarvalho *
So where would the shapes be stored? Why not just use shape keys (since they're there), but automate the process to be more seamless?
* @Jason van Gumster * So, but that's exactly what I'm suggesting.
I did not find the Pixar video where they used the technique (I think in the movie Finding Dory), but it looks something like this:
youtube.com/watch
hocuspocus-studio.fr/tools/product/overmorpher-world-space/
It is your proposal/request. You should be the one gathering informations, defining preciselly what you are talking about, and then synthesize it here so that Blender users and developpers can understand right away what's the subject, what's the interest and how it would work in Blender's context.
Until now and in all your topics, you only gave us vague suggestions. Sometimes external links without further exploitable explanations. But that's not enough. That is only the whisper before establishing some concrete matter that anywone can be involved in.
* @-L0Lock- * OK, is there any pattern I should be following? Any post where I can see how it should be done?
* @-L0Lock- * I mean, taking this post as an example, I really can not exercise as it is vague. Sculpt Mode for Shapekeys. Where shapekeys would be used as frames for an animation. In this way, you distort a character's face, for example, apply a key frame, distort again, apply another ... and then use the sculpture mode to animate. Are there any technical parts that I'm forgetting? Should I understand more about python and computer graphics to post something? It is clear to me that I need to learn more to interact with the community.
Ok. How ? What ?
* @-L0Lock- * I think I saw this in some Disney video once. But think of Scultp Mode being used to create shapekeys in an automated way, with each frame.