How To Do 2d Animation In Sony Vegas
10 tips for moving from 2d to 3D blitheness
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It'south been at the back of your head for a few years now, just gnawing at you. You've been a professional person 2D animator and motion graphics expert for a long time, and you love what you do. But y'all accept to admit that 3D has always been the holy grail destination for the high-end work. Two-d is just astonishing, and what tin be done with information technology has keeps getting better and better. But still... 3D has ever been there, taunting you.
As a 3D animator, I have oft had 2nd animator friends that have confided the above feelings to me. They have wanted to brand the leap, merely let's confront it, 2D is faster and more predictable in many production environments. And moreover, there are simply more job opps for 2d than there are for 3D. Besides, the learning curve for 3D is somewhat daunting. All of this is true. Just still... 3D has ever been there, taunting you.
The expert news
Here's the practiced news. While second is getting more capable (via plugins and application enhancements), 3D has been growing equally well. It'south been getting easier to larn, and production workflow has been getting faster and more predictable.
Faster computers with multiple cores are a dream come up true for 3D needs. Yippee! So making the jump is easier than it's been in the past, making this a good time to spring. Or at least become your feet wet.
Here are ten tips to help you have your commencement steps towards 3D, and maybe country on your anxiety when you lot finally make the jump.
01. See how far yous can button your 2nd apps
Accept a beat or ii earlier you jump, and come across simply how far we can push our 2d program's envelope. If you're using Adobe's Later Furnishings for 2d blitheness, then you tin push that envelope pretty darn far.
AE has what is referred to as a two-and a half-D system. What this means is that AE actually has a pretty good understanding of 3D infinite. When a layer's 3D toggle is checked, that layer (known as an 'object' or 'model' in 3D terminology) volition so exist in a space that has X, Y, and Z coordinates, non simply the X and Y in 2D. You can then add cameras and lights, and actually work in the XYZ space. You are now a 3D animator! That wasn't also hard at all, was it?
Ane issue with using After Effects every bit a 3D application though, is that by default it only supports 2D objects, fifty-fifty within its 3D world. That means no 3D meshes or being able to move effectually a model. So your animations volition have a lot of apartment videos and graphics moving in 3D infinite. This is why it's called 2.5D: the world is 3D, but its inhabitants are still second. It's okay, and it'south a skilful place to kickoff getting used to things.
02. Bring 3D geometry into Later on Effects
Fortunately, there are ways to get around the 2D objects limitation in AE, though it gets a tad complicated, so blank with usa.
If you take a version of AE Creative Suite shortly prior to CS6, you can actually employ Photoshop Extended'southward 3D tools to ready a 3D scene so import that PS file into AE and voila, you lot have existent 3D geometry in AE. Alas, that 'Live Phoshop 3D' functionality was curt lived and killed off past AE CS6.
If y'all take AE Artistic Suite 6, through any version prior to Creative Cloud 12, there are a number of third party programs that can be added as plugins that will allow you to actually import 3D geometry, and even exercise varying degrees of stuff with information technology one time imported. These applications include Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro (opens in new tab), Video CoPilot'south Chemical element 3D (opens in new tab). These plugins practise far more than simply import 3D mesh, offering a great deal of command and features. Check them out!
03. Get a major 3D package for free
At present, if you accept AE CC 12 and later, you are in for a treat. It at present comes with a free plugin that is called Cineware, from the Cinema 4D (C4D) folks. What Cineware does is link AE to C4D in even better ways than they had been integrated in the past. The real kicker is that AE now fifty-fifty comes with a total version of C4D, absolutely free. This, frankly, is awesome, absurd, and a general game-changer all effectually. (And something this author predicted about 10 years ago and was laughed at for. Well HA! Back at them now!)
The scope of what can be done with this major integration is talked about in great detail here (opens in new tab). And tutorials on its use can exist seen at both Adobe'southward website (opens in new tab) and Greyscale Gorilla (opens in new tab). This is going to usher in a new era of media cosmos - but picket and run across!
04. Choosing your 3D application
The free copy of C4D with AE CC is just groovy. C4D Lite is a great program, fun to learn, and knowing it is a good investment considering its older sibling versions have made slap-up inroads into the manufacture (i.e., job opps!) But the combination of AE, C4D and Cineware is circuitous and may involve a steeper learning curve than some of yous want to deal with.
There are other programs out in that location that are simpler to learn and use, which y'all may prefer. Using i of them, and then rendering out the 3D animations in the more traditional workflow is notwithstanding a groovy way to go. There are so many 3D applications to cull from.
On the easier to use side of things, you lot may wish to expect at Art of Illusion (opens in new tab), which is a simpler program to main and likewise available costless. A like program is 3Dcrafter (opens in new tab), which is available in iii versions, priced at gratis, $35 and $70. Depending on the type of work y'all volition exist doing, don't forget most programs similar Sketchup (opens in new tab) and Daz3D (opens in new tab), which both accept free versions and reasonably priced avant-garde versions.
Stepping upward a large notch in that location are a number of programs. A longtime personal favorite is Electricimage Animation Studio (opens in new tab), which has a long heritage and has been used on Star Wars, Star Trek, Hook, Super Bowl graphics and and so much more. It has a powerful and generally easy to utilise interface, and has been a longtime fan of movement graphics designers moving to 3D.
In the similar level arena is Blender (opens in new tab), which is an open source package that just keeps getting meliorate and is a bully tool to know. The community they have built, and the quality of the output is kickass, equally yous tin can see from these demo reels (opens in new tab).
There are many others you may wish to explore, like Lightwave, 3DS Max and higher versions of Movie theater 4D. All of these are more significantly priced purchases.
05. Lest we forget nigh Photoshop 3D
For those of us doing animations that may be a bit less demanding, let'south not forget virtually a bang-up tool you almost certainly already have: Photoshop. If yous take any version since CS3, then you have some level of 3D blitheness ability already at your disposal. If you have a version Photoshop CS6 (opens in new tab) or later, then you lot have fifty-fifty more than enhanced toolsets and abilities, as Adobe did a nice overhaul around that time.
If yous don't have a reasonably recent graphics card with the Mercury engine built in, then y'all may notice performance hard or fifty-fifty impossible to work with, then examination this out. Though a powerful new video card tin can exist had for less than ownership a midrange animation bundle, so weigh your needs.
If you accept Photoshop and advisable hardware in place, give it a whirl and see if it meets your needs. All-time uses for Photoshop 3D is for illustration and presentation/mock up prep, and also for animations that fall into more of a multimedia type category, like online deliver and like needs.
You are not likely to be doing blockbuster films or even circulate work hither, but if used accordingly, it tin can exist a fantastic improver and transition from where y'all are, to where you want to go. And the workflow from PS to AE couldn't be easier.
06. Develop your 3D manner by working off your 2D style
As a 2D animator and mograph creative person yous have some serious skill sets. Not simply practise you lot know your tools (well, hey human, yous'd improve), but y'all have a design esthetic that is (make full it in here: 'cutting edge', 'classic', 'edgy', 'corporate', etc.). Every bit you jump into 3D yous may observe it hard to translate your 2D style into 3D. My suggestion is: don't try.
Instead, work backwards in your planning of projects, at least for a while. Information technology'south all too like shooting fish in a barrel to permit the 3D tools to hijack your artistic process and send you off in directions you lot don't need, and don't take time for. Recollect about what yous would do in 2D, and try doing much the same thing in 3D, just with some added value. Or ameliorate yet, and easier, just stay with your design and production work in 2D, and niggling by trivial add more 3D into the mix.
Some of you will find a dwelling with small amounts of 3D in your future mix, and some will observe yourselves being brought over to the other side and end up living in 3D. It's all adept. Simply let your creative juices and condolement levels take yous where you lot need and desire to become (okay, yeah, your employer may have a say hither, nosotros become that office of life as well. Only you'll make it work.)
07. To model or buy
With 3D having then much to acquire, it'south just fine if you offload some of the work. For a time, or even forever, there's no requirement that you larn information technology all. For case, when yous did all those neat move graphics animations, it's probably a safe bet you didn't ever shoot all the video footage that was used, correct? And tell united states you lot never bought some stock photos? Yeah, right. Then experience costless to go to some of the wonderful 3D modeling sites and catch some meshes.
There are plenty of commercial sites, merely at that place are likewise many freely downloadable sites as well. Nosotros've come to realize that the quality of the meshes is non always as linked to the cost cistron every bit y'all may assume. Likewise, some meshes come up with textures, and some do not.
Terminal item to go along in heed is format. Make certain the models you get are importable past your 3D software. Unfortunately, fifty-fifty if all the specs seem correct, there will be times that some models just refuse to be imported correctly. This happens and isn't ever anyone's fault. There are many mesh format converters available, some for free. Sometimes running a model through a converter solves a problem. So again, there are the times all this does cypher more sparse the hair on your head.
08. Scene building
Unlike in 2d, 3D requires actually edifice a scene. At least sort of. For example, you lot can unremarkably go away with building far less than one might showtime recollect. This is a lot like building a Hollywood or theatrical stage set, you really just need to cover whatever area that will be seen. A lot can be faked out with art mapped to flat planes.
As you commencement in 3D, you may even desire to skip creating scenes and merely focus your attention on models that are fix up and animated, and then rendered. The backgrounds or 'scenes' tin can be created in your 2nd compositing programme instead.
In any case, starting time off slow. For goodness sake, don't jump in thinking of recreating a photorealistic human being week one. Exit that to week three, okay? (And maybe take a look at Poser). At that place is so much creative work that can be done with elementary models, simple texture mapping, and some like shooting fish in a barrel animation work. As y'all progress, you will become a better feel for what needs to be washed in 3D (read: slower), and what can exist handed off to 2D (read: washed faster).
Have a unproblematic example: You have a spinning elevation (that old fashioned kids toy, remember?) that is dropped and bounces. Sure, the whole animation can be done in 3D. Simply instead you could only practice a uncomplicated 360 degree rotation blitheness of the top (really more like ~350 degrees so as not to repeat the original position twice!). And so accept that into 2d and loop the short prune to repeat. In one case looping, you lot can now take the clip and animate it falling and bounding in 2D. ( A great tip for this is to utilise your compositor's 'wait at' function to brand the flat rendered top animation always face up the camera. This fashion y'all tin can actually move the 2.5D camera effectually the scene a bit and not give abroad the fact that the spinning superlative is actually apartment.)
09. Rendering
Entire books accept been written on this subject field. Then what I volition impart to you here will be desperately wanting, but here information technology goes... Basically speaking, in that location are two full general levels of rendering quality, high-end/exotic (raytrace, global illumination, occlusion, etc.), and the more than pedestrian multifariousness (phong, gourand).
Many times, a lot of great piece of work tin be done with the more pedestrian levels of rendering, which is a lot faster. As video cards amend, it'south besides condign possible to practise real time rendering that is usable for many applications (as is done in games).
Rendering smartly tin can hateful the difference between the render chore taking a day, or a calendar week. Or at least whether you get home in time for dinner. So before you plough on those raytraced shadows, think about what look you are going for, and what will be done to the animations in mail service. You lot may not need it. Try not to get seduced by all those buttons!
10. Retrieve: it all ends up back in 2d
The one matter that many people forget is that ultimately, all your work is going to finish upwardly back in your 2d compositing program. This is good to go along in mind because it gives you a lot more command. What kind of command? Yous should know what kind, you lot are the 2D animation/mograph expert here. The truth is we can take the simplest of images and throw on then many techniques (not to be confused with filters, right?) and make it interesting. And perhaps more than to the point, make clean up the mess nosotros sometimes make in our 3D work!
Words: Lance Evans
Lance Evans is creative managing director of Graphlink Media (opens in new tab). He has written books on 3D, and produced the 3DNY Seminars for Apple tree and Allonym.
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Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/audiovisual/2d-3d-61411925
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