Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish

366 Pages·2008·43.55 MB·English

by  Roland Hess

Animating with Blender
This page intentionally left blank
Animating with Blender
How to Create Short Animations
from Start to Finish
D. Roland Hess
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG• LONDON
NEWYORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SANDIEGO
SANFRANCISCO• SINGAPORE• SYDNEY• TOKYO
Focal Press isanimprintofElsevier
Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK
Copyright © 2009, D. Roland Hess. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights
Department in Oxford, UK: phone: ((cid:2)44) 1865 843830, fax: ((cid:2)44) 1865 853333,
E-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request online
via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com), by selecting “Support & Contact,”
then “Copyright and Permission” and then “Obtaining Permissions.”
Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, Elsevier prints its
books on acid-free paper whenever possible.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hess, D. Roland.
Animating with Blender : how to create short animations from start to fi nish/by
D. Roland Hess.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-240-81079-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Computer animation. 2. Three-
dimensional display systems. 3. Computer graphics. 4. Blender (Computer fi le) I. Title.
TR897.7.H485 2009
006.6(cid:3)96—dc22
2008026274
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-0-240-81079-9
For information on all Focal Press publications
visit our website at www.elsevierdirect.com
09 10 11 12 13 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset by Charon Tec Ltd., A Macmillan Company. (www.macmillansolutions.com)
Printed in China
Contents
Foreword xi
Chapter 1 An Overview of the Short Animation Process 1
Creating a Short Animation 1
Avoiding Death By Natural Causes 1
Preproduction 2
Production 4
Postproduction 9
The Importance of Following the Work Flow 10
Chapter 2 Story Story Story 13
What Makes an Engaging Story 13
Writing It Down 19
Story Scope, Your Resources, and Reality 21
Scope Example: Adding a Second Character 22
Scope Example: Adding a Second Location 23
Scope Example: Adding Length 23
How Long Is My Story? 23
Chapter 3 Organization 25
Your Digital Assets 25
The Way That Blender Handles Assets 25
A Suggested Organizational Structure 26
Chapter 4 Storyboarding and the Story Reel 29
Storyboarding Basics 29
Suggested Tools 35
Pen Tablets 36
Paint Software 37
Blender’s Image Editor 38
Creating the Storyboards 40
Telling the Story 42
Recording a Temporary Soundtrack for Timing 43
Assembling a Story Reel in Blender’s Sequence Editor 44
Sequencer Tools for Working with Image Strips 50
Watching and Exporting the Story Reel 54
v
Contents
Chapter 5 Character Design and Creation 57
Designing in Line with Your Theme and Reality 57
The Beast 59
The Mom 60
The Dogs 61
Modeling Based on Storyboard Requirements 62
Faces, Hands, and Clothes 62
Level of Detail 63
Normal Mapping for Greater Detail at Lower Resolutions 64
Mesh Animation Issues 67
Quads, Edge Loops, and Joints 68
Bind Pose 72
Polygon Count 73
Preparing the Model for Future Work 75
Chapter 6 Libraries and Linking 77
Libraries, and Why You Should Bother 77
Linking Assets That Do Not Animate 81
Linking Assets for Object-Level Animation 86
Creating an Animation Proxy 86
Creating and Linking a Dupligroup 87
Which Method to Choose? 90
Linking Assets for Character Animation 90
Managing Your Links and Libraries 92
Finding and Fixing Broken Links 93
Moving a Shot File and Maintaining Its Links 94
Moving an Asset File 95
Chapter 7 Rough Sets, Blocking, and an Animatic 97
Creating Rough Sets 97
Preparing the File for the Rough Set 98
Building Your Template Scene File 101
Matching Camera Angles to Storyboards 102
Placing Your Characters 106
Proceeding Through the Story Reel 109
Special Case: Reusing Cameras 110
Additional Detail: Moving Cameras, Moving Characters 110
Creating an Animatic 112
Replacing Storyboards in the Story Reel 112
Chapter 8 Good Sound 117
Finding Decent Equipment and Environments 117
What to Use 118
vi
Contents
Where to Record 119
Making the Recording 119
The Goal of the Recording Session 120
Some Sound Processing Basics 121
Removing Noise and Adjusting Levels 124
Previewing the Recorded Sound 125
Chapter 9 Rigging and Skinning 127
An Iterative Method for Rigging, Skinning, and Testing 127
Control Structures 128
Deformers 129
Helpers 129
General Rigging and Skinning Work Flow 129
Building the Rig in Layers 132
A Practical Example 133
Inverse Kinematics/Forward Kinematics 133
Auto IK 141
Another Rigging Example: The Fingers 141
Binding the Rig to the Mesh 142
To Deform or Not? 142
The Armature Modifi er and Vertex Groups 143
The Mesh Deform Modifi er 146
Lattices 148
Combining Different Deformation Methods with Vertex
Groups 152
Testing Your Rig 154
A Final Example of Fixing a Rigging Problem 155
A Checklist for Preparing Rigged Characters for Life as a Library 157
Chapter 10 Facial Motion and Controls 161
Blender’s Method for Controlling Facial Expressions 161
Creating a Library of Shapes 164
Different Ways to Construct Expressions 165
Expression Fragments 165
Splitting Expressions 166
Tips for Creating the Shapes 170
Mouth Shapes for Lip Syncing 173
Constructing Shape Controls 175
Rigging and Controlling Eyes 182
Spherical Eyes 182
Flattened, Squashed or Otherwise Nonspherical Eyes 183
vii
Contents
Chapter 11 Animation 187
Creation of Per-Shot Working Files from the Scene Template 187
Animation Basics 189
Animating in Blender 192
Working in the Action Editor 193
Straight Ahead Animation 195
Pose to Pose Animation 196
A Practical Example 197
Timing 201
Overlap 202
Anticipation and Follow Through 204
Fine Tuning Your Animation 204
Analyzing Motion with Arcs 205
Facial Expressions 206
“Automatic” Motion: Breathing and Blinking 206
Production Techniques 208
Pick it Up 208
Hold On! 209
Walk This Way 210
A Final Note 214
Chapter 12 Lip Sync 215
Adding Audio Strips to Shot Files 215
Creating the Sync 217
Mixing and Exporting Sound for the Final Edit 219
Chapter 13 Final Sets and Backgrounds 223
Work Flow 223
Quality versus Render Time 224
Geometry 224
Matching the Rough Set 224
Movable Objects and Construction 225
Materials 226
Raytracing, of Course 226
Subsurface Scattering 228
Full OSA 229
Lighting 230
What Not to Use 230
Lighting Exterior Shots 231
Lighting Interior Shots 234
Layering 236
Getting Help 238
viii
Contents
Chapter 14 Simulation 243
Blender’s Simulators 243
Fluids 243
Common Methods of Faking Water and Fluids 248
Cloth 253
Cloth Pinning 255
Rigid Bodies 258
Particles 262
Fire and Smoke 262
Bits o’ Stuff 266
Strands—Hair and Fur 270
Setting Up and Adding Parent Strands for Grooming 271
Filling it Out with Children 275
Materials 276
Soft Bodies 281
Blubber 281
Hair 283
Linking Issues with Simulators 285
Chapter 15 Rendering and Compositing 287
Goals and Overview 287
Lighting Your Shot Files 288
Compositing for Better, Faster Renders 290
Faster Renders 290
Better Renders 302
Contrast Boost 302
Midtone Brightness 303
Combining the Techniques 304
Color Adjustment 305
Motion Blur 307
Getting a Good Render on Your Local Machine 309
Final Animation Review 311
Preparing for Render Farming 312
Setting Up and Using a Render Farm 313
Using Render Farm Software: Farmerjoe 314
Running Farmerjoe Remotely 321
Checking the Final Frames 322
Staying Organized 322
Chapter 16 Final Edit and Output 325
Putting All of the Renders Together 325
Color Correction and More Post Effects 330
ix