Month: March 2023

Critical reflection

We decided to use blender to produce animation combining 3d scenes and 2d characters was the original idea. But the main difficulties we envisioned were: 1. shadows.2. character highlighting.We are also actively looking for ways to solve this problem and maintain the balance between 2d and 3d. On this basis all group members discussed together and used their imagination.We decided to give it a few different layers of meaning and then a fantastical story.There was great harmony during the technical discussions and storytelling phase, which reinforced my confidence in working together. I think the unity of ideals is the basis of cooperation.

The part I am responsible for is the 3d scene.
Desert scene: this is the most time-consuming scene, mainly because I want to achieve a stylized three rendering two effects, so try a lot of different material nodes, very tangled, which can be seen in my blog process. Another one is the stroke. Three rendering two has a cartoon and hand-drawn feeling, is because of its clear outline.
Materialization to the item and reverse it after the last material, which is the last method I chose. However, the stroke line will have a little depth-of-field effect.
Throne scene: overall I made a style scene between realistic and secondary style. This is because I want to highlight the details of the part, so the main throne is also drawn with sp a metal map up. But at the same time, weakened the part of writing its realistic materials, such as metallic, specular, etc.. On the lighting, choose to meet the dramatic sense of the stage lighting, with a spotlight to highlight the theme.
The cave scene: This is the one that I struggled with the most and was not satisfied with.The problems I encountered was that the hole as a whole was encased and it did not have any light source hitting in itself. The most important thing for a triple rendered material is to have a clear light source to form the main color, highlight color and shadow color. Therefore, this scene could not use the material node of the three renderings, which once bothered me a lot. Therefore, I had to use the traditional 3d material, out of the effect I am not very satisfied

There is a problem with time management. We made a good schedule at the beginning, and as a rule, we should strictly follow it, but in the end, there was a situation that the 2D animator did not finish drawing. I think I also have a problem. Our schedule should have been that I finished making the white film, my classmates finished the camera lens, immediately handed over to the 2D animator to draw the lines, then I finished the material, and they colored it according to the main atmosphere. I am not mature enough and not skilled in using blender. I found it hard to restore a certain 2D style perfectly, because I was not skilled in mastering the material nodes. But there is a real confusion when it comes to mastering stylized scenes. It’s not like realistic scenes where there’s a very clear reference, and you have to rely more on your own art aesthetics to determine what looks good. In addition, not every stylized tutorial can be taught, and I am not strong enough to TA to write their own very complex material nodes. This is the difficulty of stylization.

One of the problems I encountered was that the hole as a whole was encased and it did not have any light source hitting in itself. The most important thing for a triple rendered material is to have a clear light source to form the main color, highlight color and shadow color. Therefore, this scene could not use the material node of the three renderings, which once bothered me a lot. Therefore, I had to use the traditional 3d material, out of the effect I am not very satisfied.

First of all,this week I updated the throne material and gave the throne and desert scene to the 2D animator. We came out with effects because we had a collaboration with the music school students and we had to give a presentation and effects of the project.

This week I needed to get the final effect of the desert out, so I updated the model with blender’s node to automatically generate the rock bump effect. Then, I adjusted the previous material node, mainly to weaken the black lines that show the shadows, redo the stroke with mission and solidification (I was not satisfied with the automatic effect of crayon and freestyle as I mentioned before), and adjust the sky and overall color. Here is a preview of the project update and the final result.

Here is the rock generation tutorial and the stroke tutorial.

【Blender2..8中简单生成岩石表面的方法-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/7l3dwcy

【blender 三渲二教程～我们更新了讲解和字幕啦！！！-哔哩哔哩】 https://b23.tv/UjHG3XJ

At the same time, We used blender’s workbench to render a video reference, based on a storyboard. And gave 2d Animators access to blender painting.