The first thing to do is go to the official Pencil2D website. Okay, so now that you know that Pencil2D is a pretty detailed and reliable animation tool for animators of any skill level, let’s get this thing installed, shall we?
It’s cross-platform software you can get for nearly any operating system.
Developer Matthew Chang and his team took the source code from an earlier project called Pencil and created what is now Pencil2D.įor over 15 years, Pencil2D has evolved with the times, updating software and user interface and experience features to give amateur animators the ability to create impressive 2D animations. This means that Pencil2D is completely open, free, and ripe for modifying. Pencil2D software uses the GNU General Public License. Open-source art programs like GIMP and Pencil2D have made creating using simple tools a ton of fun. Pencil2D is the perfect resource for those who want to get into 2D animation without the financial commitment. For those of you not in the know, open-source means free.
I find Blender’s frame-by-frame animation process to be straightforward, especially with the onion skin tool.Pencil2D is an open-source 2D animation program. Adding AnimationĪt this point I was in the homestretch and wanted to add some more detail with animation. This made the file much faster to work with, but it also made it difficult to see how everything in the looked together without rendering anything. A workaround I ended up using was that I would hide any object I wasn’t working on in the Viewport. With all the objects visible in the scene, the file became virtually unusable with lag. When I had combined all my objects together in one file, again, I found the limitations of Grease Pencil. A work-in-progress version of the final sceneĪfter many more hours, I finally finished all the extra details and had placed them all in one scene. So to save time, I decided to reuse elements from the first building I made to create my other two buildings. Keeping track of the file size and organizing layers surprisingly took a lot of time. Once I had completed the first building, I was surprised at how long it took me to make. That means lots of layers and good layer names so you know how all the layers overlap in 3D. It’s important to make sure that all the layers overlap correctly to maintain the illusion of a 3D object. What I found especially important when using the Grease Pencil was layer management. I found the actual process of using Grease Pencil simple and straightforward.
I found myself having to simplify strokes often to keep the file manageable. Each stroke is made of many individual points that when combined, create a very bloated file. Here’s where I hit a bit of a speed bump: the more details I added, the significantly laggier my Blender file became. Using the completed mesh as my template, I traced over the object to create my linework. I decided to first block out my buildings in 3D first so that I could get a better sense of the depth and proportions. Once I had a plan on what I wanted to make, I imported my reference drawings into Blender. These characters would also give me the opportunity to try out Blender’s Grease Pencil Animation tools.
This would make modelling and drawing in 3D space easier to do.įinally, I created some character designs to populate the scene. Once I had settled on an idea, I started working on a color palette for the illustration. I did this to see how a highly detailed Grease Pencil scene in Blender would perform on my laptop.įrom there, I chose the sketch in the center which was inspired by some of the streets I saw while visiting Buenos Aires. I wanted to start ambitious by making these illustration ideas detailed and complex. This helped to pin down a direction to go in. My first Blender Grease Pencil illustration Making Scenes in 3D Sketching Out Ideasīefore jumping into Blender, I sketched out ideas related to complex urban environments. On top of that, I wanted to see how far I could push myself to create complex scenes within this different medium. After I saw Dedouze’s work, I wanted to get a better understanding of the tool myself.