Hi there, had a burning question on my mind for ages and never known where to ask, so here we go!
A technique I've seen twice now over this year in animation is that of taking 2d painted art, and converting it into a 3d scene, ripe for manipulation and pretty nifty looking background effects. Its an effect I desperately want to learn how to replicate, but just don't know where to begin!
Course I guess it'd be better to link examples since whooshing moving imagery speaks more than my retardo-words!!
Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel
Trailer Here
Ashley Wood took his rather swanky looking MGS comic adaption and turned it iinto a digital graphic novel for the PSP. He has a 'messy' style but when converted slightly to 3d and with motion it blows me away. He is also doing the cutscenes for the new Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, the trailer featuring his cutscenes viewable here, showing that he's got even better at it, and with added voice work it really impresses me. Hence why I badly want to learn how to do it!
Pixar Exhibition: Artscape
IMDB entry for it
I attended the Pixar Exhibition in London over the summer, and I'm not normally into 3d work, but some of their 2d stuff on show really got me. Thinking that Ashley Woods had a monopoly on this whole "painted art -> moving scene" thing, I was floored by the main showreel in the big cinema area of lots of the beautiful painted concept artwork outside into stunning 'scenes' the camera would shoot through on a rollercoaster ride almost.
Far as I know its not been released on DVD at all, and can't find a recording of it on the internet, which is a shame as its the best example of the technique i want to create: transforming 2d art into a layered 3d scene, perfectly.
So basically I'm looking for tips, suggested programs, other examples, theories and a complete verbal breakdown of it all for a complete moron like me :D
It's simple 3D objects with drawings mapped onto them instead of textures. Most of the "animation" is just camera movements.
Basically it's extremely simple 3D modeling and animation. Most of it could have been done in After Effects, rather than a 3D program.
It's kind of a nice technique for a trailer, but I don't see it conducive to character animation.
hi, yes the ardman art animation is 3d with a map projection, 3d world covered it a while back ill check it out and get back to you
I figured that applying artwork to 3d planes was part of the process, its just I was wondering how it was done through the 'cutting out' of 2d art. I wish the Artscape was viewable as that shows previously watercolour and oil paintings taken and layered very effectively. So I'm just as much interested in the process of seperating all the assets to be used.
I agree that it wouldn't work for character animation, but for backgrounds and scenery it really does have an impressive effect.
Aardman had done something similar to this as well eh?
I'm really a bit dim when it comes to learning new programs and techniques, so I'm sorta looking for a fairly in depth yet easy to grasp tutorial I guess!
~http://www.luckettopia.com~
First you'll need to pick a 3D program.
They each come with their own tutorials.
You would be doing what is called a "billboard" effect in 3D and is often used in video games to create vegetation, smoke, and fire.
It is similar to theater scenery where background elements are sometimes painted on flat cut-outs.
http://www.drone.org/tutorials/lighting_flat_objects.html
I think you should look into AfterEffects which has sometimes been called 2 1/2 D because you can work on layers, add Z depth, rotate cameras and really get a feeling of 3D. Quite a lot of 3D work is composited into a 2D animation porgram like AfterEffects or Shake.
Sometimes you bring the 3D into 2D -- say you had a 3D character walking, running, rolling or whatever, you just render the character out and add whatever background you want in 2D.
Matte painting is still heavily used and a lot of green screen techniques are used when combining 2D and 3D. Masks, filters, camera settings ... there's a lot to it.
Check out a book called "After Effects & Photoshop" by Jeff Foster see if that's what you're looking for. You might be looking for something more painterly, but the compositing techniques are the same.