2D to 3D (experimenting with Keymesh) (Patreon)

Hello! Here's a little animation test, with a bit of behind-the-scenes footage for context. And here's me typing some words for even more context! Too much context maybe (sorry).

So- more 3D!
For those who might be wondering, my intention when learning 3D for Donks was never to pivot away from 2D animation- rather just to find ways I can add the tools of 3D to what I already do.
Donks was a very specific exercise with set rules, where the bits were all 3D, and the animation was all 2D. But long term I would hope for the relationship between different mediums to be less regimented. I still want to primarily focus on drawn animation, but in ways where other elements such as 3D, stop motion and video can cohesively intermingle.

ANYWAY! Partway through making Donks, a plugin came out for Blender called Keymesh, where simply put, you can sculpt a thing, put in a keyframe, and then re-sculpt the thing.
And this was VERY interesting to me, because what it was making easier, is the ability to morph something in 3D.
In redrawn animation, morphing and transformation are integral to the whole thing. Things don't move so much as they change shape, and making stuff look like it's moving WITHOUT changing shape is the tricky bit. Making a caterpillar turn into a butterfly is inherently easier than making someone walk. Clay animation has similar properties.

Whereas 3D is largely based around puppet animation. Puppet animation exists in 2D and in stop motion as well, and has a very different set of strengths. But while you can make an articulated stop motion puppet with a morphing clay face stuck on, 3D has a myriad of unique crazy magic computer tools that can be used in tandem with puppetry.

So, when 3D tools are used in 2D animation, it's often compartmentalised based on these strengths- ie a redrawn character in front of a 3 dimensional scene for camera moves or water simulations or something.
But this simple plugin facilitates 3D animation that BEHAVES like redrawn animation in a much more fundamental way, and I think that makes opportunities to intertwine the two in much more complicated ways.

To work out WHAT those more complicated ways might be, I had to give it a try! Without anything too specific in mind, I wanted to see if I could take a rough redrawn animation and "colour it in" with 3D, and then see what that allows for.

Making a 3D model conform perfectly to the silhouettes of the drawings was easy- but it was incredibly slow! If I just wanted something to have 3D lighting and shadows, it definitely would have been faster to paint each frame in Photoshop than to model it. So it started to feel a little bit pointless partway through.

But! When it was finished and I could do things like shade the whole thing like glass or jelly, or move the lighting around, or cover it in hair, then it suddenly seemed very valuable again!

It sounds very hard and annoying to make an animation where EVERYTHING was done this way, but I would like to run some more tests where its mixed in with regular 2D to achieve more specific effects- and see if I can make it all gel together!