since blender 2.63 has a well working .svg-import, combining inkscape and blenders abilitys for cartoon-animation is pretty easy to do and a lot of fun with high-quality results. like creators of southpark using maya, using opensource inkscape and blender brings nearly same features and makes hd-cartoon-creation possible for anybody with a pc.

cartoon - character - animation - workflow with inkscape and blender: http://jelly.haifashion.eu/dl/animation/index.html
rendered animation as avi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PVC46i0 ... e=youtu.be
free-to-use .blend - file: http://jelly.haifashion.eu/dl/animation/whale.blend
free-to-use character .svg - file: http://jelly.haifashion.eu/dl/whale.svg

Nice info. I'm going to finally get around to trying Blender one of these days

hi,

glad to present you the first "Jellyfish Dessert" webcomicclip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzf8OpcR ... e=youtu.be

artwork is done - as usual - with inkscape and imported in blender for animation.

comment if you hate, like or dont care about it.. looking forward to hear from you.

cheerio

combination of inkscape and blender is amazing due the render quality of inkscape png and its gradients.

with inkscape created displacement - maps rock 3d models in blender. in the following example

edit: updated render/see below;

inkscape - svg to png render displaces the surface of the 3d model with hd results.

ha1flosse,
What is the displacement map for? I can see some resemblance to the seahorse, but can't quite understand how they're related.

hi brynn,

originally the 3d model of the character looks like this:

edit: updated render/see below;

as you see, the geometry - surface of the model is originally flat. with the uv/displacement-map generated in inkscape, blender guesses which polygons/faces of the original flat surface will be lifted or lowered, so the result is a structured surface as seen above. displacement-maps have a 50% grey as base tone which means this is like a baseline. faces with lighter or darker grey tones than 50% grey will lift or lower the polygons of the models' surface in rendering without affecting the original geometry of the model. as you will its textured over the original geometry just affecting it in the render but not the original mesh structure in blender. this technique is usually used in all 3d cgi as games, movies etc. to structure surfaces in effortable render time.

the displacement-map generated in inkscape is pretty accurate and can easily be changed (because its a vector-path inkscape is rendering from as you know) so that it precisely affects the surface structure of the 3d - model.

its pretty easy and i'll show it off in a workflow-overview if there are requests on that.

I would love to see a good Blender tut, the ones I had found a long time ago used the older Blender version and I didn't know enough to figure out how to use it.

Ooooohh, I think I understand now! I thought the displacement map had something to do with how your original 2d object became a 3d object. But now I understand that the displacement map made those ridges on the pre-existing 3d seahorse. Thanks for explaining

Hi ha1flosse
Yes we are interested in the SVG displacement maps and how to create them, so I for one would like to see your workflow over-view.
thanks for posting this interesting topic.

Brynn and Flamingolady
Basically, displacement maps are used to add detail, without adding polygons.
You will love blender if you give it another go, and there are lots of tutorials for the 2.5+ editions now, so you may have better luck with them.
Try Blendercookie, and the Blender artists forum to find tutorials compatible with current builds, or websearch blender tutorials.
There are also some good books that deal with builds of blender that include the sweeping changes to the program that were introduced in version 2.5.
( most beginner level tutorials for 2.5 and up will work with the latest versions of the program)

as pointed out there are plenty of tutorials also for blender 2.6 and on youtube, just google.

at least basic skills are needed to map textures as displacement on objects in blender so i linked some tutorials in the following overview that are suitable. the overview is also focused on displacement mapped by uv - coordinates in blender.

1) setup scene with camera and lights in blender

scene: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... ace/Scenes
camera: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... amera_View
light: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... l/Lighting

2) add & model object/surface in blender

basic skills: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D ... nning_Tips
modelling: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D ... nd_Shading

object should have faces/polygons (e.g. subdivision surface as modifier) that can be displaced matching the displacement map and its resolution.

"From best to worst, displacement works with these object types using the methods listed to control the render face size:

Subdivision Surface Meshes
Rendered face size is controlled with render subsurf level. Displacement really likes smooth normals.
Manually (Edit Mode) subdivided meshes
Control render faces with number of subdivides. (This can be combined with the above methods.) Displaces exactly the same Simple Subsurf, but slows editing down because of the OpenGL overhead of drawing the extra faces. (You can't turn the edit subdivide level down this way).
Meta Objects
Control render faces with render wiresize. Small wire == more faces.

The following are available, but currently don't work well. It is recommended that you convert these to meshes before rendering.

Open NURBS Surfaces
Control render faces with U/V Surface Resolution. Higher numbers give more faces. (Note normal errors).
Closed NURBS Surfaces
Control with Surface Resolution controls. (Note the normal errors, and how implicit seam shows).
Curves and Text
Control with Surface Resolution controls. Higher gives more render faces. (Note that the large flat surfaces have few render faces to displace)."

3) uv unwrap object in blender

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpkG6ygVals
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D ... Map_Basics

unwrap workflow: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... Unwrapping

save copy of uv map image (UV Editing Window, Menu Image). export uv map/layout to file (UV Editing Window, Edit mode of object, Menu UVs).

4) edit uv - map in inkscape

open copy of uv map image in inkscape, set as layer, import uv layout as layer (both for map reference, set invisible in uv map png render). create layer for displacement. add background with 50% grey filling. note that lighter grey areas will lift darker grey areas of displacement map will lower polygons. add displacement regarding uv layout. export png in correct size (example: 2048x2048).

5) add uv - map as texture and displacement in blender

setup texture: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D ... ie_Texture

->see: Adjusting the Influence
-->Geometry; Displace

general: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... splacement

ha1flosse.
Thanks for posting this detailed explanation for us.

small progress creating characters' material, shader and basic - texture which is fully inkscaped (with the spray tool) and a bit gimped by blurring the textures appearance using the gaussian filter. if you like to watch:

edit: updated video/render; see below

beside that, i experienced huge performance issues in inkscape (workflow and render) while working with numerous objects and/or blurring objects espec. at blurring - rates bigger than 50% even if used with few objects. as long as i am using a core i3 i am wondering if that's normal and how commercial products behave with such workloads that cause problems in inkscape in comparison.

Wow, that's amazing ha1flosse!

As far as Inkscape performance, my understanding is that RAM is more important than cores/processors. If you have a lot of filters in the drawing (which includes blur) you can change Inkscape Preferences > Filters > Number of Threads to match however many cores/threads you have, and it does help significantly to speed up display/rendering of filtered objects, on screen. But other than that, it's my experience that RAM is more important. I couldn't comment on commercial products.

hey brynn,

really glad you like it!

hope this will turn out well because i am struggeling a bit with the textures always tending to make things complicated. seems to me it is the hardest part to keep it simple if it is not.

thanks for the tips speeding up inkscape which helped a lot. as long as i set up ubuntu's 32-bit version on the i3 back in the days (due to support and stability of 32bit compared to 64bit version) maybe the RAM - issue is really slowing inkscape down because 32bit version just addresses 2gb of RAM. beside that i tried using inkscape on win 7 64bit which adresses the whole 4gb RAM with just marginal differences, but i don't like windows and microsofts policy at all, so even if inkscape on windows would outpace the performance on ubuntu i would stick to the ubuntu's version.

don't get me wrong, i am inkscaped to the bone, glad using only open source and all the tools that came from it and i am also happy to promote this with every piece of art done with these tools because i really feel like the thoughts grounding open source developments are pointing into a direction where dreams of future societys people living together with less struggeling and fighting for basic requirements and more sense for sharing and helping each other maybe come alive...

created some textures using inkscape exclusively.

edit:updated videos; see below

body uv texture:


heads' fin uv texture:


clues, tips, hints, suggestions and critics are very welcome!

cheerio

Don't know if it's the specular or some mirror, but when the character turns the back to the camera it's too much of that light for me.
Also that light makes the material look flat, especially on the top of the head.
I'm not that familiar with texturing in general, but you could get some realistic textures with generating a voronoi pattern.
A hint from 3D artists is to create one detailed model, and bake the texture, then use the baked texture on a model with less faces.
Maybe you can try that, and bake a voronoi pattern for a basic texture.

I attach a blend file of my playing around to have a more realistic texture for an idea, though I'm not that satisfived with the result.

ha1flosse, very nice!
The only part that doesn't seem to work for me, is the shading/shadows. They just seem really forced, and unnatural. Rather than too light, as Lazur URH says, I think it's just right. Except -- on the full back view, the shading is just right. But as it turns, the shading gets too dark. I'm not sure how to identify the position of the seahorse at the point where it gets too dark. It's just as the back becomes visible, and just as the back disappears around the other way. But the shading under the chin is the worst for me. It's hard to descibe exactly how it doesn't work....it may be something to do with the 3d lighting, and I certainly don't know the proper language to describe it. Just that it seems unnatural. Although it's really hard to be critical about this at all, because I can only imagine how much work has gone into it. That seahorse shape is really an interesting 3d shape, on which to play with lighting and shading....even just to look at someone else's

OH! I should say that those comments are for the full seahorse body. When I look at the head only, I do agree with Lazur URH, about the head being too bright.

Lazur URH, what is "baked"? Is it some kind of texture effect? For your (presumably) quick example, I think if you had made the cusp/corner nodes smooth, it would make the 3d look more real. In the places where we can see the sharp corner, the 3d effect is lost. I guess our eyes and brains can conceive of the sharp corners on an otherwise smooth and round object? Your object looks metallic, because of the appearance of reflective light.

That was just a quick model with low face count and no subdivision surface modifier, thus the corners.
Baking is the word for rendering the texture in the scenery onto itself.
You unwrap the model, create a new image, then render bake it, then you can save that image as a basic template to a texture design.

hey Lazur URH, hi brynn,

thanks a lot for your feedback which really helps to improve the work. so i agree - the reflection/shading is too much white, burning and unnatural, i'll try to achieve a more natural look reducing the reflections, maybe that affects the shading under the chin too so i can probably solve these problems by just editing the material. tried the voronoi pattern already in earlier stage of work and i didnt like the computated look of the voronoi texture compared to how seahorse skins look like.

i put a lot of work in the character but that doesn't count (it has been a learning by doing process anyway, so there were a lot of hours trying this and that and how it affects the results) - so feel free to send critics and suggestions about this work. looking at someone else's work helps sometimes, but feedback on actual work is the best way to improve skills in my opinion because i cannot figure out how it has been done and how to do it just by looking at the work of somebody, especially if the artist is using skills i do not know it is like a magic trick you can't figure out just by watching the show. and i think feedback from artists who are not into that kind of work is a very valuable advice too, because the view is not affected by things you already now and even more just as it is.

how you like the textures btw? the goal is to achive a simple, nice cartoonish look in effortable render times for animation, so textures can be flat as long as they look interesting. unnecessary to tell that it has been a lot of fun to create the textures with inkscape. it is a pretty good combination using inkscape for this with blender because of inkscapes accessibility, easy-to-use bezier-tools, gradients and the hd png-rendering.

render baking is pretty complicated or i don't get it - in fact it saves render time while preprocessing render data and saving it to file to reduce render times on later renders, as explained in blender wiki:

"Baking, in general, is the act of pre-computing something in order to speed up some other process later down the line. Rendering from scratch takes a lot of time depending on the options you choose. Therefore, Blender allows you to "bake" some parts of the render ahead of time, for select objects. Then, when you press Render, the entire scene is rendered much faster, since the colors of those objects do not have to be recomputed.

Render baking creates 2D bitmap images of a mesh object's rendered surface. These images can be re-mapped onto the object using the object's UV coordinates. Baking is done for each individual mesh, and can only be done if that mesh has been UV-unwrapped. While it takes time to set up and perform, it saves render time. If you are rendering a long animation, the time spent baking can be much less than time spent rendering out each frame of a long animation.

Use Render Bake in intensive light/shadow solutions, such as AO or soft shadows from area lights. If you bake AO for the main objects, you will not have to enable it for the full render, saving render time. "

i am no blender pro and things can get pretty complicated in blender if you not exactly know what youre doing so my workflow using blender is still basic combined with just a little advanced knowledge in modelling/materials/textures and animation. i already tried baked rendering with the displacement maps in earlier stage of work (because on higher subdivision levels it takes a lot of time to render the model with these maps) but i didnt fully get it how it works, so until now the results are pretty poor and i'll stick to normal rendering at the moment.

cheerio

I like the texture very much! It might be because of the color, but the texture (texture/pattern*) reminds me of giraffes. Although having said that, I really have no idea what kind of texture should be expected on a seahorse, cartoon or not, lol. All I really know of what a seahorse looks like, besides the distinctive shape, is that I thought they were blue ( for some reason?). But for surface markings, I really have no idea. ....Probably most people don't know either, I would guess?

maybe the term "texture" had been used in classic painting originally "Wikipedia: Texture in painting is the look and feel of the canvas." and later in cgi. texture in classic and modern painting "...connotates depth, or something you could feel with fingers" as you say. so seems like the term had just been transferred to cgi but agreed it has less dimension representing just a pattern, using texture as a term here could be misleading.

seahorses can actually change colors to blend in with their surroundings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtRHUY5tDAI. never seen a blue one but maybe there is. reference for texture and reflections except color had been this one:



looks like a giraffe pattern because there are too many spots on face and nose..? plus color which tends to brown like giraffes originally look.. thanks for that opinion.

cheerio

I can finally see your images, Ha1. Very nice. I believe you are using displacement maps - have you tried using the displace modifier/ This will allow you to actually apply the displacement and perhaps you might want that so as to edit the mesh even more and change mean crease settings as well for the subsurf. I only mention this because you asked for a tip but your model is very nice as it is and has a bit of cartoon personality as well! I hope you'll be putting it in a cartoon soon.

hi druban, thanks. edited the pattern and seems less giraffe now, added some bumpiness. material and reflections are still imperfect.

edit: update video/render; see below

cheerio

Oh, I love the bumps -- very effective! Of course, I guess you could go crazy adding details, especially the kind in the photo you showed us.

Big improvement on the spots. Also much better on the head lighting. I think you may have added a little more blurring in the pattern/texture, which looks good too. In the full body view, it's hard to see the stripe pattern on the head fin. But that may have been intentional?

Anyway, very nice work!

..that won't drive anyone crazy as long as the world is already. i wont add any more details, just figuring out the skin-material which is pretty tricky. actually i changed the light setup to classic 3 point setup with sunlight and hemisphere, added a normal/bump map generated with gimp normal-map-plugin and the fins with inkscape generated textures.

there is still too much yellow and the specularity isnt perfect but it seems to shape up well to a standard which hopefully isnt an eyesore finally.

edit:updated video/render; see following

critics and tips welcome!