Blender Cannon Fire Animation Tutorial | Polygon Runway

[Applause] [Music] hey everyone welcome to my new tutorial today we are going to make another animation this time this cute little game icon that can be for example used on a game website or as a cute intro animation for a tower defense game um there are many applications for this kind of animation and I really hope you will enjoy this one and if you do please don't forget to leave that like it will really help me and if you're new to the channel and you are interested in learning blender and 3D please hit that subscribe and additionally Bell button if you want to get notified when I release something new and if you're new to the world of 3D and blender and you want to become a 3D illustrator go and check out my courses that are carefully designed to teach you beginner and intermediate skills in quickest and most effective way for example with the new Ultimate 3D bundle you can go from simple cubic designs all the way to full character illustration in matter of weeks so if you're interested please go check out the link in the description [Applause] [Music] so let's now jump into M2 blender file and first of all let's block out our scene so I will just select everything here and press X and delete and now let's press shift a and we'll add a plane here let's tab in and let's scale it up for example like two times so let's press s and then two and confirm and now let's press e and extrude and this will be like a very stylized Tower um that's why I won't make it um like a tall tower so let's press s to scale this down and we can go even lower here and now let's press shift d to duplicate this and just press s to scale it up we don't need these two meshes connected and now we can right click and choose subdivide and let's increase the subdivisions to two like this and now we can press e to extrude now let's switch to face select by pressing three and let's press I to insert and let's do insert like this and now let's just manually select these faces by holding shift and extrude them so this will serve as a very stylized representation of some kind of Tower and if you want to clean it up a little bit I left um this face down there um you can just press X and delete if you don't like the extra faces here and there that are not visible and we can now turn off the X-ray by the way you can do that here as well right now I will just select this face alt shift s and snap cursor to select it now Tab out and we'll add another object so let's press shift a and let's add a circle this time and I will modify the vertices to 12. hit enter and go into the edit mode and scale this up just like this and move it up slightly so let's press G and z and move it up tiny bit like this then press F to fill to create the polygon there and E to extrude so this will be like a base for the Canon and now we can again hold shift s and snap cursor to select it now to about and let's press shift a and we'll add a plane now tap into the edit mode and let's go for Edge select by pressing two select these two edges and press e then Z to extrude it on Z axis just like that now we'll press 1 for vertex select by the way you can do these here these are vertices edges and faces and now with these vertices selected we can press Ctrl shift B to Bubble this just like that with only one segment if you have more segments there by default you can reduce with the mouse wheel just like this and now back to the face select select this face in the middle press X and the lead faces now we can press a to select all and ALT e to extrude along normals like this and let's just do Extrusion like that and just to be sure that everything is in order let's press a and shift n to recalculate normals and now we can press s then y to scale this out a little bit just like this and now we can tap out and let's press shift a and we'll add a cylinder that will be our Canon and again we'll modify the vertices to 12 and let's look from the front by pressing one on an armpit and let's press G then Z and move it up so it kind of sits in the middle here and now we can press R and rotate this uh make sure that you are rotating this in the object mode um so you are not in the edit mode and only now it's time to press tab to go into the edit mode and press s to scale it down like this and of course we can select this front face press G then z twice they'll switch to local axis and just move it out like that and now we'll shape our Cannon so let's select the back face and press Ctrl B to Bevel and we can increase the cuts with the mouse wheel for example three should be just fine and with this selection we can press G then z twice again to move this back like this now let's press Ctrl R to create a new Loop cut right here and then switch back to the face select select the front face and press s to scale it down maybe not so much and we can additionally press Ctrl B to Bevel this just like that so this will serve as our base for the cannon let's look from the front again Tab out and we can maybe place it a little bit higher and then go into the 8 mode select all by pressing a and press G then z twice to move it a little bit more towards the front just like that and now we can finish with some details so let's go for face select and we can alt click this Loop and press alt e and extrude along normals um don't worry about some overlaps that are happening here we'll fix those and then select the front face press I to inset and E to extrude just like that and now let's Tab out and I will select the tower here go into the edit mode and with the edge select active by pressing two select this Edge and hold shift s and snap cursor to select it now Tab out and let's press shift a and we'll add a plane I want to add some interesting detail here so let's tab in press R then X and 90. confirmed with enter to rotate these 90 degrees and press G than Z and move it 1 meter minus let's confirm and now we can press s then X scale it down let's press Ctrl R to create a cut in the middle and then go for vertex select by pressing one select these vertices by holding shift and press G then Z and move it up so this will be our little like a banner and now tap about let's press shift a and we'll add a cylinder again and now let's go into the edit mode by pressing tab scale it down like this press R then Y and 90 confirm with enter and S then X to scale it on the x-axis just like this and now we can Tab out and let's press shift a and we'll add round Cube and let's make sure we switch the preset to quad sphere and reduce the divisions to four now if you don't have the option for round Cube just go into the edit preferences search for add-ons and in the add-ons list search for extra objects add-on that will enable all of these other options now tap into the edit mode Let's press s to scale this down and while still in the edit mode press G then X to move it to the side here now we can tap out go into the modifiers panel and add a mirror modifier so we can have this on both sides and now we can just tab in and you know make it larger or smaller however you want and now with the standard let's go into the eight mode and I will extrude it slightly towards the back and then press a and shift and again to make sure normals are correct now Tab out and by holding shift we can select all of these objects with the cylinder as last and press Ctrl p and parent to object so now if you select the cylinder you will move the whole Banner so let's press G then Y and move it outside a little bit and then on z-axis as well like this and of course we can make it a little bit larger now let's hold shift s and snap cursor to Old origin and let's push if they and we'll add a plane and we can just scale it up make it really large they'll be our background and let's push if they and we'll add another plane let's press G then X to move it outside tiny bit and now we can tap into the edit mode and press e to extrude and let's go to the X-ray again and select the bottom face and press X and delete it so it's empty from the bottom and we can Tab out we'll use that later so now out of the x-ray mode Let's select the tower and in the modifiers panel let's add bevel modifier increase the segments to 2 and in the geometry section let's switch this to Arc and increase the amount just like this and now we'll transfer the same modifier to these other objects so let's hold shift select them and the tower as last and let's just click this little arrow and copy to select it so that will transfer the double modifier there as well and now we can use the subdivision modifier so let's hold shift and select all of these objects you can see I'm selecting um leave out the banner we'll just shade that smooth and now let's press Ctrl 2 to add subdivision modifier here or you can just choose it from the list and you will see how this created this nice tone for us and how everything got nice and smooth so now we can just right click and shade smooth so we don't see those faces and now we can select these two right click Shades mode and the cylinder will choose to shade Auto smooth but we'll need to change the angle to something like 40 degrees so we catch all the angles and now let's select the Canon and we'll make it more defined so tap into the edit mode and let's press Ctrl R to add additional Loop Cuts Like This to make these parts more sharp and here in the front and we can add one on the inside like this so this will make it like a sharper and more defined and now with all the bevels and subdivisions in place we can just add some more details so for example here we can just go into the edit mode select this face hold shift s snipe cursor to select it and while still in the edit mode we can add a new object right inside of another just make sure these are only 12 vertices we don't need more because there's subdivision modifier in place and let's just scale this down press R then X 90 degrees maybe even smaller and now we can press F and e to extrude it just like this and again recalculate normals so we have like a small interesting detail here and if you see some distortions like this that means you need to increase the bevel angle right here and again we'll need to shade this mode because the new object was shaded flat and for the tower I think I will go with a larger bevel just like that okay let's select the stone here let's make it smaller we can press 7 for a top view and just move it around and let's press alt D to create a link duplicate and press s to scale it down and we can continue like this around until we have like a little Stone pathway going from the tower and maybe some around like this and I think some of those can be here in the front as well and to finish the details let's shift right click here and let's press shift a and we'll add a circle now tap into the edit mode Let's press one for vertex select so we can better see the segments and let's press s to scale it down press F to fill and E to extrude again as to scale it down tiny bit and now we'll press shift d and scale it up like this and let's press e to extrude and E once again and make it smaller like that now we'll press L hovering over this part and press shift d to duplicate the whole thing and press Z to lock it on a z-axis and then make it smaller and you probably see where this is going so again shift d and one more here and scale it on a z-axis now we can add one more Loop cut right down here Tab out and press Ctrl 2 to add subdivision modifier right click and shade smooth so we have a cute little stylized 3 and of course we can play with those shapes right here so maybe this needs to be moved a little bit here and now we can make it larger for example or you can go into the 8 mode again and make it a little bit wider and then alt D and duplicate it around the scene so we have some small composition now let's create the camera here so let's press shift a and we'll add a camera and now find some composition you like for example this and let's hold Ctrl alt and press 0 that will move the camera where your viewport is so now you can just press G then z twice to move it in and out like that so we have some camera view we have some composition and let's get to animation now I will expand this part a little bit here now what I want to do here is the Canon to rotate around a little bit and then fire a shot but I want it to be like a funny and stylized so the Cannonball will probably just fly a tiny bit outside and then fall to the ground so let's make that happen first of all I will select the Canon here and create some shape keys so let's go to the object data properties and in the shape key section let's create a basis and then click once again to create first key and now let's go into the edit mode and first of all um let's go for face select select the face back here and hold shift s and snap cursor to select it and now we'll hold period or you can just switch it right here and we'll switch to 3D cursor so now any transformation we'll do will be in relation to the 3D cursor so let's press a and then s and z twice to enable local Z axis and let's just compress it like this and now we can go for Edge select select this Loop by holding alt switch back to the medium point and enable proportional editing let's press s to scale it up like this and we can control the fall off with the mouse wheel okay that'll be the second key and if you type out you will see the original shape but now if you slide through this you will see this kind of thing happening and we'll need another one so let's hit plus once more and we have a key two here so let's go into the edit mode and when you have it highlighted you are editing that shape so here I want to do opposite I want to narrow it down a little bit so let's again switch to the 3D cursor let's select all and press s then z twice to protrude it tiny bit and then select this Loop right here let's switch back to the medium point and make it more narrow like this and here we can select the front and make it look like this so now we have two shape keys and we can animate the firing and I will do it from the frame one so first of all let's go to the output settings and switch frame rate to 30 and we'll cap our animation at 120 frames that should be enough and now let's go back to the shape keys in object data properties and first of all on the frame 1 we'll start that compression so we'll press I to insert the keyframe and scrub for example like 10 frames increase this all the way to 1 and press I hovering over this again that will create two keyframes and you will have this animation Happening Here and Now on the frame 10 um let's insert the keyframe on a key two and let's crop 20 and we'll increase this to one and press I to insert so this is not exactly what we want all the way but should be almost there um we'll need some more adjustments to this and we'll do that in the graph editor so let's expand this even more and hit Ctrl tab here and you will see the curves for this animation and if you select all the keyframes and press period on an numpad you will zoom in on your animation and now we'll need some falloff for this animation so the Canon returns to a normal state so let's select this keyframe right here that's on the frame 10 and let's press shift d and duplicate it right here and if you're not sure about the Precision here you can just switch to the F curve there select the keyframe and set the value to zero so now this will happen here and now you can see the key to stay there on a value of one so let's select that one press shift d and let's bring it down as well like this and of course we can adjust the value so it's it's on the zero so if you look here the Canon is in its original state and just something like this happen and of course we'll need some more Dynamics um some more Snappy animation here so we'll probably need to move this a little bit closer and here as well and then of course we'll need to modify the curves so what we want to do is to be really Snappy and sudden so we can just grab this handle and move the curve so the animation is happening right away so there is no ease in on this kind of Animation so it basically just goes back and we'll need to do that here as well and of course we can play with this handle so now we have this animation but it's a little bit too long 30 frames are way too much so let's just select everything here and we'll press s then X and collapse this tiny bit and press G then X and move it towards the front okay let's play back the animation um we're almost there and here you can see how you can mix those two shapes from those keys and for example if you select this keyframe and make this handle longer you can ease out the return to its original shape so you can basically leave more space for the second shape key and you will see how it's changing on the shape there yeah I think this is quite okay so let's leave it like this and let's add a cannonball um but first I want to have all of this parented so with the Canon selected let's parent it here so let's press Ctrl p and parent to object and now this part here will parent it to the base so we are free to rotate this however we want without interrupting um the animation in any way and let's now look from the front and we'll hold shift s and snap cursor to select it here again so we are in the middle of the Canon let's press shift a and we'll add a round Cube so go mesh round Cube again and the presets should be the same as before so just right click shade this mode and we can enable that x-ray View and press s and make this smaller like that so first of all let's press I and insert location keyframe and that's basically all we need to do to block out the firing of the ball and I want it to land somewhere here so let's expand this but we won't be moving it in Y location so let's select the channel and press X to delete and now let's just hover here in the timeline press a to select all keyframes and period on an armpit so we can see both keyframes here you can see them on the frame one and the Z is slightly up that's in meters so we'll need this ball to land on the floor at some point and let's see where it should happen so let's zoom out and let's play it back so the firing is happening here foreign so the ball will probably leave here around frame 10. and then it should fall down like frame 30 or something we'll see so let's go to the frame 30 and we can per shift d and just move this here and again we can select that keyframe and set this to zero here and now let's select the X keyframe and we'll move this somewhere here so let's press shift d and you will see if you're moving up it goes back and here it goes towards the front so somewhere here probably just like this and now let's press a to select all and again period to focus our view on the whole animation and now we'll need some keyframe in between because you can see the ball needs to go towards the front and then slowly fall down so let's grab two like frame 15 let's say and just move the ball somewhere here and press I and insert location so we'll see that we'll create this first linear movement and then the ball will start to fall down and additionally we can select this keyframe right here press T and choose bounce interpolation so this is more like it and of course we'll need to play with our timing a little bit and as you can see the Z cannot be all the way towards zero because right now it's in the floor so we can press G then Y and move it up slightly like this so let's have a look at our animation I will disable the X-ray and just play it back let's go to the camera view and I think it's quite okay but I want the ball to continue towards the left because I want to Loop the animation later so we can just select this keyframe on the x-axis and press shift d and move it right here so we have this nice smooth curve here make sure that the ball doesn't stop at any point so it kind of just Falls and then slowly continues on its way like this and make sure it's far enough which is not at the moment soles per G then Y and move it here and you can see there's a slight bump here we need to get rid of that so again we'll just move this a little bit lower so we can just smooth out this kind of curve just like that and I think it looks quite funny already like the Canon spits out the ball at a mediocre speed and it just falls down to the floor I kind of like it so if you like it as well you can just copy the settings on the frame values I have right here but here we need to make this more linear as well probably so we have the firing Happening Here and Now we can just rotate the Canon to its original position and we don't need all the axes so let's press n to expand the side panel and in the rotation panel let's right click the Z rotation and insert single keyframe now we have it here so let's just scrub to like frame 50 and we'll press shift d here and just move it down and you can see how this is rotating we can go even further away like this now we can press shift d and X to lock on the x-axis and just move it here it will stay there and then it will return back so we can select this one and press shift d and move it to the end of the animation so let's play back the movement but I want it to be more Snappy as well like when the rotation is happening there is a sudden movement that just eases out so first of all let's move this handle like this and now we'll select this keyframe right here press T and choose linear interpolation that will get rid of this handle right there so now we can just move this here and create another Snappy animation there so now if you look there's this kind of Snappy movement with the rotation and you can ease it out more or less by moving this keyframe and its handles around and here as well okay let's preview the animation it just goes away then it rotates back fires and goes to its original position okay I quite like it so that's for the animation basically and we can just now add some basic simple materials some lighting and render out our animation so first of all let's go to the render settings and I will enable some ambient occlusion and Screen space Reflections for the EV previews and switch to the Cycles GPU and enable sound the noising and now let's go to the materials panel let's select the background and let's add a new material and I want this to be placed on some grassy field like this let's go for material preview and we can select the tower and we can give it a blue tint so it kind of represents the stone but it's really stylized and then for these parts they can be wooden so let's like select some almost orange material like this and then the Canon of course we can make that metallic and let's collapse this so it doesn't get in the way we are not animating anymore let's create a new material let's add a metallic value all the way to one and then for the trees we can select the same material as background go into the edit mode Let's deselect everything by pressing a twice now hover over the trunk press L create a new material slot and choose that wooden material and click assign like this and now with the stones we can assign the same material as with the tower for the banner we can create something new for example like red or a little bit purple add the same metal material here as well and for these we can go a little bit golden or brass so let's duplicate this and change the color just like that and for some of these materials like the green and the stone I want to go full roughness so let's do that right now and for the wood as well okay so these are the materials now let's set up some basic lighting I will hold shift s and snap cursor to roll origin let's press shift a and we'll add an area Light press G than Z and move it up make it really large we want really soft Shadows here and switch this to disk and something really strong like 3000 and we can of course switch this to scene lights and scene world to better see what we are doing and now hit zero for the camera view but I will be rendering this in Cycles so let's hit Ctrl B and just limit this so we have preview only for the camera bounce and let's switch to render preview and this is already looking quite okay and if we go to the world settings we can add some purple light they'll basically blend our colors together a little bit more but to make this stand out a little bit more you can add multiple lights around to create more Reflections because that's what defines a metal material so if you for example duplicate this light right here bring it down make it smaller and of course um reduce strength to something like 250 or 500 and then you know move it around you will see how you can create these interesting reflections on your scene and on those trees and then of course we can add another one switch to the 3D cursor and rotate it for example 45 degrees and Make It Shine from the back with really strong light and give it some warm color like it's a sunset light or something make it slightly larger switch to disk and then move in and out based on what you want to achieve from your scene now in the color Management in the render settings we can play with the contrast settings and final exposure if you want to tone down the overall lighting or you know bring it up tiny bit um but yeah that should be it maybe the World Lighting is a little bit too harsh here so let's bring it down and now we can play back our animation and of course I forgot to add some material to the ball as well so let's make it black and with small roughness so it's nice and shiny now for the render um you can just go to the output settings and choose your folder here in the output and switch from PNG to FFM pack if you want to export video directly if you want an image sequence that you can then composite together in some video editing software you can just leave it as pngs and it will speed out each separate frame into a separate file so for short preview animation I prefer to set this to ffmpeg and then choose MP4 container for encoding and now only thing you need to do is to press Ctrl F12 or go render and render animation and you will have your animation finished so that's it from me today and I'm really looking forward to see what you can create with this and if you want to share your results or get a feedback we have now a Discord Channel you will find the link in the description come and join us and if you enjoyed this video please don't forget to leave that like and again if you're new to the Channel please hit that subscribe Vibe thank you all for watching and have a wonderful day [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music]

Channel: Polygon Runway

Views: 38,286

Keywords: blender, 3d, tutorial, blender tutorial, low poly tutorial blender, 3d illustration, 3d modeling, 3d modeling tutorial, blender modeling, blender modeling tutorial, modeling, modeling tutorial blender, 3d modeling software, low poly art, blender 3.3, blender 3.3 tutorial, blender animation tutorial, animation tutorial, blender game animation, blender game animation tutorial, blender cannon animation, blender cannon fire, blender cannon tutorial

Id: -tK9XOTktPs

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022