EVERYTHING You Need to Animate with Blender Grease Pencil (Beginner Guide)

[Music] hi everyone I'm Katherine a 2d animator and I've been testing blender's grease pencil for a while now and this is the beginner guide I would have wanted when I first started using it I'll show you how I set up my file how to use different modes tools my process and how to export your animation I've added timestamps and linked all my tablet recommendations brushes plugins and everything I use in the description of this video so you have two options to download blender the first is directly through their website or you can get it through Steam which will download updates automatically you can have both in case you want two different versions if you're not sure whether your PC or laptop will run blender you can take a look at the recommended specifications on their website I built myself a PC a few years ago now and these are my specs to draw I'm using a screen tablet which I find much easier than a mouse but use whatever you're comfortable with now after you've installed blender you you'll see something like this I've made sure I'm starting from scratch so I can show you exactly what my settings are and I'm currently using version 3.6 I'll take save new settings and then in this window select 2D animation and this will give me a canvas to work on what we're seeing at the moment is the view through the camera you can use these options on the right to zoom in and out pan around the canvas and exit the camera view to see the 3D space click the icon again to go back into the camera view you can also zoom in and out with your mouse wheel pressing down on the mouse wheel and moving will bring you out of the camera and rotate to the view if you then hold shift on your keyboard and press down on the mouse wheel you can pan as well I mostly use the options on the screen but once you're more familiar with blender and the shortcuts you can use what you're most comfortable with I'll link a helpful list of shortcuts in the description if you want to check those out now I want to make a couple of adjustments to this default setup before I start animating first I'm going to go to object properties on the right which is this orange square and under visibility I'm going to untick use lights because when I'm working on 2D only projects I found that the color picking is more accurate with it switched off if I was working with lighting and 3D objects that had grease pencil details I might turn it on since it can help make all the different elements look like they belong together in the shot this also helps if you're using different nodes in the compositing tab to achieve a look like this in data properties which looks like a loop green cable this is where your layers are I like to have a single layer called roughs in this panel with used lights off so we'll just rename this one and remove the other an option that will make your life so much easier is in the layer specials and here you want to take autolock inactive layers when you're animating in blender and want to use the sculpt tool or eraser section if you've already animated did on multiple layers without this ticked you will manipulate not only the layer you're working on but everything underneath it too this can be a problem if you're lining and want to correct a section with the Eraser but accidentally remove your rough animation too I then want to go to edit preferences and in the add-ons search for pencil ticking both these options here clicking them will show you what they do and they shortcuts for any extra features if you want to use them then search planes and tip that I use this to add references or backgrounds made in another program in save and load on your left you can make sure auto save is ticked so if anything crashes you're more likely to get it back in system I'm going to increase my undo steps just in case and then close the window I made a brush pack for grease pencil which I want to import you can download these through the link in the description just put the folder on your desktop or somewhere they won't be deleted or moved I'll then go to file aen BL and select the dot blend file from the folder go into the brush folder and scroll down until you see the KD brushes click and drag to select them tick fake user and hit append again in the top left of this window is where your brushes will be saved and the little icons show up here at the top of the window under view I want to take sidebar and this menu will pop up on the right I like to use the tool tab when using the draw tool to change my attribute colors and set up palettes under the grease pencil tab I can do things like flip my camera and deform my drawings with my draw tool selected I like to turn off the pen pressure for radius which is the brush size and strength which is the brush opacity then in the stroke menu I want to turn down the radius and factor for the stabilizer to reduce the drag when I draw of course this is my personal preference and you can change this later if you like in the out put properties tab on the right which looks like a printer you can set the canvas size and frame rate you like to work at mine is typically 1920 x 1080 and 24 frames per second for my animations on YouTube but 25 15 and 12 are also used pretty often for 2D 30 and 60 frames per second are more common for 3D animations now this is the way I like to set up my 2D files so to make sure all of those settings appear on every startup or new 2D project I want to make sure my canvas is blank and then I can go to file defaults save startup file if you ever want to go back to the default settings you can reset them here too I'll then save my project by going to file save as now when you create a new 2D animation in blender it will open with the viewport shading to material preview if you're doing a solely 2D project you won't have to change this but if you're working with 2D and 3D you can switch to others to show the wireframe all solid view there's also a rendered preview here and if you have any effects in your scene and you're wondering why they're not showing up in playback it's probably because they're only visible in this view now to use the grease pencil you have to be in draw mode which you can see in the top left if you ever open up a project 3D or otherwise and you don't have draw mode here it's because you don't have your grease pencil selected in the out liner tab which should be in the top right this is where all your grease pencil objects cameras lights and 3D will be you can use this icon right click or use shift M to add new collections double click to rename them and keep things organized along the left hand side you'll see all your tools I pretty much only use the draw fill and erase tools you can hover over the icons to see what they are or click and drag them to see the names if they have a little triangle in the corner that means there are other options that you can see with a left click and hold switching between the tools will change the settings at the top of the window with the draw tool selected I can change my brush in this menu each of these brushes will react differently depending on the material you're using so a solid stroke material will react differently to a solid fill and you can see more details on this in the material properties tab on the right I use solid stroke for any sketching rough animation and Line work I'll then use a solid fill for blocking out shapes and coloring with the filter in the material properties tab you'll notice the settings are different when switching between materials you can use the plus and minus to add and remove materials from this list any changes you make to a material that you have already used will affect the whole project this is great if you want to change the color of your line work a few hours in or the next day if you decide you hate it all I'd recommend you leave the starting materials as they are and just add more materials and rename them whenever you need to my brushes have their own materials and if you use them in your project it will add the new materials in this window and the drop- down menu in the top left if you switch to another brush but it doesn't react the way you're expecting check that the material has changed as well to change the color of your brush you can either use materials or color attribute settings and you can switch between them here material color changes will be done in the material properties tab clicking this option and using the sliders entering a hex code or using the Color Picker to grab something from the canvas or a reference image if you've got one color attributes act the most like a regular drawing program and if you're new to blender this is the one I'd suggest you start with as it is the most familiar I like to use the color attribute for my rough animation as I can quickly change color without having to set up a lot of new materials every time you can change the color at the top here or if you have the sidebar you can see the wheel in the tool tab here you can create new palettes and add new colors you want to use just make sure fake user is selected it looks like a shield and means your palette will be saved with the project the radius and strength settings are the size and opacity of your brush and you can turn on and off the pressure beside them next you have the cap type and this controls the shape that the end of your brush Strokes Advanced stroke and cursor have extra settings that affect your brush but a lot of these are down to personal preference and I wouldn't worry too much about these individual settings when you're starting out the only one I like to change is the stabilizer in the stroke menu which I turned down you can activate this whenever you like without going into the menu by holding shift and drawing releasing it will deactivate the stabilizer so you can draw normally again if I already have a sketch or reference I want to use for a project there are a couple of ways I can bring it in the first is to import as a plane which I can do by going to file import images as planes and then after finding my image I tend to leave most of these options alone the image will appear in the center of the canvas which now looks a little different as we're in object mode and the reference is now selected in the outliner tab on the right I can hit the S key to SC it up and G to move it around or click the tools on the left and use their controllers if I'm tracing over the top of this with a new grease pencil object I can keep it here but I can also have it out of the camera view like this if you don't like that you can go over here to the side panels and move your cursor till it changes to a Crosshair and drag down or up to add another section if it highlights like this drag your cursor to another area and let go and try again otherwise you might end up with something like this and you'll need to drag everything back in place make new panels and set them to what you had before using this icon here to add a reference I want to change this option in our new panel to image editor and click and drag the menu to make it bigger so you can see the open button click it and find your image then you can use the image to create a color palette this can be done in the material properties tab tab if you're using materials or in the color tab in the sidebar if you're using Color attributes if I want to get rid of my doodles on the canvas I can undo with contrl Z or use the Eraser tool here you can change the Eraser type radius and Pen pressure and how it affects the drawings dissolve as default is quite soft but you can change these settings if you prefer I mostly use point because it acts like a hard eraser or stroke which will remove lines that have been made in one movement and is great for clearing the canvas you can use the Eraser while still using the draw tool by holding the control key Release Control to return to the draw tool to work correctly The Fill tool needs a fill material here you can choose normal or inverted fill a lot of the settings like Precision delay contract and thickness depend on your line Mark if the fill tool isn't working because you have small gaps go to Advanced and under the Gap closer increase the size and tick visual a if you then try to fill a shape you'll see colored lines extend to hopefully close the gap you can then tap again to fill if I have a line work layer I prefer to go into the layer specials Tab and select duplicate empty key frames as this will create a copy of your layer with the same key frame structure just move it beneath your line work rename it and then you can start coloring sometimes the coloring can be a little temperamental so if there are any gaps that I can't close with this or the fill has missed a bit I will use a fill material with the draw tool to correct it if you're working with multiple layers characters and backgrounds I've always found it best to hide them when coloring cuz if I try to fill an area with a lot of other lines behind it blender will take these into account and won't give me the result I want if the gaps in the line art are too big for the Gap closure and I don't want to use a fill material and draw tool for the entire thing I can use boundary Strokes to close the gaps just hold the ALT key with the fill tool selected and make your lines let go of the ALT key and fill in the now closed area to see how it looks you can use boundary Strokes to close gaps quickly by hand or split larger areas into Parts I used this recently in an animation to help add color to a character's eyes at the bottom of the canvas you'll see the timeline which if you've clicked the default 2D animation project when you open blender it should be set to dope sheet and grease pencil this is where you'll see your animation frames you can move along the timeline and make new frames by hitting I on your keyboard or in the panel beneath activate the auto key which will create frames for you every time you move across the timeline and draw on the canvas beside auto key are your play next and previous frame and Skip to start and end but buttons to play your animation hover over the timeline and hit space bar on your keyboard the shortcut to go to next or previous frames is the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard at the bottom right of the timeline you can set the start and end frames of your animation changing these at any point will let you focus on the area you want to play back just remember to change these before you export to move frames you can click and drag single or multiple frames across the timeline or select them and use G moving the playhead to the start of a selection and hitting the S key will scale the frames and you can increase or decrease how long they last if you move to the end of a section and hit s and move your cursor along the timeline you can also reverse the frame order if you want to duplicate frames just select the ones you want and hit shift d move across the timeline and left click to place if you scale or duplicate a frame and change your mind right click instead and it will stop the action in the data properties tab the one that looks like a looped green cable you can see your layers here you can add remove and change the order of your layers as well as use masks activate the onion skin make visible or hide and lock your layers these options are also in the bottom left hand side of the timeline when I'm adding texture I can change the blend mode and lower the opacity here by making a new layer and activating the mask you can add in color and texture and then select the layers you want it to affect and it will only show through on areas that have been drawn on if you're familiar with other drawing or animation programs this works much like a stencil or clipping mask in the onion skin panel you can choose the type of frame you want to see and I leave this set to key frame you can then adjust the opacity of the next and previous frame and how many frames you want to see before and after your current drawing I like to use custom colors for my onion skin blue for previous frame and red for the next frame but you can adjust these to whatever you like if you have multiple grease pencil objects you can have different color onion skins for each one to change mode you can use control tab or in the top left use the drop- down menu in object mode I can add in new grease pencil objects typically I go for stroke because cuz that already has a couple of materials ready to go and I can erase the line that appears blank does not have any materials so you can start from scratch and monkey has a basic material and layer set up which I never use the new grease pencil will appear in the outliner tab in the top right from the tools on the left I use the select lasso which I can access through left click and hold the move tool which is the G shortcut rotate tool which is R the scale nail tool which is s and transform which is T in object mode these tools control the grease pencil object as a whole I like to separate out the different elements of my animation like characters or backgrounds into new grease pencils so if I want to create depth in a scene I can easily move individual grease pencils closer to or further from the camera I can do this by exiting the camera view selecting my grease pencil the tool I want and then dragging the controller in the direction I need I just have to make sure the play head is at the start of the timeline before I move anything if it's not and I play it through the object may move to see the frames for this movement I can change from Grease pencil to dope sheet or action editor where the key frames will be visible and either delete the new key frames or move them to replace the old ones to make sure everything is still positioned correctly in the camera view I can add another area by moving my mouse to the corner of the window until I see it turn into a Crosshair clicking and dragging to the right will create two vertical Windows if I use the camera view in the new one I can make sure the grease pencil object is still in frame while changing the position in the first window when I'm finished I can right click on the top of the new window and select close header which will take me back to my original layout if you have multiple grease pencils and you're switching between them but you can't see your key frames in the timeline or you're not editing the right object take a look in the outliner tab to see if there's a little pencil or icon beside them this shows which object you're editing click the icon to get rid of it and then click the object you want to work on your frames and layers for that grease pencil should now appear in the timeline using control tab to switch to edit mode the function is very similar to object mode except instead of controlling an entire grease pencil object you can select individ ual strokes and points to move rotate scale and transform rather than redrawing every frame I like to use this mode to rotate certain parts of my characters for things like a head turn or arm movement this can also help keep your animation consistent if you struggle to keep character proportions the same during a movement next up is sculpt mode and this is the one that keeps me coming back to blender even after trying a ton of other programs smooth helps even out shaky brush Strokes or curved lines thickness can widen a stroke and if you're working with pen pressure activated on your brushes you can use strength to darken The Strokes and make them more opaque randomize will add some wiggle back to your lines grab and push are very similar but I default a push which is my favorite tool to use in this mode I use this a lot for adding subtle movements and shifts in weight for characters during animation I like to use a large radius with the pen pressure off for movements like this to make sure I'm not deforming a single area too much next we have twist and pinch which are fun but ones I don't use all that often and finally clone which needs to have a stroke selected and copied in edit mode before you can use it now I don't use this very often but you can interpolate your frames in blender and to do this you can draw your first and last frames select them and then use the interpolation tool in draw mode or edit mode move to a point between your key frames in the timeline and click and drag your drawing on the canvas to a new position these will create breakdowns in the timeline if you want to add another you'll have to select the frames right click and change the type to key frame instead as the interpolation feature will not work if the play head is positioned between a key frame and a breakdown in edit mode the interpolation is pretty similar except I can have my two frames on the timeline and then go up to grease pencil and select interpolate sequence which will add in breakdowns for me this menu should appear and I can reduce or increase the step to adjust how many new frames will be added now as for my animation process in blender usually I'll have a plan in place of what I want to animate whether that's some rough sketches or a storyboard that I time out in the project and work on top of in a new cre pencil object I'll use the color attribute setting for drawing the roughs since it's quicker to switch colors this way if I don't already have a set of materials ready to go if you're a total beginner to 2D animation and want to learn how to animate with easy beginner exercises I've linked my new series in the description whatever program I'm using I like to use a lot of layers when animating separating out different parts so we don't have to redraw everything over and over so if a body is static but the head turns to the side I like to animate these separately lip syn if there is any all the eyes and brows will also be on new layers so I can adjust them without affecting everything else when they need to move playing the animation scrubbing through the timeline and flipping between frames using the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard are very important to check if your animation looks right most of the time I work based on how an animation feels and imagining how I want the animation to look in my head rather than using timing charts or dope Sheets if the animation is more complicated like this one I'll split it into several grease pencil objects to keep it organized if I have a long animation with a lot of detail I'd recommend saving the different scenes or shots to new projects this way your file won't get too big put too much pressure on your PC or laptop or if a file corrupts you only lose a shot or two at most and not the whole project to line the animation I'll lower the opacity of my rough layer and make a new layer above either with the plus button or using the layer specials to duplicate empty key frames this will copy the structure of my rough layer or the layer I have selected this does make it easier when using the up and down arrow keys to skip to the next or previous frames in the animation for final Line work and coloring I'll switch to material instead of color attribute so if I want to change my colors later it's much easier in theid material properties tab I'll make a new stroke material and set the color I want for lining if you don't duplicate empty key frames you can either use I on your keyboard to add key frames in only selected frames or just start drawing and the auto key frame will add one in for you as I'm drawing I'll use the shift key to activate the stabilizer to create smooth lines if I make any mistakes I'll use the control key to erase them small adjustments using the sculpt mode rather than redrawing can also help speed things up how long this step takes depends entirely on my art style and how detailed my animation is but once I'm happy with it I'll start coloring at this point I'll hide my rough animation and any line layers that I don't need I'll make new layers beneath the line work and create new fill materials in the material properties tab to start adding color using the multiframe option can speed things up if the poses are in a similar position on the canvas but this isn't always the case and needs to be done frame by frame if there are gaps in the fill I can adjust the settings at the top for dilate contract thickness and in the Advan menu increase the size of the Gap closure if there are still tiny areas that won't fill I'll switch to the draw tool keeping my fill material if the gaps in the liner are too big for the Gap closure and I don't want to use a fill material and draw tool for the entire thing I can use boundary Strokes to close the gaps just hold the ALT key with the fill tool selected and make your lines let go of the ALT key and fill in the now closed area to see how it looks you can use boundary Strokes to close gaps quickly by hand or split larger areas into Parts when you're done you can remove all the boundary Strokes at once and leave the color in place by going into the draw menu clean up boundary Strokes to color multiple frames at once you want to activate the multiframe option at the top then highlight your frames in the timeline and fill them as normal it can take a second or two to complete depending on how many you've selected and the speed of your computer or laptop the multiframe function also works with drawing across multiple frames which is great if you realize you've missed out on a detail that needs adding in just remember to untick the multiframe when you're done color and texture are a big part of my work and once I finished coloring my animation I'll make new layers above everything else and use textured brushes from my brush pack to add brighter colors on top if I want to apply this to specific layers I will activate the mask option and add them in this panel here next I'll go through the blending modes to see if there are any that I like though there are only a few layer blending modes at the moment I'm hoping the devs will add more in future updates a technique that I like to use in my animations is a boiling Line This is where your animation looks like it's wobbling this can be subtle or more extreme and previously it was a very timec consuming effect to add I would use a single frame as a reference and redraw it twice more and space these drawings to hold for three frames each copying them over until the character changed pose where I would then repeat this process in the modifier properties tab which looks like a wrench you can add the noise modifier which mimics a boil what used to be a style that was very timec consuming is now super easy to do you can get some really interesting effects by adjusting the settings here and choosing which layers you want it to influence for subtle or more extreme effects other modifiers I like to use are the time offset which will allow you to create animated loops and the mirror modifier which lets you draw or animate with symmetry when using modifiers you can turn off the realtime render settings since modifiers like noise will affect your Strokes while you're drawing so it's best to add these after your rough or Line work is finished though you can keep these modifiers active you can also apply or duplicate them in this menu if you have modifiers on one object and you want to apply them to others you can select the object with the modifier you want to copy in the outliner tab hold shift and select the others you want to copy the modifier to these should be a different color than the first then in the modify tab click the drop down and choose copy to selected in the visual effects properties beneath the modifier tab you can find find other effects like blur glow flip and pixelate these are very fun to test out the glow is great for adding to things like magic lightning fire and explosions if you can't see what these effects look like during playback you'll want to switch to the render preview at the top to export your animation go to render properties which looks like a camera and under film you can choose whether you want your export to be transparent leave this unticked if you want a white background or if you have a plain with a background already imported it's best to tick transparency if you've animated something and you want to bring it into another program for compositing later in the output properties tab make sure your resolution and frame rate are correct along with your frame start and end in output you'll want to select the folder you want to save your animation to if it's a PNG sequence you'll want to make a new folder as every frame will export as a new image under file format for video I'll choose FFM Peg and then under encoding use QuickTime video Codec will be h.264 and output quality on high if it's a final if it's a rough or a test I'll set it to medium or lower if I have audio in my project I'll set it to AAC if there are any layers or objects in the outliner tab that I don't want to be visible in the final animation I need to turn off the camera icon beside them because if I don't they will appear in the final render this also applies to any mod ifers or effects I've added to other objects then all that's left to do is go to render in the top left and render animation if you want to see more 2D animation walkthroughs in blender or learn to animate yourself take a look at [Music] this

Channel: kdsketch

Views: 65,245

Keywords: art, animation, storytime, 2d, software, tvpaint, tutorial, how, to, tiktok, how to animate, kdsketch, b3d, blender grease pencil, blender, studio vlog, free animation software, make money as an artist, freelance artist, indie animator, independent animator, beginner animation, beginner guide, ultimate guide, anime, make your own cartoon, How to animate in blender grease pencil, How to animate

Id: cprYwZ9sFSo

Length: 30min 16sec (1816 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2023