In this tutorial, I explain how I cheat with Blender to create 2d animated sprites very quickly.

Summary of the workflow :

I created and rigged a 3d model of the character in Blender with exagerated features so it would pixelize well. Then I created the 8 frames walking animation and I change the camera 45 degre with each loop.

I use "Freestyle" to create the outer lines and a composite shader to get the pixelized effect.

Then I render all the frames and I use Aseprite to do the clean up and add things like the eyes.



If this interest you, here is what I did to learn how to do this with blender :

1- I followed the whole donut tutorial : https://youtu.be/TPrnSACiTJ4 Its a high quality tutorial, well explained, it gives a glimpse of the whole Blender workflow.

2-I followed the chair tutorial : https://youtu.be/Hf2esGA7vCc Same Youtuber but this tutorial is very modeling oriented.

3- I Followed some character modeling tutorials. There is a shitload of them on youtube. The one I ended up watching the most is this one : https://youtu.be/NDAalAojTvo Its low poly, and its style seemed perfect to pixelize.

4- I watched this tutorial on how to make hair : https://youtu.be/BqWYgrXw7Jk Thats how I made the hair and the cape falling behind my character.

5- I watched this tutorial on how to pixelize my renders : https://youtu.be/AQcovwUHMf0 I was so impressed with the result, this is how I will save thousands of hours on making my game.

6- I did this tutorial to learn how to weight and rig my character : https://youtu.be/srpOeu9UUBU

7- And those ones to learn how to use IK for legs and arms animation : (legs) https://youtu.be/Pt3-mHBCoQk (arms) https://youtu.be/0bFrZn8xlLw

8 - As for the cloths and accessories, Im using some tricks shown in this video : https://youtu.be/U7lKIFfHffY

9 - Finally, I tried many techniques to do the outline, many of witch was far too complex for me and overkill for a render that will be pixelized anyway. So I ended up using Freestyle, using this tutorial to learn how : https://youtu.be/p7mr71nfjFY,

My first attempt was ok : https://imgur.com/a/xzjHE9R My second attempt was better : https://imgur.com/a/1xhLh1A Then I practice making clothes which ended up looking like garbage bag : https://imgur.com/a/CpXlqdr But the pixelize effect was already convincing : https://imgur.com/a/ZoGhr59 https://imgur.com/a/sEIAwLz Then I started working on my character with what I learned : https://imgur.com/a/9rIoz4q https://imgur.com/a/EmjCood

And it ended up like this : https://imgur.com/a/iXpPDzQ

And I find it looked great with the pixelize effect : https://imgur.com/a/DstwzsS

After that I used Aseprite to touch up the 2d sprite.

Have a great day everyone!

#Blender
#Tutorial
#PixelArt