Blender — 2D Animation

1.0 Project Planning

1.1: Product Description
The resulting product you will create with this skill will be a small 2D animated film.

1.2 & 1.3: Skills Needed + Description of Skill
To create the end product, you will need to learn how to use Blender’s “Grease Pencil” tool, a tool used to create 2D drawings in a 3D environment to allow 3D effects to be used, even though the end result will be 2D. Although 3D effects will not be used in this lesson, knowledge of how to use the “Grease Pencil” tool makes it very easy to learn this skill as an extension without any guidance. The “Onion Skin” tool will also be used to enable you to see an outline of the previous frame, in order to accurately recreate the previous frame with the desired changes needed to create the illusion of movement. Another skill you will need is the ability to use the “Set End Frame” feature in the timeline. This enables you to set the length of your film easily, and makes it easier to animate as it defines a clear start and end point. The final skill you will need is the ability to navigate the timeline. This skill is essential for 2D animation, as without this, you can’t draw any frames, as you can’t navigate to them.

2.0 Plan for Skills Acquisition

2.1: Plan for obtaining new skill
You will use Blender to create a 2D animated film, as it’s free and it’s easy to learn how to 2D animate on it. You will need to demonstrate that you know how to use the “Set End Frame” feature of the timeline, navigate the timeline, use the “Onion Skin” tool and how to use the drawing space to draw using the “Grease Pencil” tool. This will give you a basic understanding of how to 2D animate in blender, so you can easily build more advanced skills on top of this, given the foundations to do this through the completion of this lesson.

2.2: Plan for Demonstration of new skill

Step 1: Navigate to File > New and press 2d animation.
Set the range of the animation in the Timeline to what you want using the “Set End Frame” feature.
In the 3D viewport (drawing space), draw your desired object. (e.g. a basketball)
Move to halfway through the frames and draw the object in the middle of its action (e.g. a squished basketball mid-bounce)
Move to the end of your animation and Draw the result of the action. These are your reference frames. (e.g. basketball back where it started as a result of bouncing)
Draw all of the frames in between the reference frames, use the “onion skinning” tool to see a ghost outline of the previously drawn frames to use as a reference.
To test the animation, press space.
If you don’t understand a step, reference the Blender Manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/grease_pencil/animation/introduction.html

3.0 Scheduling

3.1: Scheduling – Plan

Lesson 1:
- Step 1: Navigate to File > New and press 2d animation.
- Set the range of the animation in the Timeline to what you want using the “Set End Frame” feature.
- In the 3D viewport (drawing space), draw your desired object. (e.g. a basketball)
Lesson 2:
- Move to halfway through the frames and draw the object in the middle of its action (e.g. a squished basketball mid-bounce)
- Move to the end of your animation and Draw the result of the action. These are your reference frames. (e.g. basketball back where it started as a result of bouncing)
Lesson 3 – 4:
- Draw all of the frames in between the reference frames, use the “onion skinning” tool to see a ghost outline of the previously drawn frames to use as a reference.
To test the animation, press space.

3.2: Tracking

Key:
- Ahead of Schedule
- Behind Schedule
- On Time

Lesson 1:
- Step 1 completed
- Step 2 completed
- Step 3 completed
- Step 4 completed
- Step 5 completed
Lesson 2:
- Step 6 started
Lesson 3-4:
- Step 6 in progress
Homework:
- Step 6 completed