Thank you for making this! I am new to Blender (2 months) but worked in the anime industry in Japan in the 90s, including at Production IG for Ghost in the Shell, Blood the Last Vampire, etc. Your video helps me think about using my new tools with my old skills and techniques together. When we first shifted to digital production, the worst problem was backlighting (all those glows). There was no tool for it and it took a good deal of work to get it close to what we could do in the camera room. Even then, in camera we had to shoot the scene, run it back, change the camera so it had a light under a frosted glass pane on the camera stand, then shot cels with everything blacked out but the light areas superimposed over the original scene. It was slow and expensive and there was no preview but looked so good. Things are so much better now! :) fwiw we used to shoot everything on camera with diffusion filters, ranging from very light to heavy, and the change to digital made everything a lot sharper. Adding in scratches and VHS glitches is funny to me because we worked so very hard to make that not happen. Thanks again for this video!
Man this is gold! Thanks for sharing your experience. There's so much that goes into the aesthetic that those old school anime's had so it's so interesting hearing about how things were handled. I laughed at the end of your comment when you said how people are deliberately adding those scratches and imperfections in when the whole purpose back in the day was to keep them at a minimum. It's crazy how much imperfections can make things perfect.
Your comment is pure gold!!! and the last comment made me laugh a lot hahaha thanks for the inspiration! you should consider make a video telling this kind of things.. like "how anime were made in the 90's" idk, personally I'd love to hear more stories and understand the process that were used, maybe with that knowledge new artists can get inspiration.. it's just an idea, anyway hope you can make great Art in Blender!!
good to hear from the OGs animator back then,well i prefer 2000's style wehre they kinda shifted to digital but not too much 3Ds since i think the 3Ds ruined the consistencies of what we called "Anime",anyway i also laughed that old days tried to remove that imprfection while we re adding it,same as how we re added 3d glitches on newer games to looks like ps1 games
I find the adding of defects to be pretty ironic, considering how much effort studios put into removing them. To this day I still get a kick out of seeing a big ol' hair in a scene for just one frame. But I don't miss defects in newer productions. afa digital works, I think the Berserk remake featured here is a prime example of exactly how not to do 3D anime. I was cringing for that entire scene. I've been watching anime since the 70s, and have always preferred it to anything from the west, and I still prefer 80s and 90s anime to most productions from the last 10-15 years. So I truly value getting little insights like this.
Couple words on framerate: Notice how on those old animations, different objects have different framerates! For example, the main character has 24-30 FPS, while the midground and surrounding junk might have 20 or 16. This is very important in that it points attention, highlights objects and helps to convey different materials properties.
I was about to say that, some objects and things go at a normal 24 frames while others go at 12 frames. It's very easy not to notice, but it can go a long way if you're trying to go for the 2d animation feel in your 3d animations.
Well, commonly characters have lower frame rates. Seeing the immense workload to do each frame because they're dynamic and constantly updating, while the backgrounds can update more regularly because of their static nature, but I do understand what you mean and it's a valuable aspect to point out.
Amazing. Btw if someone is wondering why the 12fps train at the end looks so choppy while traditional animation typically does not, it's because it's missing line strokes to convey sense of motion (i.e. it acts as some sort of motion blur, though it's not technically blur). These strokes are very common in manga to depict motion in still images. But they're also present in animations. Sometimes the shape gets deformed or the light leave a streak for a strong effect. The train at the end lacked those, thus the only way to know it's moving is by looking at the animation, and since that's the only reference, at 12 fps it looks choppy.
Another aspect to consider, with what you point out, is how 35mm film works with light--especially at night. You need longer exposure times to capture stuff in dark areas, so sometimes with film, things that move at night get streaks or blurs behind them. I have seen these streaks in film and anime alike. I think anime is drawing inspiration from this and emulated those streaks to represent movement a little more clearly without upping the frame rate.
Another thing that is game changer is ink bleed in strokes, mask/keyed to a grunge texture layer. You make a parallel node to the stroke, displace it a little bit and add a bit of outer glow to it and then put a grunge texture set to screen blending mode but with It masked to the Outer glow. It looks incredible, also a ortographic camera in some cases can really sell a 2d look
@@ryan.1990 he's giving valuable advice on how to make something look realistically vintage, and what makes it look so nice Literally what are you doing with your life
I love how trying to copy anothers art you fall upon techniques that end up giving it your own style. I bet the more you study in this way, the more you find what feels your own.
The interesting thing about comparing traditional and 3D animated workflows is that for traditional workflows, you end up with a pretty consistent amount of workload throughout the entirety of the production process, from the pre-production storyboarding and initial character reference sheets, through to the week-to-week animation workflows. With the 3D workflow, you have a larger initial time investment in creating character models and environments, adding skeletons for animating, and determining lighting, shaders, materials, etc. So you typically end up with more initial workload that you can do before the show starts airing, and then there's less that you need to actually make during the production, so you can focus more on just animating the existing resources instead of needing to redraw vast amounts of keyframes per episode, and potentially have to repaint entire background and environmental panels multiple times to cope with changing camera perspectives. I have a lot of nostalgia for 2D hand-drawn or hand-painted animation, because it has just so much unique character to it, but I do believe that 3D animation will reach a point in the near future where it will become almost indistinguishable from it if that is the desired art direction.
Yeah, I have somewhat thought that this is kind of the major pitfall of most 3D shows. That they kind of think that most of the work is done when all assets are modeled and rigged. With 2D. You are forced to reconsider the model for each and every frame. With 3D, they just hand over the rigged model and the animators push the rigs around to meet the ever shortened deadline as producers think that you just have to move the keyframes into place and press render. The productions I have seen that have handled CG exceptionally. Like the shots in Kill la Kill where you go "wait THAT was CG?!?!" they basically had to remodel all assets for each shot. Sometimes swapping in completely different "smear-frame" models for a few frames. Those smear frames had to be modeled separately. Basically. If you want CG to be seamlessly integrated into a 2D show... you need to treat it like 2D... and that takes just as much time as making it 2D... defeating the time-saving producers wanted from making it CG in the first place.
@@jmalmsten it's also down to which shaders they use and how they handle "flattening" the frames to mimic hand-drawn. It also helps if it's a series that has frequent costume or outfit changes or whose outfits or hair give the animation physics software a hard enough time that an animator has to step in and manually tweak the rigging for each to make the keyframes make sense. It forces them to treat it like 2D animation, which is why it more closely resembles in in the end. Also, Kill La Kill is a fantastic series with impeccable art direction and animation. Plus the sound design is so iconic. It's definitely one I recommend to people who don't mind a fair amount of fan-service if the plot is actually good enough to stand on its own, because Kill La Kill has that.
Would partially agree. Even after creating assets in 3d, the amount of work needed for animation is not that much different from traditional 2d, if not more. Especially when you take into consideration the work technical artists put in simulating every little rigid body and fluid sims and special effects. 3d is a lot more work. Where it all pays off is 3d is A LOT more iterative. Need a wider camera lens for that shot? Sure, no problem. How about we make the hero blonde instead? Sure, no problem. Having the freedom to iterate is a huge deal in all art disciplines, from writing to music to animation.
@@vasim495 not to mention the fact that setting a scene is made significantly easier when you don't need to redraw backgrounds because you've got a fully modeled 3D environment with movable lighting and a skybox.
@@mndlessdrwer Very true, once you've created something once, it's much easier to tweak, re-use and even drastically modify without losing a huge chunk of time and labor that's already been put in. Whereas such iterations in traditional 2d in most cases means discarding work and time already expended and starting from scratch.
I have these discussions about old school 80s and 90s anime all the time so this video was extremely refreshing. Not only was your thought process and breakdown very thoughtful but you also kept the 90s aesthetic going for this actual youtube video as well. The stone/granite backgrounds with the thick bevels on the graphic/text portions of the video were a nice touch! Very detailed. Along with the music and everything of course. Dope video. So thoughtful!
I never realized how much I needed to watch more random Blender tutorials until the last week. I've been just trying to do stuff and learn by doing, but watching tutorials makes me see that things can be way simpler if you know the goal you are trying to achieve. Thanks for this tutorial, it gave me a good slap to the back of my head, and now I am even more motivated to improve.
So I wasn't the only one seeing this 90's imagery aesthetic. Night cities are the best so far... glowing windows at the distance make me feel isolated and surreal. This is why I consider all the 90's titles I watched being highly psychodelic
I love how big the Blender community is. I am attracted to Blender for a dozen reasons, 2D animation being a major one. I am not generally a huge fan of 'anime" though the aesthetic techniques you display here have given me a new appreciation for the now nostalgic feeling I get from the olde original traditional cel animation stuff. You have brilliantly employed some very basic techniques to evoke different emotions and I really agree with your basic premise that the original medium's constraints forced a type of discipline that then became a hallmark of the style itself that requires careful consideration to re-create using modern 3D given that options are now so exponentially expanded . Regarding the framerate I feel it has a HUGE effect on my appreciation of what one would call"anime" The limitations and thus decisions to use as FEW frames as possible and still achieve a consistent look is key to the entire aesthetic for me. 12 fps stepped up to 24 is way preferable for me than anything too oozing silky smooth like 30ps. A main complaint I had about video vs film initially before I ever understood the effect of frame rate and the shutter speed relationship for motion was the overly creamy smoothness. 24fps is LOCKED into my skull as THE frame rate for motion picture story stuff. And the 12 fps stepped up to 24 is itself a huge part of the functional pleasing aesthetic of "anime" which, to me, has always just really meant "limited motion animation".
honestly, this video is the best explanation of why generations of animation feel so different. it's a great video that even non-animators should watch to learn and appreciate the history of anime and more generally animation as a lot of the core philosophy carries over to American animation.
Original 12FPS is very important, because pen and paper artists at that time would blend motion blur or other exaggerated deformations into each drawings(some studios did it using computers in post-production, but most old school ones like Studio Ghibli didn't) so some kind of motion downscaling/reverse interpolation would be closer to original intended art style..
That was pretty badass. Especially since I was born in the 70s. I really got into those 80s and 90s anime masterpieces in my early 20s. I remember collecting fuzzy VHS copies from comic conventions that were copies of a copy of a copy, but still being blown away by the artistry of them so it's pretty awesome to see a super cleaned up version in Blender! Great work!
Thanks man, very inspirational. I really like the 12 fps frame rate value, since it really feels like an anime movie. There are some games like Guilty Gear that uses the same techniques to skip some frames for the animations.
Wow. I’ve just found this channel and I’m blown away, really nice to see such sophisticated analysis of a medium and not just technical knob twiddling in swift ware for the sake of it!
im so glad you address the thing about traditional inking and painting! its true, the classic asthetic is about the concious artistic decisions, not about whether theyre using real paint vs a computer. thank you very much
Mind-blowing. This is fulfilling my "Every frame a painting" gap. Lovely narration and detail for audiences with less experience. Subscribed. Thank you for going so in-depth and showing multiple examples of the technique. So much was learned from one tutorial.
Creativity will always thrive within the limitations surrounding it. But most importantly if the focus is on making a piece of art the mediums shortcomings generally fade away. I think things are a lot worse now because so little of it is cared for or thought about, just another scene in a spreadsheet of shotlists just waiting to be kicked out the door asap... 10/10 video friend, excellent presentation and work.
I’m quite into 90’s anime recently and I know nothing about blender. However, the content of the video really inspires me to get into blender. Thanks for your informations.
Good god… I only saw the first 20 seconds and already put it on a “Blender Mindblown” personal playlist and subbed. I KNOW it won’t disappoint, if only as a reference at the least.
OMG, if someone makes a game that looks like a 90s anime, but really 2D while being 3D im gonna cry... Also the "Bloom Effect" on old Cell Animes is insanely good
I opened this video with the intent of watching a few minutes and then saving it for later because it was late, but I ended up watching all of it because it was so well done. I love the style of 90s anime and have been always intrigued by the concept of mixing 3d and 2d animation. Also this video doesn't feel like other tutorials where they just tell you what to do step by step, but you actually explain your thought process as well as showing how you achieve the result you're looking for. To me it felt more like a course or a documentary rather than a simple tutorial. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and resources
The level of thought and detail that went into how you presented this was absolutely incredible. Thank you for taking the time to genuinely talk about the reason for making style choices and not just throwing your node setup out there with no preamble or reasoning. This is super inspirational and really helped me get a better idea how to develop a style I've been chasing for the past 6 months.
I'm so glad I found this and I'm grateful that there are people like you who are into these! The anime's I've(and everyone around my age) watched during the 90s was so different from the anime that I've seen from later in 2000s to 2010's onwards.
I honestly thought it would be impossible to recreate the style of animation we saw then today with the death of the traditional methods that made it all possible, but this gives me a lot of hope for the future, thank you!
This is absolutely gorgeous and fit right in to my aesthetics. Your slow voice over, that silent hill 2 like music (intro sounds like White noiz), the sheer craftmanship of using blender in a more fun way and rare screen projection in digital art! I mean it seems this tutorial is made with everything I love and everything that inspires me. Thank you so much for this super cool tutorial. Subscribed!
Wheres your videos then? If he is using your 'aesthetics' surely you have a video using them first? Or is what you are saying is that you like his video, and plan to copy it.. smh
The Summer Night at the end was a pleasant surprise, especially pleased that the title was included in the description of the video. Thanks for sharing some interesting techniques!
This video is very interesting, it feels more like a documentary than a tutorial, I'm an intermediate artist and I have thoughts of putting all more of my workflow in blender. Plus learned a lot about Art and some of your insight in studying old anime, camera movements are great but static cameras should not be forgotten, this give me another weapon to share my visions. Thanks for the video.
One thing I noticed was the streetlights over the original car reflected over the front window (giving the visual that the windows was completely tinted out). This gave it a more ominous mood. The use of less lights in the original also gave me the impression that the area was more desolate, despite the city in the background (also increasing the ominous mood). BTW, I havent seen the show, so Im just giving a visual impression. For all I know there can be looney toons style music in the original and I'm way off (lol). I still get that vibe from yours too, and it's a beautiful interpretation! New sub. I love the calming narration and ambient sounds too. Very easy watch comapred to people thinking they have to be overly loud or animated.
The technique of using layers is what used to be called a multi-planar camera shot. (Created -- or at least popularized -- by Disney for "Snow White", I believe.)
1. This video is so unbelievably insightful and incredibly well made, thank you for this as someone who enjoys this sort of stuff 2. You have completely changed the way I though about how the camera can be used in a work of art 3. what is the ambient track played throughout most of the video, it really helps the entire vibe of the video.
I've studied and worked with 3d for few years now, whilets my main goal being 2d animation. I'm so thankful for you. You've showed me a way moving forward in my endevours.
This was literally the best video ever: informative, reminiscent, cool, funny, chill, creative. You truly know your stuff as well as how to present everything in a unique, understandable, and entertaining way. Thank you for this video🙏
This was not only beautiful and inspiring, it reinforced my love for the blender and animation communities. You guys are such awesome people. I recently started reading Framed Ink to further understand visual storytelling and you make some amazing points. I grew up on these films and absolutely loved seeing how you did this. I’m only half a year into learning blender and two years into studying 2D as a hobby. Even if I don’t make money from it, this stuff is so cool to try and make. Cheers.
CTRL + ALT + NUMPAD-0 will position your camera towards whatever you are viewing in the focused viewport. That way you just navigate through the viewport until finding a good spot, summon the camera to that place with the shortcut and you are set. No need to "eyeball" the position of the camera by dragging it and moving it around. Just my two-cents for whoever finds it useful. Awesome tutorial by the way. Learnt a ton, specially how to achieve the same NPR but in UE5.
One thing that I feel could also be helpful when trying to replicate this style is the lens you choose to shoot the scene with. A lot of objects in 90s, especially the cars, aren't very forshortened. So using a more shallow lens like a 75 mm will help give the scene a more flat look
Thank you! You said it, the problem was honestly the artistic intent and effort that made alot of the continuations and remakes so lackluster. Honestly I forgot this was a blender tutorial because the beginning is starting off like a video essay which is so great to say the least. I can already tell you put alot of love and care into this.
I am absolutely blown away by your work. Please keep it up! I especially like the fact, that you point out to use the modern tech scarcely as not to lose the original intent and mood of the scene. Three thumbs up (if I could)! You have got another subscriber to your channel!
this video could’ve been a simple tutorial, but you went in depth about the style and explained it really well, i ended up learning more than what i expected
Holy crap, the QUALITY here is astounding. I love the style and will definetly get back to this video atleast 6 times this next month. Amazing video, so much effort and really helpful❤️
Wow! That was unexpected! Great indepth look at not only blender process and thought process but an analysis of style I cherish so much to boot. Thank you!
Absolutely phenomenal work and info, and incredibly generous of you too. Thank you. I'm a painter of city scenes looking at stretching my legs into using Blender to recreate my visions in some way but I've been having trouble visualising something that would work within what I'm doing. Thank you for giving me a way in.
It's actually really interesting seeing how you build the set for your scenes because they're actually very very similar to how they would be constructed in a film soundstage or for a stage production! And I think recreating some of the constraints from that era helps invoke the feel of it. A lot of mediums have become iconic because of the limitations placed on the technology of the time and traditional animation is no different. Love this!
Being fairly new to blender, this video is an awesome treasure to be found... Any chance you'll consider making a whole series? Maybe including a video on materials or things like that?
That's super interesting at 10:30 where the static camera actually looks more engaging than the one that's moving. Great proof that adding limitations can make things more impactful. Really cool tutorial, thanks for sharing.
@@Kio3360 Stepped interpolation may be useful in some cases, but hand-keying will achieve a much better effect. One of the important parts of anime is that the frames are often specifically chosen to accentuate the important parts of a motion. Part of the reason 3D in anime sometimes looks weird is because this isn't taken into account. Every single movement is equally "weighted" in terms of how many frames it gets, and you lose the dynamism of 2D animation. It ironically ends up looking less natural, or like a poorly optimized video game.
I'm brand new to Blender (got instantly obsessed with geometry nodes, haven't even made my first donut yet) and I've been trawling tutorials for cool stuff to eventually try. THIS IS THE COOLEST, no idea how it doesn't have a million views already. The presentation, exposition, and context/comparisons are all stellar, and your love for the style and artform shines through at every stage. Question: How does the computational/rendering load of this style compare to the more modern 3D-focused Blender content we usually see? I'm struggling along with a GTX1650S until RTX pricing insanity dies down, so being able to try new stuff without melting my PC would be a plus 😅
Ty for the kind words! Because most of my scenes and shader setups are relatively simple I find the rendering in both Eevee and Cycles is pretty instant (for context i'm using an RTX 2080 but I think it would definitely still be manageable with an earlier gen graphics card like a GTX1650S) The slowest part is the 'Freestyle' pass which can sometimes take as long as 2 minutes per frame - And from what i've researched I don't think computer specs make much of a difference as it's just the nature of how Blender calculates the lines!
@@veryveig Good to know, thanks :) I've got a ton to learn still but I'm keen to attempt something like this with some of my old favourites. There are a couple of great shots from Serial Experiments: Lain that I reckon would work... As good an excuse as any for a rewatch, at any rate.
Fantastic video, I'm just now jumping into all that blender can do. It honestly blows my mind, just 20 years ago this kind of tech and education would have cost thousands... Hopefully, i can come to grips with the software, made my first doughnut yesterday so that's a start lol
Thank you so much for posting this. This will be integral for my short film when I’m done with the storyboards. Much appreciated as someone who loves the ‘90s era particularly when it comes to animation
i'm shit at organizing my time and 12th grade started, so i try to learn techniques people use, i don't use blender at all, i just take notes on the techniques and ideas, when i'll graduate ig i'll start making stuff in 3D, thanks for this video, i might use it for a more early 1900s cartoon aestetic
A great breakdown of what makes a beautiful anime. The issue is still how easy it is to spot 3d models. Cell shading doesn't come close to looking like it's hand drawn. Maybe it's too sharp, and not 'fuzzy' like older anime....?
that's what I was gonna said. Instead of sharpening the image, it's actually better to blur the image, if the goal is to replicate the classic anime look. I personally like to use two blurs. First blur everything by 1 or 2px (depending on the res of the image) and then add another blur, of like 4px (or more if hi res) but only at 40% intensity.
That and also objects not sharing the same framerate. Or going around the camera in a way that makes it extremely apparent this is a three dimensional object.
You deserve so many more followers, great breakdown, i really loved the format and content, awesome work my dude. If I can ask a thing about the composition, in the last scene you realized you used the same circle road loop to make the road move, but from the perspective it doesn't look like a perfect circle, how did you manage to make it rotate and flatten the surface at the same time without making it look too round? Wish you a great day, thanks again for the awesome content mate.
Never been a fan of anime, but those 90's anime films looks like stuning pieces of work compared to the "creepy-childish" looking one seems to be famous today. It's great that people like you are bringing it back. Awesome tuto btw!
Good ol' times, truly the golden age of animation. It had this gritty, quite spooky atmosphere even. You just can tell how much love and blood went into the quality work. Lots of things have changed and they dont make them how they used to, for better or worse. But we also have a lot of things that are unique to our time and Blender truly is the software of all time, one to rule them all.
Thank you for making this! I am new to Blender (2 months) but worked in the anime industry in Japan in the 90s, including at Production IG for Ghost in the Shell, Blood the Last Vampire, etc. Your video helps me think about using my new tools with my old skills and techniques together. When we first shifted to digital production, the worst problem was backlighting (all those glows). There was no tool for it and it took a good deal of work to get it close to what we could do in the camera room. Even then, in camera we had to shoot the scene, run it back, change the camera so it had a light under a frosted glass pane on the camera stand, then shot cels with everything blacked out but the light areas superimposed over the original scene. It was slow and expensive and there was no preview but looked so good. Things are so much better now! :) fwiw we used to shoot everything on camera with diffusion filters, ranging from very light to heavy, and the change to digital made everything a lot sharper. Adding in scratches and VHS glitches is funny to me because we worked so very hard to make that not happen. Thanks again for this video!
Man this is gold! Thanks for sharing your experience. There's so much that goes into the aesthetic that those old school anime's had so it's so interesting hearing about how things were handled. I laughed at the end of your comment when you said how people are deliberately adding those scratches and imperfections in when the whole purpose back in the day was to keep them at a minimum. It's crazy how much imperfections can make things perfect.
Thanks for your insight, Sounds like a lot of delicate work but I think that's why the end result always look so crafted and beautiful!
Your comment is pure gold!!! and the last comment made me laugh a lot hahaha thanks for the inspiration! you should consider make a video telling this kind of things.. like "how anime were made in the 90's" idk, personally I'd love to hear more stories and understand the process that were used, maybe with that knowledge new artists can get inspiration.. it's just an idea, anyway hope you can make great Art in Blender!!
good to hear from the OGs animator back then,well i prefer 2000's style wehre they kinda shifted to digital but not too much 3Ds since i think the 3Ds ruined the consistencies of what we called "Anime",anyway i also laughed that old days tried to remove that imprfection while we re adding it,same as how we re added 3d glitches on newer games to looks like ps1 games
I find the adding of defects to be pretty ironic, considering how much effort studios put into removing them. To this day I still get a kick out of seeing a big ol' hair in a scene for just one frame. But I don't miss defects in newer productions.
afa digital works, I think the Berserk remake featured here is a prime example of exactly how not to do 3D anime. I was cringing for that entire scene. I've been watching anime since the 70s, and have always preferred it to anything from the west, and I still prefer 80s and 90s anime to most productions from the last 10-15 years. So I truly value getting little insights like this.
This feels like a part of a course that'd go for $249, incredible.
The best things in life are free 😉
the author of the video is now sitting like, ah fuck, shoulda sold it
So youre saying his goood but not that good haha
legit
Well, 1000 views equal 7 bucks.
This video has 400.000 + views.
He actually received $ 2800 + - in this video.
This is the best thing about sharing.
Couple words on framerate:
Notice how on those old animations, different objects have different framerates! For example, the main character has 24-30 FPS, while the midground and surrounding junk might have 20 or 16. This is very important in that it points attention, highlights objects and helps to convey different materials properties.
I was about to say that, some objects and things go at a normal 24 frames while others go at 12 frames. It's very easy not to notice, but it can go a long way if you're trying to go for the 2d animation feel in your 3d animations.
Well, commonly characters have lower frame rates. Seeing the immense workload to do each frame because they're dynamic and constantly updating, while the backgrounds can update more regularly because of their static nature, but I do understand what you mean and it's a valuable aspect to point out.
Amazing.
Btw if someone is wondering why the 12fps train at the end looks so choppy while traditional animation typically does not, it's because it's missing line strokes to convey sense of motion (i.e. it acts as some sort of motion blur, though it's not technically blur).
These strokes are very common in manga to depict motion in still images. But they're also present in animations. Sometimes the shape gets deformed or the light leave a streak for a strong effect.
The train at the end lacked those, thus the only way to know it's moving is by looking at the animation, and since that's the only reference, at 12 fps it looks choppy.
thanks i was looking for this comment. i wonder if its possible to simulate that using 3d. that would be rad
@@jaedekdee If not in the 3D app, likely in post (After Effects or Davinci maybe). Or a mix of the 3D renderer with some post. Just guessing.
that train is moving far to slow for motion lines to make any sense
Another aspect to consider, with what you point out, is how 35mm film works with light--especially at night. You need longer exposure times to capture stuff in dark areas, so sometimes with film, things that move at night get streaks or blurs behind them. I have seen these streaks in film and anime alike. I think anime is drawing inspiration from this and emulated those streaks to represent movement a little more clearly without upping the frame rate.
Another thing that is game changer is ink bleed in strokes, mask/keyed to a grunge texture layer.
You make a parallel node to the stroke, displace it a little bit and add a bit of outer glow to it and then put a grunge texture set to screen blending mode but with It masked to the Outer glow.
It looks incredible, also a ortographic camera in some cases can really sell a 2d look
Literally what are you talking about
@@ryan.1990 I think he's talking about the node workflow in the compositing tab
got any pics of this technique in action?
i am also very interested in this. i am sega saturn 90s homebrew dev. are you on any discords or forums, where we could exchange notes :)
@@ryan.1990 he's giving valuable advice on how to make something look realistically vintage, and what makes it look so nice
Literally what are you doing with your life
I love how trying to copy anothers art you fall upon techniques that end up giving it your own style. I bet the more you study in this way, the more you find what feels your own.
Awesome video! Stuff like this is what makes me so pumped up and excited bout doing 3D
same
And the we try making it
The interesting thing about comparing traditional and 3D animated workflows is that for traditional workflows, you end up with a pretty consistent amount of workload throughout the entirety of the production process, from the pre-production storyboarding and initial character reference sheets, through to the week-to-week animation workflows. With the 3D workflow, you have a larger initial time investment in creating character models and environments, adding skeletons for animating, and determining lighting, shaders, materials, etc. So you typically end up with more initial workload that you can do before the show starts airing, and then there's less that you need to actually make during the production, so you can focus more on just animating the existing resources instead of needing to redraw vast amounts of keyframes per episode, and potentially have to repaint entire background and environmental panels multiple times to cope with changing camera perspectives. I have a lot of nostalgia for 2D hand-drawn or hand-painted animation, because it has just so much unique character to it, but I do believe that 3D animation will reach a point in the near future where it will become almost indistinguishable from it if that is the desired art direction.
Yeah, I have somewhat thought that this is kind of the major pitfall of most 3D shows. That they kind of think that most of the work is done when all assets are modeled and rigged. With 2D. You are forced to reconsider the model for each and every frame. With 3D, they just hand over the rigged model and the animators push the rigs around to meet the ever shortened deadline as producers think that you just have to move the keyframes into place and press render.
The productions I have seen that have handled CG exceptionally. Like the shots in Kill la Kill where you go "wait THAT was CG?!?!" they basically had to remodel all assets for each shot. Sometimes swapping in completely different "smear-frame" models for a few frames. Those smear frames had to be modeled separately. Basically. If you want CG to be seamlessly integrated into a 2D show... you need to treat it like 2D... and that takes just as much time as making it 2D... defeating the time-saving producers wanted from making it CG in the first place.
@@jmalmsten it's also down to which shaders they use and how they handle "flattening" the frames to mimic hand-drawn. It also helps if it's a series that has frequent costume or outfit changes or whose outfits or hair give the animation physics software a hard enough time that an animator has to step in and manually tweak the rigging for each to make the keyframes make sense. It forces them to treat it like 2D animation, which is why it more closely resembles in in the end.
Also, Kill La Kill is a fantastic series with impeccable art direction and animation. Plus the sound design is so iconic. It's definitely one I recommend to people who don't mind a fair amount of fan-service if the plot is actually good enough to stand on its own, because Kill La Kill has that.
Would partially agree. Even after creating assets in 3d, the amount of work needed for animation is not that much different from traditional 2d, if not more. Especially when you take into consideration the work technical artists put in simulating every little rigid body and fluid sims and special effects. 3d is a lot more work. Where it all pays off is 3d is A LOT more iterative. Need a wider camera lens for that shot? Sure, no problem. How about we make the hero blonde instead? Sure, no problem. Having the freedom to iterate is a huge deal in all art disciplines, from writing to music to animation.
@@vasim495 not to mention the fact that setting a scene is made significantly easier when you don't need to redraw backgrounds because you've got a fully modeled 3D environment with movable lighting and a skybox.
@@mndlessdrwer Very true, once you've created something once, it's much easier to tweak, re-use and even drastically modify without losing a huge chunk of time and labor that's already been put in. Whereas such iterations in traditional 2d in most cases means discarding work and time already expended and starting from scratch.
I have these discussions about old school 80s and 90s anime all the time so this video was extremely refreshing. Not only was your thought process and breakdown very thoughtful but you also kept the 90s aesthetic going for this actual youtube video as well. The stone/granite backgrounds with the thick bevels on the graphic/text portions of the video were a nice touch! Very detailed. Along with the music and everything of course. Dope video. So thoughtful!
90's japanese animation quality was the height of 2D animation that hasn't been seen again in 20 years. The animators during that time were masters.
Not only were the old animators good animators, they were all smart and really clever, think of all the tricks, methods and work arounds they invented
1990 was 30 years ago
@@turntup1234 the 90s ended in 2000 aka almost 20y ago
@@Lenak_ almost?
@@whocars yeah almost isn't the right word
I never realized how much I needed to watch more random Blender tutorials until the last week. I've been just trying to do stuff and learn by doing, but watching tutorials makes me see that things can be way simpler if you know the goal you are trying to achieve. Thanks for this tutorial, it gave me a good slap to the back of my head, and now I am even more motivated to improve.
So I wasn't the only one seeing this 90's imagery aesthetic. Night cities are the best so far... glowing windows at the distance make me feel isolated and surreal. This is why I consider all the 90's titles I watched being highly psychodelic
hello there man of culture
This was so inspiring!
o shit wuts going on Ben
didn't know you're one of the weebs like us
oh my god, it's ben!
Ben Levin! Wowweeee XD Weeb power!!!
You got me into blender. Thanks, Ben
I love how big the Blender community is. I am attracted to Blender for a dozen reasons, 2D animation being a major one. I am not generally a huge fan of 'anime" though the aesthetic techniques you display here have given me a new appreciation for the now nostalgic feeling I get from the olde original traditional cel animation stuff. You have brilliantly employed some very basic techniques to evoke different emotions and I really agree with your basic premise that the original medium's constraints forced a type of discipline that then became a hallmark of the style itself that requires careful consideration to re-create using modern 3D given that options are now so exponentially expanded .
Regarding the framerate I feel it has a HUGE effect on my appreciation of what one would call"anime" The limitations and thus decisions to use as FEW frames as possible and still achieve a consistent look is key to the entire aesthetic for me. 12 fps stepped up to 24 is way preferable for me than anything too oozing silky smooth like 30ps. A main complaint I had about video vs film initially before I ever understood the effect of frame rate and the shutter speed relationship for motion was the overly creamy smoothness. 24fps is LOCKED into my skull as THE frame rate for motion picture story stuff. And the 12 fps stepped up to 24 is itself a huge part of the functional pleasing aesthetic of "anime" which, to me, has always just really meant "limited motion animation".
Didn't even know you could recreate such a style with this blender.
Really shows the potential of 3D anime.
Keep up the great work.
only 2 minutes and a half of first vid ive ever seen from you but youre gonna be my new favs channel for sure
The moment I scream in fangirl. Can't say THANK YOU enough for sharing your talent.
honestly, this video is the best explanation of why generations of animation feel so different. it's a great video that even non-animators should watch to learn and appreciate the history of anime and more generally animation as a lot of the core philosophy carries over to American animation.
Original 12FPS is very important, because pen and paper artists at that time would blend motion blur or other exaggerated deformations into each drawings(some studios did it using computers in post-production, but most old school ones like Studio Ghibli didn't) so some kind of motion downscaling/reverse interpolation would be closer to original intended art style..
omg the intro is cool AF I cant wait till the finish to comment how cool is it!!!
16:45 this entire part blew my mind, the level of creativity and just how simple it really is is awesome.
I love the synth wave car background GIF
That was pretty badass. Especially since I was born in the 70s. I really got into those 80s and 90s anime masterpieces in my early 20s. I remember collecting fuzzy VHS copies from comic conventions that were copies of a copy of a copy, but still being blown away by the artistry of them so it's pretty awesome to see a super cleaned up version in Blender! Great work!
You try 70s anime?
You sir ARE A GOD. Creating worlds. AMAZING!
Thanks man, very inspirational. I really like the 12 fps frame rate value, since it really feels like an anime movie. There are some games like Guilty Gear that uses the same techniques to skip some frames for the animations.
Wow. I’ve just found this channel and I’m blown away, really nice to see such sophisticated analysis of a medium and not just technical knob twiddling in swift ware for the sake of it!
This is a really neat mix of Film/Art Analysis and Blender Tutorials on Neat Things to Try.
(Some of my Favorite Things!)
im so glad you address the thing about traditional inking and painting! its true, the classic asthetic is about the concious artistic decisions, not about whether theyre using real paint vs a computer. thank you very much
Mind-blowing. This is fulfilling my "Every frame a painting" gap. Lovely narration and detail for audiences with less experience. Subscribed. Thank you for going so in-depth and showing multiple examples of the technique. So much was learned from one tutorial.
Creativity will always thrive within the limitations surrounding it. But most importantly if the focus is on making a piece of art the mediums shortcomings generally fade away. I think things are a lot worse now because so little of it is cared for or thought about, just another scene in a spreadsheet of shotlists just waiting to be kicked out the door asap... 10/10 video friend, excellent presentation and work.
I’m quite into 90’s anime recently and I know nothing about blender. However, the content of the video really inspires me to get into blender. Thanks for your informations.
Good god… I only saw the first 20 seconds and already put it on a “Blender Mindblown” personal playlist and subbed. I KNOW it won’t disappoint, if only as a reference at the least.
This is probably one of the best & comprehensive explanation/intro to emulating the classic anime style 👌
this gave me nostalghia for Japan. great video
OMG, if someone makes a game that looks like a 90s anime, but really 2D while being 3D im gonna cry... Also the "Bloom Effect" on old Cell Animes is insanely good
I opened this video with the intent of watching a few minutes and then saving it for later because it was late, but I ended up watching all of it because it was so well done. I love the style of 90s anime and have been always intrigued by the concept of mixing 3d and 2d animation. Also this video doesn't feel like other tutorials where they just tell you what to do step by step, but you actually explain your thought process as well as showing how you achieve the result you're looking for. To me it felt more like a course or a documentary rather than a simple tutorial. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and resources
Figuring out how 2d games and animation used parallax to represent 3d camera movement as a kid was a really cool way to learn.
The 12fps definitely nailed the vibe for me. Thanks for this vid!
The level of thought and detail that went into how you presented this was absolutely incredible. Thank you for taking the time to genuinely talk about the reason for making style choices and not just throwing your node setup out there with no preamble or reasoning. This is super inspirational and really helped me get a better idea how to develop a style I've been chasing for the past 6 months.
I'm so glad I found this and I'm grateful that there are people like you who are into these! The anime's I've(and everyone around my age) watched during the 90s was so different from the anime that I've seen from later in 2000s to 2010's onwards.
music used in the video itself is "PATLABOR 2 OST 12：At Parting"
Has such a great cyberpunk-ish vibe to it.
I honestly thought it would be impossible to recreate the style of animation we saw then today with the death of the traditional methods that made it all possible, but this gives me a lot of hope for the future, thank you!
This is absolutely gorgeous and fit right in to my aesthetics. Your slow voice over, that silent hill 2 like music (intro sounds like White noiz), the sheer craftmanship of using blender in a more fun way and rare screen projection in digital art! I mean it seems this tutorial is made with everything I love and everything that inspires me. Thank you so much for this super cool tutorial. Subscribed!
Wheres your videos then? If he is using your 'aesthetics' surely you have a video using them first? Or is what you are saying is that you like his video, and plan to copy it..
smh
All the animations and shots look like they should be continuously looping in a yt video with a slowed version of The Perfect Girl playing
The Summer Night at the end was a pleasant surprise, especially pleased that the title was included in the description of the video. Thanks for sharing some interesting techniques!
I could watch this video like a film, even without a huge knowledge of animation and modeling this is crazy entertaining
04:14 The Prince of Egypt did a wonderful job on that. And it has never been done since in that style.
The quality of this video and the depth of your analysis is staggering. I'm not an illustrator or visual artist, but I found this gripping.
This video is very interesting, it feels more like a documentary than a tutorial, I'm an intermediate artist and I have thoughts of putting all more of my workflow in blender. Plus learned a lot about Art and some of your insight in studying old anime, camera movements are great but static cameras should not be forgotten, this give me another weapon to share my visions. Thanks for the video.
Immediate subscriber after this. Excellent presentation and reasoning.
been in a bit of a creative rut recently, this has just given me so much inspiration and got me excited to make things again so thank you
24 minutes I did not regret spending. It is rare to find guides that are artistic as well as technical insightful
this is the best video to date on this topic, beautiful breakdowns on the scenes and composition
One thing I noticed was the streetlights over the original car reflected over the front window (giving the visual that the windows was completely tinted out). This gave it a more ominous mood. The use of less lights in the original also gave me the impression that the area was more desolate, despite the city in the background (also increasing the ominous mood).
BTW, I havent seen the show, so Im just giving a visual impression. For all I know there can be looney toons style music in the original and I'm way off (lol).
I still get that vibe from yours too, and it's a beautiful interpretation! New sub. I love the calming narration and ambient sounds too. Very easy watch comapred to people thinking they have to be overly loud or animated.
The technique of using layers is what used to be called a multi-planar camera shot. (Created -- or at least popularized -- by Disney for "Snow White", I believe.)
just bought the pack hopefully i can make some colol stuff with it thanks for making all these models!
1. This video is so unbelievably insightful and incredibly well made, thank you for this as someone who enjoys this sort of stuff
2. You have completely changed the way I though about how the camera can be used in a work of art
3. what is the ambient track played throughout most of the video, it really helps the entire vibe of the video.
I've studied and worked with 3d for few years now, whilets my main goal being 2d animation. I'm so thankful for you. You've showed me a way moving forward in my endevours.
Wow. Absolutely love the look of the old anime. Would like to see more, even a small tutorial from start to finish would be amazing.
yeah I'd love to see the whole process behind any one of these
This was a pleasant find
One of the best tutorials I've seen so far in my time learning blender, well done ser!
This was literally the best video ever: informative, reminiscent, cool, funny, chill, creative. You truly know your stuff as well as how to present everything in a unique, understandable, and entertaining way. Thank you for this video🙏
This was not only beautiful and inspiring, it reinforced my love for the blender and animation communities. You guys are such awesome people. I recently started reading Framed Ink to further understand visual storytelling and you make some amazing points. I grew up on these films and absolutely loved seeing how you did this. I’m only half a year into learning blender and two years into studying 2D as a hobby. Even if I don’t make money from it, this stuff is so cool to try and make. Cheers.
CTRL + ALT + NUMPAD-0 will position your camera towards whatever you are viewing in the focused viewport. That way you just navigate through the viewport until finding a good spot, summon the camera to that place with the shortcut and you are set. No need to "eyeball" the position of the camera by dragging it and moving it around. Just my two-cents for whoever finds it useful.
Awesome tutorial by the way. Learnt a ton, specially how to achieve the same NPR but in UE5.
One thing that I feel could also be helpful when trying to replicate this style is the lens you choose to shoot the scene with. A lot of objects in 90s, especially the cars, aren't very forshortened. So using a more shallow lens like a 75 mm will help give the scene a more flat look
Thank you! You said it, the problem was honestly the artistic intent and effort that made alot of the continuations and remakes so lackluster. Honestly I forgot this was a blender tutorial because the beginning is starting off like a video essay which is so great to say the least. I can already tell you put alot of love and care into this.
I am absolutely blown away by your work. Please keep it up! I especially like the fact, that you point out to use the modern tech scarcely as not to lose the original intent and mood of the scene. Three thumbs up (if I could)! You have got another subscriber to your channel!
this video could’ve been a simple tutorial, but you went in depth about the style and explained it really well, i ended up learning more than what i expected
Holy crap, the QUALITY here is astounding. I love the style and will definetly get back to this video atleast 6 times this next month. Amazing video, so much effort and really helpful❤️
You make it seem so easy.
Wow! That was unexpected! Great indepth look at not only blender process and thought process but an analysis of style I cherish so much to boot. Thank you!
this video needs so much more attention wow
Absolutely phenomenal work and info, and incredibly generous of you too. Thank you. I'm a painter of city scenes looking at stretching my legs into using Blender to recreate my visions in some way but I've been having trouble visualising something that would work within what I'm doing. Thank you for giving me a way in.
We got to respect anime artist.
They put in a lot of effort to make something entertaining
Love the style. I'm amazed at how much the framerate impacts the "traditional anime" look and feel. Great content.
It's actually really interesting seeing how you build the set for your scenes because they're actually very very similar to how they would be constructed in a film soundstage or for a stage production! And I think recreating some of the constraints from that era helps invoke the feel of it.
A lot of mediums have become iconic because of the limitations placed on the technology of the time and traditional animation is no different.
Love this!
These tips are gold. Thanks for sharing
That was a golden era. Unforgettable. Great stuff
Being fairly new to blender, this video is an awesome treasure to be found... Any chance you'll consider making a whole series? Maybe including a video on materials or things like that?
That's super interesting at 10:30 where the static camera actually looks more engaging than the one that's moving. Great proof that adding limitations can make things more impactful. Really cool tutorial, thanks for sharing.
You could experiment with mixed framerates. Background mattes were often moved smoothly, while any movement in 3d was 12 fps max.
You can use stepped interpolation to achieve this effect.
@@Kio3360 Heh...many were probably using stepped interpolation to get to 12fps.
@@Wingnut353 Were? Is there a better alternative? Aside from keying by hand?
@@Kio3360 Stepped interpolation may be useful in some cases, but hand-keying will achieve a much better effect. One of the important parts of anime is that the frames are often specifically chosen to accentuate the important parts of a motion. Part of the reason 3D in anime sometimes looks weird is because this isn't taken into account. Every single movement is equally "weighted" in terms of how many frames it gets, and you lose the dynamism of 2D animation. It ironically ends up looking less natural, or like a poorly optimized video game.
This video is incredible
I'm brand new to Blender (got instantly obsessed with geometry nodes, haven't even made my first donut yet) and I've been trawling tutorials for cool stuff to eventually try. THIS IS THE COOLEST, no idea how it doesn't have a million views already. The presentation, exposition, and context/comparisons are all stellar, and your love for the style and artform shines through at every stage.
Question: How does the computational/rendering load of this style compare to the more modern 3D-focused Blender content we usually see? I'm struggling along with a GTX1650S until RTX pricing insanity dies down, so being able to try new stuff without melting my PC would be a plus 😅
Ty for the kind words! Because most of my scenes and shader setups are relatively simple I find the rendering in both Eevee and Cycles is pretty instant (for context i'm using an RTX 2080 but I think it would definitely still be manageable with an earlier gen graphics card like a GTX1650S)
The slowest part is the 'Freestyle' pass which can sometimes take as long as 2 minutes per frame - And from what i've researched I don't think computer specs make much of a difference as it's just the nature of how Blender calculates the lines!
@@veryveig Good to know, thanks :) I've got a ton to learn still but I'm keen to attempt something like this with some of my old favourites. There are a couple of great shots from Serial Experiments: Lain that I reckon would work... As good an excuse as any for a rewatch, at any rate.
Gee, the tech behind this is amazing, and so are your skills of actually using those features, like choosing the right triggers etc.
Fantastic video, I'm just now jumping into all that blender can do. It honestly blows my mind, just 20 years ago this kind of tech and education would have cost thousands... Hopefully, i can come to grips with the software, made my first doughnut yesterday so that's a start lol
This is the best Blender tutorial for anime that I've seen.
Phenomenal video, I’ve been trying to nail down a stylized 3D feel and this is great
This vid is pure gold. Lv ur content brother 👏👏👏👏👏❤️
omg this is not supposed to be free, such a jewel
thank you so much. this is definitely gold quality video.
This is gold! Great information and explanation
Thank you so much for posting this. This will be integral for my short film when I’m done with the storyboards. Much appreciated as someone who loves the ‘90s era particularly when it comes to animation
Beautiful video
i'm shit at organizing my time and 12th grade started, so i try to learn techniques people use, i don't use blender at all, i just take notes on the techniques and ideas, when i'll graduate ig i'll start making stuff in 3D, thanks for this video, i might use it for a more early 1900s cartoon aestetic
A great breakdown of what makes a beautiful anime. The issue is still how easy it is to spot 3d models. Cell shading doesn't come close to looking like it's hand drawn. Maybe it's too sharp, and not 'fuzzy' like older anime....?
that's what I was gonna said. Instead of sharpening the image, it's actually better to blur the image, if the goal is to replicate the classic anime look.
I personally like to use two blurs. First blur everything by 1 or 2px (depending on the res of the image) and then add another blur, of like 4px (or more if hi res) but only at 40% intensity.
That and also objects not sharing the same framerate. Or going around the camera in a way that makes it extremely apparent this is a three dimensional object.
TNice tutorials tutorial is so useful,I tried tons of other tutorials but tNice tutorials was the best one
You deserve so many more followers, great breakdown, i really loved the format and content, awesome work my dude.
If I can ask a thing about the composition, in the last scene you realized you used the same circle road loop to make the road move, but from the perspective it doesn't look like a perfect circle, how did you manage to make it rotate and flatten the surface at the same time without making it look too round?
Wish you a great day, thanks again for the awesome content mate.
I feel so peaceful and relaxed watching you recreate much loved pieces of the past into modern day mediums.
Never been a fan of anime, but those 90's anime films looks like stuning pieces of work compared to the "creepy-childish" looking one seems to be famous today. It's great that people like you are bringing it back. Awesome tuto btw!
Good ol' times, truly the golden age of animation. It had this gritty, quite spooky atmosphere even. You just can tell how much love and blood went into the quality work. Lots of things have changed and they dont make them how they used to, for better or worse. But we also have a lot of things that are unique to our time and Blender truly is the software of all time, one to rule them all.