In layout, the scale is quite important but I found that if I apply that same distance when storyboarding, I'm unable to get key details down. When I try to enlarge the character, I get stopped by the guides I have set up telling me where 2 meters start and end and everything inside me tells me I need to keep the character at or just under 2 meters.
I tried zooming and pushing the camera forward slightly but I feel like they are better used when you have a draft in place. What I don't understand is how people seemingly are able to ignore it when boarding shots.
I'll try my best. Every video I've seen about storyboarding doesn't talk about the scale in relation to the environment around the character so I have no way of knowing how big I need my environment and character to each be. Paul did make a video talking about 2D plating and set building in 3D and how we can use either to draft our shots; and in a live drawing session Dedouze made in Berlin he briefly talked about the real world scales blender uses. I thought I needed guides to tell me how tall 2 meters was but all that did was prevent me from thinking about key shots as I'm unable to zoom all the way in. I make a circle for the head and it's already 2 meters. Let me know if I need to revise the explanation - never was really good at it.
I'm the type of person who doesn't have much experience but likes to look at a lot and when it comes to real world size, Many people always use a person or cube as a reference object and then use it as a guide if they don't have exact measurements
If you are in edit mode, you can also display the edge lengths or the square meters of an area. See picture
I definitely appreciate all suggestions regardless. How small would I have to make their heads and subsequent body parts though? My current setup doesn't have anything pushed backwards in 3D space but from what I do have, I can't seem to fit everything all in 2 meters. I don't mind drawing outside of what the camera sees but the last time I drafted a character, she ended up being 7 meters tall.
For storyboarding in Blender from what I've seen and heard most SB artist just draw the pieces(Background, character, props, etc) in front view and don't worry about the camera until the end. Then they just scale everything down to fit the storyboard panel/camera. Now this is for Grease Pencil drawing. If you're using 3D objects(Shaded or for tracing/rotoscoping) that's a different story.
A better option instead of using the guide is to use Canvas. To turn on you go to the grease pencil overlays(To the right of the overlays) and check canvas. By default it is a 1 meter radius from the GP's origin. So a 2 meter by 2 meter square. It is then divided into 4 one meter squares and those are then subdivided 4 times. That means each square is 1 quarter of a meter. Why the long winded description of the size? That is so you can understand the setting, which can be found in the properties editor in the GP/Data tab under viewport display panel you have the canvas subpanel. The color is well the color. The x and y scale is the Radius. So a 1 on X becomes 2 meters the diameter(Radius * 2). The offset adjust it's position in relation to the origin point. The Subdivision is the number of cuts in each main 4 square(Each radius section divided by the subdivision). I can't draw...YET...but people I know that can who use canvas usually just change the subdivisions to 5 or 10 depending on what they are drawing. then use offset if they need to adjust it position.
I see what you mean George. Though that character is 7 meters in relation to something else, and as Dwayne says you could then scale things to match the scales of everything around them. Overall it sounds a bit tricky, and it feels like most artist would go by gut instinct when sketching. You've drawn so much that you get the feel of scale by intuition. But Paul could have much more to say. Let me see if I can message him to jump into the conversation.
Scaling things down was one of the first things I thought about but when you scale thickness, you end up not knowing how much you've scaled it down by and made worse when any new stroke you make follows the thickness previously set. I remember trying to copy the stroke and pasting it while my mouse was hovering over the radius but that only pasted a previously copied value instead.
I wanted to incorporate 3D so I didn't have to worry about things like perspective and maintaining the right scale. Turns out efforts to get the hard part out of the way has stopped me from even starting. I know about the canvas and how it tells you on what plane you're drawing on and I remember comparing it to an armature that stood 2 meters but I don't believe I did much after that. Played with the settings a bit but that was it.
Well the beautiful thing about blender is that there's more than one way to do things. For example if scaling down drawing doesn't work for you then you can scale everything else to fit your drawing. Just move the camera further away. Another option is to convert GP to Curves before scaling down. You can convert back if you need to. I can't remember if it's in draw or concept course, but Paul points out a way to quickly adjust line thickness. I want to say it's in the GP sculpt, but I don't remember.
Hi George, this will require a more detailed answer, but in short: Storyboarding is usually a way to get the ideas down quickly, so scale is not important as composition and framing. However Blender *does* work in scales which are analogous to 1:1 for the scene - you're correct, this could be a big advantage! To best work in this way requires some set up, and it *is* worth it if you're also going ot be doing animatics. Have you tried using the Story Pencil Add-On? It's... interesting, and worth playing around in. I did a couple of presentations on it, and I hope to explore it further for CG Cookie. IMHO it is not quite there yet as an easy-to-use alternative to what is already out there, so working in a more traditional frame-to-frame method is still the best option, ignoring scale altogether.
Really appreciate it, Paul! I haven't activated the Story Pencil addon just yet but I have seen videos on the topic and wanted to reverse engineer it (I guess?) to see how it works and how much of it I can replicate after tinkering. And I don't mind tinkering. I guess it's just the mindset I can't get out of to maintain the scale which I admit becomes a problem when I have entities with significantly different scales side by side but that's a problem I'll deal with once I get there. And... after writing that sentence, I realize how it's flawed. I will definitely try and ignore the scales but I make no promises.
Thinking about it some more, the character that was 7 meters tall would have still fit in the frame if the camera was pushed backwards and I guess from there I can work on the midground, assets or background to match the character but my goal has always been to maintain a consistent scale by the very end.
I’ve done a little more research and I realized the entire character doesn’t have to be drawn. It definitely helps with building the environment and I think it’s the reason why I was so caught up with it but I’m hoping with this new perspective I’d be able to get something down. Not having the entire character might make it more difficult to determine how big I need the environment and other assets to be but we see what happens when we get there.
Also, I do remember being told this exact thing or similar but back then no matter how many times I try, I always find myself reverting. Guess it’s one of those things that you just have to do it to understand it.
