Animation and Video Life

Hero - still from a 2D animated short created in Blender 2.8 with Grease Pencil. There are a number of animation apps that like to promote themselves as the one tool for all your animation needs and, while many are certainly very powerful, I think Blender 2.8 , released earlier this year, may be the closest yet. If you're not familiar with Blender it's been almost the go to tool, since at least 2002, for anyone wanting to learn 3D animation on a budget - and nothing is easier on the budget than completely free. With the release of 2.8 not only is Blender a complete 3D animation tool, it's now also a complete 2D animation tool. That's right you can use it to create 2D, hand drawn animation, motion graphics, and bone rigged 2D characters. As well, it has plugins that can give 3D animation that 2D look. Hence my suggestion that Blender 2.8 is truly the one tool for all your animation needs (because Blender is also very capable at VFX - think of any 'live acti...

Cartoon Animator's 360 Head Creator Tool. One of the biggest selling points of Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 4 was the new 360 Character Head feature for G3 characters. Personally I haven't really explored the process of creating a 360 character head in depth but for my first attempt, the obvious character choice was my original G3 color monkey characters. What I like about the process of creating a 360 head is that much of the effect is achieved simply through masking and distorting the character sprites you've already created. I know if you really take a deep dive into the process you can replace entire sprites during the head turn for even smoother results and a wider turn but you can still do a lot with what's already there. The 360 head turn I created for my color monkeys (which is actually more of 145 degree turn from side to side) is achieved entirely with the character's existing front facing sprites. It took me about 30-45 minutes of tinkering...

US$2000 First Prize in each category. Nothing gets the word out like a contest which is why I suspect Reallusion is running it's Animation at Work contest only a year after the last one (previously there's been at least a 2 year gap). Nothing wrong with that. Cartoon Animator 4, released earlier this year, is a great application for creating 2D animation quickly and easily, with a first prize of US$2000.00 up for grabs in each category, that should attract plenty of new users. Entrants have until October 31, 2019 to submit a 2D animated short into one of four categories, Business, Comic, YouTuber, and Education, for a chance to win. Each category has specific entry requirements so be sure to read the rules for details. Prizes are the same in each category with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes of US$2000, $1000, and $500 respectively. As well there are additional early bird prizes (and probably more eyes on your entry) if you're within the first 150 entrants. If you don...