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Now that we understand how Blender 5.0 works and how we can leverage Scenes we can start to think about different workflows. Whether you want to create traditional 2D storyboards for live action productions, 2.5D story animatics for animated series or Previs, Blender allows you to do all those things and add-ons such as Whippet, can help facilitate those tasks faster.
Each tab below describes the different workflows we can utilize for a variety of productions. These are just high level overviews, I will show detailed steps later on via videos and other pages.
2D Storyboarding
In the Blender Studio’s demo of Blender 5.0 Story Tools update, we can see how they utilize Scene Strips and a simple 2D setup to create traditional storyboards. Blender’s Storyboarding Workspace comes with a Shot.000 Asset that contains one GP object and one Camera positioned so you can drawing in a flat perspective. Whenever you need a new ‘Shot’ (a Scene), you go down to the Sequencer > Select Add > Scene > Shot.000. This will create a duplicate copy of that Scene to be used as your new Shot.
This workflow is a great way to produce thumbnails, rough out ideas or for 2D shows with little 3D camera movement. The Scene Strips offer a clear way to preview shots in real time by switching the Storyboarding Scene for you. But ultimately the setup and editing of the scene strips can be tedious and time consuming. So how can we do it the Whippet way?
Whippet provides Scene Strip tools to help us create new scenes, new strips, new cameras and new GP objects all with one button. Under the Whippet N-Panel menu, there is a Scene Tools that contains the custom operators.
These tools can help us setup a new scene empty scene, a Full Copy (unique instance) of a Default Scene or a Linked Copy of a Default Scene. I will provide a video showing you how to utilize each button but to summarize: selecting a Default Scene with Full Copy selected in the drop down menu and pressing the New Scene with Scene Strip will create a new Scene, setup the Whippet Collection folders, create a new camera based on the viewing angle in that Default Scene and then sync a Scene Strip with that camera.
It does several steps in one, leaving you with a new shot to continue working on.
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Pro Tip: Add the ‘New Scene with Scene Strip’ button to your Quick Favorites menu (right+click, select Add to Quick Favorites) or map it a custom keyboard shortcut for a faster workflow.
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3D to 2D Software
A lot of productions require artists to take screenshots of 3D environments in Blender to then draw over them in a 2D program such as Storyboard Pro. This method is great for wanting to work in a preferred program and has it’s speed advantage when you’re not having to translate GP objects in 3D space. However, I do think there will be a push towards story artists being required to move GP objects or 3D characters around a set in the near future (it’s already happening on some shows!). Regardless, Whippet provides great export features to help this process be faster and more organized.
After you import your 3D environment, simply create the cameras you need to export and ensure you have object keyframes for each camera (or multiple keyframes if you’re doing a camera move). Once you’re finished adding the cameras, you can select all the keyframes you want to export then go to the Playblast, Scene Strip & Export Tools menu and select the Export Stills option. This will export PNG files of each of the keyframes for every camera. A folder will be created for each camera to help keep you organized with version and frame numbers in the filename.
Export References will export out two different images, one with all the 3D objects visible in the scene and another with objects removed that were tagged as Whippet Reference. This allows you to layer the images in your 2D software to reference the top one as scale and the bottom acting as a Clean Plate.
This method is great for 2D shows that do not require 3D camera moves but have environments built out in Blender already for story artists to use.
NLE with Scene Strips
Blender 5.0 Story Tools
Playblast to VSE
Blender 5.0 Story Tools
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