2D with 3D animation?

# 1 20-01-2003 , 07:58 AM

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Posts: 123

I did an 2D animation for last years class and I want to refine it. Since the background really sucks on it, I want to take a 2d animation and put it in maya, so I was wondering. How do you delete the white background on maya (what i got circled), so i can put a 3d background on it.

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# 2 20-01-2003 , 08:04 AM

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Heres part of the animation.

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# 3 20-01-2003 , 03:15 PM

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Location: New York

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I would just work in Maya first. Create the 3D background using a still shot from your 2D anim as reference, then render out each 3D frame with alpha channels(minus your reference image), then composite them in either After Effects for animation or Photoshop for a still. This would be fine for your animation if the background isn't moving....from the little animation clip's camera view, it seems only the character is moving.

As far as getting rid of the white. You'd save your original 2D animation (each image) with alpha channels first. Then in Maya, create a plane and in hypershade, create a material (blinn), and map its color to your image with the alpha. This might help you out a little. I'm not sure how you would do an entire animation, though.

If it were me, I'd bring one image in for reference, then build my background in maya, then render out the background with alpha channel, and composite in your program of choice.

Hope this helped some.

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

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# 4 20-01-2003 , 04:22 PM

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Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Minnesota, USA

Posts: 3,709

Good one Nitro!

That's exactly how I would do that as well.

If your 2d "cells" are separate images, you might be able to get away with a batch process in Photoshop that kills the white bg from your 2d images, and resaves them with a new alpha.

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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