2.5D Simulated Keyframe Animation in Blender

Abstract

3D animation requires specialized skills and tends to limit creative expression in favor of physical feasibility, while 2D animation does the opposite. Another duality exists between simulated and keyframe animation. While simulations provide physical believability, keyframes give animators fine timing control. This project seeks to bridge the gap between these approaches to animation: leveraging the expressiveness of 2D animation, the robustness of 3D environment and camera movement, the physical feasibility of simulation, and the control of keyframing. To this end, we present a 2.5D animation interface that takes 2D drawn keyframes and 3D context (object, environment and camera movement) to generate simulated animations that adhere to the user-drawn keyframes.