Build Your Own 3-D Product Animation
As a DIY’er and crafters, we don’t have time to create every idea we have or customize several products to showcase all the possibilities. We could post an image with YOUR NAME HERE sticker or make efforts to photoshop the picture. And you can only do the YOUR NAME HERE or TEXT HERE illustrations so many times just to showcase your work. I have resisted the YOUR NAME HERE or TEXT HERE illustrations as much as possible. So, what are my alternatives?
I want to do the last one, the product 3-D animation. I have seen product 3-D animations and even researched some services that will produce animations for your business. The monthly fees and quantity limitations are such that it’s not for our small business. Since we are DIY and craft folks, why not figure out the 3-D animation ourselves, is that possible?
Is there software (let’s make it free too) that will allow you to create your own 3-D production animation?
Software for 3-D Animation
Though our business now involves a lot of sand carving on glass and other materials, I have worked with Adobe After Effects and done some scripting and graphic design to automate some video business processes, I once owned. Not wanting to pay for the Adobe subscription again (OK, I do but I don’t have the budget for it).
I decided that I would investigate Blender as my graphic engine and see if it would be possible to create a 3-D render of our glass trays with the sand carving image.
My goal is to have a template of the glass tray that includes a graphic image of the artwork, and it renders a 3-D image of the finished glass tray with the etched image. All I would need is the artwork (in this case SVG file) for each possible product or customization I would be asked to make.
I will talk about Blender as though it is another tool in our shop. If you are interested in 3-D animation or this type of software let me know and I’ll detail my process in another article. This project of creating 3-D animation for our glass trays can get long. There are many tutorials on YouTube regarding Blender, and a complete course could be created on just the creation of the glass tray animation. Not that it is a great accomplishment, just detailed.
For this article, I want to concentrate on the effect and quality of the 3-D image and the application for our eCommerce site.
What Is the Goal?
- Showcase product ideas without using raw materials.
- Create 3-D product animation for proto-type or brainstorming ideas before committing materials. (Material cost saving).
- Create 3-D product animation to be shown along with the actual product on product web pages.
- Options for staging the product (selectable backgrounds) with examples of how to use the product.
- Get feedback/votes on new ideas before using material on a finished product.
The idea is to make the animation look like the glass tray is etched with the artwork.
I know there are many ways to accomplish this in Blender. This process will be using glass characteristics and layers of objects to give the look of etching. I know there are other methods and I look forward to implementing them but giving this process. a go for now.
Skills
Also, the steps I will describe going forward will be general and may skip over some very detailed steps that are required.
I want to accomplish a proof of concept for making your own 3-D product animations.
I have done the detailed steps to accomplish the desired animation. I just don’t want to lose my audience with so many steps that we forget what we want to accomplish. If there is enough interest, there will be more articles to detail the steps.
If you think this may be a bit outside of your present skill set, please at least continue to read, and see if this process is workable in your view. OK, let’s get started!
Get Started with the Artwork
We start with the artwork for the portion of our business that produces etched glass works. A two-tone (black and white), 2-D image. We can do a grayscale image but that will be for another discussion. This time we’re going to use 3 images that are examples of existing etch glass trays that we sell. We will use a hummingbird, a dragonfly, and a cowboy on a bucking horse to illustrate the 3-D product animation process. We created each artwork file in Inkscape, a similar program to Adobe Illustrator but free. This is generally where our work process starts with the 2-D artwork. If you have read some of our other Blog posts you will see more examples of the artwork process. If customization is needed for name or date, it too will originate in Inkscape. The artwork must be in vector forms and not jpg or png. Those formats can be inside the SVG file but will not import into Blender.
PinImport SVG File
With our artwork ready we can now open the Blender template file of the glass tray and import the SVG file artwork. From here we will import the SVG file and place it in the middle of the glass tray. SVG files in Blender are only 2-D so we need to get some thickness. The SVG object s extruded to 0.0625 inches (1/32 inch) and converted to a mesh object. This is necessary to allow us to assign other modifiers and material characteristics to the artwork.
The artwork is scaled to fit into the glass tray and positioned (rotated) to the top of the artwork to the top of the screen.
Since the artwork is a new object in the Blender template, we must it make stay aligned with the glass tray (parent/child setting) and take on a set of material characteristics to give it that etched glass look. Now when the glass tray moves or rotates the artwork moves also and stays aligned.
Generate Animation Video
Since the glass tray Blender file was preconfigured and designed to create animation for the glass tray, you are ready to switch to camera mode and check out your etched glass with artwork etched in the middle.
There is a timeline display at the bottom of the screen to allow the animation to move around such that you can view the glass tray in different positions.
Once you are satisfied with the design you can start the rendering of the video. Depending on you computer this takes a while.
What Is the Goal?
Conclusion
This is the Pinterest Pin I used in one of the videos for the glass tray. It is a simple example. Just think, I could upload it to Youtube, or post a video on Facebook asking for feedback and increasing my followers.
I know the steps are not detailed enough that you will go start making 3-D animation yourself. But I am looking forward to the possibility to show my products in short videos and even create new ideas and seek your feedback on new designs. Who knows, maybe this could be developed to be a tool for a lot of eCommerce and DIY’ers.
Once I make a product with this new design I can create conventional videos. Perhaps even include some of these 3-D animation variations in a how-to video when I showcase the products.
Please leave your feedback and thoughts. I think there is a lot of potential with this 3-D animation technique and you may have come up with some great ideas after reading this article.
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