Hey, everyone, it's Kevin. Welcome back to the channel. in this video, we're going to create this liquid 3D
typography in blender with grease pencil. This piece was actually featured
in my Cyberpunk city as a billboard. And if you'd like to check out that
process video, I'll leave a link below. Now, if you don't know what grease pencil
is, it's an object in blender that allows you to draw
and animate directly in 3D space. And this makes Blender
and a deal program for hybrid workflows. This piece
is comprised of 3D meshes
with a tuned shader added and supplemented with grease pencil elements
similar to these other pieces here. this material is perfect
for those either skilled in 3D or wanting to learn 3D,
but have a more traditional 2D background. It's not necessary to have a tablet,
although it might be helpful to have one for some of the sculpting and grease
pencil sections. I'll have a link below to a free download that includes the start
and end project files. Let's get started Here
. I'm in Blender using version 4.0
and with the START project file open again, you can grab this file from
the free download found in the link below. The file will be denoted
with underscore start. This start file includes
a grease pencil object named background which will be used as a reference point
to position or 3D type. The focus of this tutorial
makes sure the viewport shading is set to solid and we'll start
configuring some render options. Go to the Render Properties tab
and we'll be usin
g Eevee. Scroll down to color management
and change the view. Transform dropdown to standard. This will make the colors appear accurate
according to the ones in the picker. Then change the look to medium
high contrast. This is a personal preference,
but it'll make your colors appear more vibrant. Now we'll import the SVG file
which contains the vector paths. For the easy lettering, This is custom
type I created in another program and it's included in the free download
as well. To import it, go t
o file import scalable vector graphic and select easy svg. will import as very small curves
for each letter. And behind this great pencil object
in the viewport. Select all the curves
by selecting them in the outlier right click set origin to geometry,
then bring them forward in the Y and let's rotated upright with our x 90 in front view with Numpad one. Scale it out
until it stretches over the quick lettering
and rotated slightly to the right. Make any other adjustments needed. With all the cur
ves
still selected, right click and convert to mesh tab into edit mode. Hit eight to select all the meshes
and e to extrude back in the Y to give it some thickness. Go back into object mode. Now the texture on this lettering
is a combination of sculpting the meshes and adding a tune shader,
but there isn't a lot of geometry to sculpt,
so we'll need to re mesh them first. select the E, go to the modifiers tab,
which is this wrench icon. Click add modifier type re mesh
and select it with voxels se
lected. Set the size to a very small value. I'm setting mine 2.0004 meters and check smooth shading
when you're finished. Link this to the other letters
by selecting them. The e last to make it the active object
and hitting control l to copy modifiers after hit control A
and select visual geometry to mesh to apply the Ramesh modifiers
on all of them. To help visualize this better, we'll add
a tuned shader onto the letters. switch
the viewport shading to material preview and in the dropdown
toggl
e scene lights and scene world. Go to the World Properties tab
and set the background color to a dark blue,
almost navy under viewport display. Let's also set the color to white. This will be important
for a grease pencil strokes later on as they can be affected by this value. Bring in a point light with shift
a little bit closer in the Y in front of the lettering
and a bit higher in the C in the Object Data Properties tab. Set the power to a higher value
around 50 watts. Change the dope
sheet d
own here to the shader editor by clicking this button
and selecting it from the list. Select the image and you'll notice
it already has a material on it. Rename it to easy tune and check
the used notes box to the left. Now there are many methods
for creating a tune shader, so feel free to use
whichever one you'd like. I'll be showing the simplest way to do so. Delete the principle BSD off with X and bring in a diffuse BSD off with shift a connected
to the material output surface. This is to make
sure
we don't have any unwanted artifacts from the principle shader. Bringing a shader to RG
B node and place it after the diffuse BSD. If the shader to RG P node is specific TV
and will not work in cycles, it simplifies shading details into colors
resulting in a tune look. Lastly, bring in a color ramp and place it
after the shader to RG node. change the dropdown
from linear to constant. And when we move these sliders
you'll see it affects the color coverage on the letters
using the color spec
ified black and white. I'm going to add two more sliders
and I'll set them to random colors for now
to help in adjusting their positions. when you're finished, set the sliders to your desired colors. I'll make the far left a dark blue
the next a medium purple, the next a green and the far right white. we'll move on to adding outlines
around the letters, and we'll use the inverted home method, which consists
of using a solidify modifier and a material with back face
calling toggled like the tune
shader. There are many methods
for creating outlines, but I do prefer this one since it's simple to set up
and the easiest to work with in real time. First, select all the letters and control
A to apply scale. This is to ensure that the solidify
modifier will display correctly. Secondly, go up to the overlays
dropdown and check face orientation. For the outlines to appear. The faces will need to be
in the correct orientation. If they appear blue, they're correct,
but if they're red, select the m
esh tab into edit mode. Select all and hit shift and to
recalculate normals when you're finished. Toggle off the face orientation
overlay with the selected. Create a new material in the material
Properties tab Name outline. Change the surface to an emission
and select a very dark blue color or whatever you want
the outline color to be under settings. Check back face
calling and set the shadow mode to none. go to the Modifier properties
tab and add a solidify modifier. Under normals
check, flip a
nd under materials. Set the offset to one which corresponds
to the material in that slide. To have this display correctly,
set the thickness to a negative value, I'm setting mine to negative .01 meters
and then you should see the outline shift. Select the remaining letters,
then the mesh last and copy over the modifiers
and link the materials. I'm going to shift all the letters back
towards the grease pencil object, but we'll pull the A and Y
a bit closer for some depth variation. Make any other
adjustments needed
now to give the letters texture. We'll move on to sculpting, select
the E and go into sculpt mode. we can access scope mode
by clicking the dropdown up here or by hitting control tab and selecting it
from the radial menu and to start, it might be easier to switch the viewport
shading to solid view. Now, there's quite a few options here, but I want to start
by getting rid of the jagged ness. So select the smooth tool,
which is this button here. You can also access it
by holdin
g Don't shift and click dragging and in general to select
any of the tools in a workspace you can hit shift spacebar here
to bring up a list. We can also adjust the radius
with F or the strength with shift F. If you're using a tablet,
you can use pressure controls. Which are these buttons located here. When you're
finished, move on to the remaining letters intermittently, switch to material preview
to see how it affects the shading. And to help us,
let's just bring in a new window by hovering in
the top
right of the viewport until we see a crosshair,
then click drag to the left, Set the left viewport
shading to material preview. and the right to solid and continue. When you're finished, click back on the E
and go on to scope mode. Now we'll start
creating more texture detail. This is where we'll use
the other sculpting tools alter the geometry and effect
the color coverage. Here I like to use a combination
of the draw, draw sharp and blob tools, but feel free to experiment and use
what
ever tools work for your desired. Look, I'm not going to alter the meshes
too much, just enough to vary the coverage a bit. So I'm just going over each letter
very loosely. now, if this light source isn't working
right with your coverage, feel free to move it
or bring in another one to help and adjust the power
until you get a look you're happy with. It is easy to get carried away here,
so just be mindful with how much you're sculpting when you're
finished, go back into object mode. Now let's br
ing in another mesh
to create a supporting design element. Bring in a cube and add a subdivision
surface modifier with levels two. you can do this easily by hitting control
to apply the modifier, then scale down the mesh
and then again in the x to lengthen it, bring it forward in the Y roughly line
with our lettering in front of you, place it near the top
left of the quick lettering, rotating it to match
the slanted orientation like before. Add a rematch modifier set to voxel,
but this time set
the size 2.01 meters or whatever
your system can handle. Check the smooth
shading and apply the modifier. Apply scale and shift. Select the new mesh element, then a letter and hit control L
to link over the materials and copy the solidify modifier sculpt
as needed, starting with smoothing first. Then I'm just using the draw
sharp snake hook and multiplying scrape tools
to try forming an interesting shape. when finished, duplicate it an object
mode and place it at the bottom right. Then make any
other adjustments
with our sculpting. Done. We'll move on to working with grease
pencil. Here's
where I would suggest having a tablet. But if you don't have one, no worries
as this part is completely doable with just a mouse. So let's switch
the window down here to the dope sheet. Now we'll just use the grease
pencil object already in here. But if you'd like to bring in a new one,
make sure your play head is at frame one. It's important to do this because grease,
pencil strokes can only exist wh
ere there is a keyframe. So once you bring in a new object,
a keyframe is automatically created
wherever your play head is. This can cause some confusion to those
that haven't used this tool before. So, for example,
I move the play head to frame 70 and bring in a new grease pencil Monkey. If I move the play head
before that frame in the timeline, it disappears
and only appears at frame 70. So it just always makes sure that any time
you bring in a new grease pencil object, it's on frame one. And
to bring in a new object hit, shift a grease pencil
and select the appropriate one. if you're familiar with grease pencil,
you can skip this part. But as a quick overview, let's click
on the background Grease pencil object. So each object consists of layers that can be found
in the Object Data Properties tab and a list of materials that can be found
in the Material Properties tab. So the layers are
how strokes are displayed in 3D space and by default this show from top
to bottom in a 2D orientat
ion. Here we have the quick layer displaying in front of the background
layer and it's on top in the panel. So it maintains this visual hierarchy
from every angle. This is very relative to other 2D design programs,
But there is a way to have these strokes display according to their 3D location,
regardless of the layer order. And you can do that here under strokes and
changing the depth order to 3D location. So when I do that, it'll look glitchy. But if I move the quick lettering forward
a bit, y
ou'll notice it's gone. and if I move around it,
it'll be obscured by the background. Unlike the previous option,
however, we're going to stick with the default depth order,
which is 2D layers There are many things to keep in mind
when using 3D location, and I'll probably go over that in another
video and lastly, for the materials, I've already prepared them
based on the original piece, but it's important to know that
these are different from mesh materials. Grease pencil materials are also clas
sified as either stroke
and or fill materials. Now, for this part, we'll work on adding
the liquid drips on the letters first, and then we'll finish off
with the other design elements. Go to the Layers panel
and with your play head at one. Create a new layer name
liquid in draw mode. Switch the viewport shading to material preview
so we can actually see where to draw. Let's also toggle the canvas overlay
to see where our 3D cursor is, which is going to help us
in stroke placement. They've recent
ly separated the grease
pencil overlays from the regular viewport ones, so it's now under their respective
button denoted by the grease pencil icon. Now, if you've never used
grease pencil before, the two options here are your stroke location
and Orient Station controls these to determine how and where
your strokes are drawn in 3D space. If you want a more in-depth walkthrough, you can check out my bakery tutorial
in my channel playlist. So let's switch the stroke placement to
3D cursor and the
drawing plain to front. This means that our 3D cursor
will determine the stroke location in 3D space
and they'll be oriented to front view. Facing the Y, I'll set the string
to one uncheck use pressure and radius to eight pixels. Uncheck
use pressure with the draw tool selected right click
to make sure you're on the liquid layer. And we'll start with the white paint
material first and I'll set both viewport to front view with Numpad one
I'll use my left viewport for reference and I'll toggle off
overlays there
by clicking this button. shift. Right click on a white section
of the lettering to place the cursor and draw these dripping strokes. Now you can adjust these strokes
in edit mode or go into sculpt mode using tools like smooth or grab
until you get a nice shape. Move around this stroke to make sure it's
sitting nicely on the mesh face. And if it isn't going to edit mode
to position it. Also, if your rotation seems off, you can hit numpad decimal to reset it. When you're finished,
continue
adding more drips to the white sections. Again, place
the 3D cursor with shift, right click draw
and then adjust in edit or sculpt mode. if you like
the look of one of your strokes, you can duplicate it
in edit mode and place it as needed. Also,
if your colors are different from mine, you can change them
in your material properties tab. So let's say
this White was actually a red. Just go to the tab,
select the material from the list and change the fill color as needed. You can use the c
olor picker, but it may not be entirely accurate,
so keep that in mind. Now I'll move on to adding green drips. So in draw mode,
place the 3D cursor over a green section and I'll right click to change the active
material to green paint. Then I'll draw, check the placement, make adjustments as needed,
and then continue drawing. Lastly,
I'll move on to the purple sections. Selecting the purple paint material. It helps to make the drips non-uniform
and varied in length. Also add the drops to the me
sh
design elements. This might be tricky
depending on your mesh With the drips finished, we'll move on
to creating the additional grease pencil elements,
most of which are in the background. Click
on the background layer and in edit mode. Select the background stroke,
set the cursor to it with shift s
and with your play head at frame one. Create a new layer named wave,
place it right below the liquid layer and draw mode. Right click to set the radius to 20
An active material to purple dash
O, wh
ich means purple outline. Create a wavy line that cuts to the middle
of the composition, then go on to sculpt mode, smooth it out and adjust its positioning
with the grab and push tool. When you're done, select
the thickness tool and go over this stroke
focusing on the ends. When you're finished,
go back into draw mode. Right Click to set the active material
to green dash. and create another wavy line. Then in edit mode, let's actually select that stroke and go into sculpt mode, toggle
the strok
e select mask here at the top. So we only affect the green stroke
and make your adjustments as needed. Again, I'm smoothing it out
and then shifting its position. I don't really want it to follow
the exact path as the purple stroke as I want it to feel loose and organic. Then I'll switch to the thickness tool
and go over the stroke. I wanted to stay relatively thin,
so I'll thick in the ends a bit but will lessen them in the center
and you can hold control or click dragging to switch
between thi
ckening and lessening. Go back into draw mode, right click
and set the radius to a smaller value like ten and set the active material
to dark blue dash. Create another wavy line overlapping the previous green and purple
line in edit mode. Select this stroke going to sculpt mode
and adjust it as needed. Now to finish off this wavy line,
go back into draw mode. Right click. Just set the radius to another smaller
value around seven pixels and the active material to white dash. Create these white li
nes and dots
within the purple one to emphasize it. Then set the radius to five pixels
and create a few outside of it in edit mode d Select all the strokes,
go to the Material Properties tab and under the white dash
on material press, select a select All the strokes go into scope mode
to make your adjustments as needed. Next, we're going to create some colored
paint trails lining the wave create a new layer
above the wave layer animate paint trails in draw mode. Right click. Just set your radius
to a thicker value
around ten pixels and set the active material
to light purple dash. then create trails lining the wave line, Make any other adjustments
black in draw mode. Switch the material to green dash. and repeat. Lastly, repeat this process
with a white dash o material. Now I want these strokes to be slightly
thicker and tapered at the ends. To do that
we can use a modifier, go to the modifiers tab and add a thickness modifier,
set the thickness to three but under influence, specify
th
e paint trails layer check custom curve and create this downward
bell shape with the handles. Now I want to add an outline
around these trails and to do that,
go back to the Layers panel and duplicate this layer
by clicking this dropdown. Place it underneath the original layer
and in the adjustments set the factor to one. Go to the Material Properties tab. Copy the dark blue outline
from one of the paint materials by hovering over the color box
and hitting control key, then paste it with control
V in the tent color box. Set the thickness to 20 pixels
and now we'll see the outline. However, it doesn't match the trails. Exactly. And this is because the thickness modifier
is only affecting the layer above it To make sure
it affects this layer as well. We can use a pass index under relations,
specify a pass index of one, click back on the original layer
and do the same. Go to the modifiers tab
and under influence. Remove the paint trails
layer and underneath that specify a layer pass index
of one and it'll effect
both layers. The next thing to add are paint drops
to accentuate the trails. create a new layer of of paint trails,
name paint drops in draw mode. Select the circle tool and right click
to set the radius to eight pixels in active material
to purple paint. Create an oval and in edit mode,
rotate it to be slanted, then duplicate and add some around
the composition varying them. In size. You can assign a different paint material
to each duplicate by right clicking, going to
assign
and selecting the desired material. And I'll just cycle through the purple,
white and green paint materials. I do like adding a drop shadow to these,
so let's duplicate the drops layer and place
it underneath the original in edit mode. Hit eight to select all and shift
the duplicate drops at a downward right angle. then go to the material properties tab. Copy the stroke color of the paint
materials, paste it in the tent, color of the duplicates
and set the factor to one. And now we have
a drop shadow. All right, almost done. The next thing we'll do is add
white dots to tie the elements together, create a new layer above the drops
layer animate stars and draw mode. Select the draw tool. Then right click
just set the radius to 15 pixels and the active material to white dash. Click around the composition
to add these dots and fill up the background after. Set the radius to ten pixels and repeat. Lastly,
I want to add some diagonal stripes to the background
to make it more interest
ing. Create a new layer above the background
layer. Animate stripes. Set the blending mode to hard
light and opacity. 2.35 In draw mode select the box tool and right click
to set the material to white dash F Create a rectangle about the width
of the background and in edit mode. Rotate it to fit the slanted angle
of the other elements. Place it at the top, right
and bottom left. Parts of the composition duplicate it or
add a few more and scale them as needed. Go into object mode to check your wor
k now to make sure the strokes stay
within the confines of the background toggle masks and add the background layer
by clicking the plus button and I'm just adding them on the layers
that actually come outside this stroke. There are many things you can do
with mask, so feel free to experiment. And that completes our piece. Now we'll set up a camera with some simple movement
hit shift, see to set the cursor back to the world
origin and bring in an empty select the camera and nurse scene
and hit a
ll g and all our to reset its location and rotation
respectively. Then hit our x 92, rotated upright
and set the left viewport to the camera view shifted in the Y
until the piece is within frame parent the camera to the empty by shift selecting it,
then the empty and heading control. P When we rotate the empty,
you'll see it rotates camera view at frame one rotate this empty to the left and hit it to keyframe it's rotation. I do think this might change to K
in a future version, so keep that in m
ind then go to frame 125,
rotate the empty to the right and keyframe the rotation again,
then duplicate the frames at one and place them at 250 and will have
a repeating camera animation. And now we can render. But before we do go to the View
their properties tab first and under data,
make sure Z is checked. This will ensure grease pencil respects
the Z space of meshes. If this option isn't checked,
your meshes will not appear going to the render properties
tab check Blum. Then go to the output
properties tab
and you can change the resolution here. and to make it higher quality,
you can change the percentage to 150 or 200, but feel free to do what
your system can handle to output this. It's generally recommended
to do a series of images. Then you can take it back into blender
and export it via the video editor. But to do just a video, specify
a file location then in file format select f mpeg video under encoding, specify MPEG four for container and for output quality. I like to use per
ceptually lossless then you can go to render
at the top and select render animation. and that's it for the tutorial. Thank you so much for watching.
I really appreciate it. if you do end up creating this, feel free
to tag me on social media at Kev and Ram. and if you want to check out
my other tutorials, you can find links to them below. But if you want something more in-depth,
you can check out my course. Magic storybook over at CG books dot com. In it, I'll walk through everything you need to
know to get started
with grease pencil and we'll end up exploring techniques
to create vibrant 2.5 D scenes that move from beyond the flat page
into dimensional space. Don't worry if you're not a drawing pro
or are new to 3D. This course is totally beginner friendly. There's over 10 hours of content,
downloadable project files and access to help any time you need it Anyways,
if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Thanks again and see you guys next time.
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