GP tools is soon deemed to be production ready, according to the developer. The scope is impressive.
The developers have begun to dramatically improve 2D animation possibilities in Blender. It is quite amazing what has been going on both for painting/drawing as well as 2d cut-out animation. In a couple of months we may see Blender offer a complete 2d animation production environment PLUS all the existing 3d and compositing functionality - the thought is mind-blowing. All the 3d lighting and rendering options apply to 3d animations in Blender as well - and then there is FreeStyle to render out 2d art based on 3d models. The list goes on, and on, and on...
What is even more impressive is the sheer performance in Blender while using these 2d animation tools: multiple camera views, editing while things are animating, it all happens in real-time. And the OpenGL quality of the viewport is excellent. With a click on a button completely different 2d render styles are applied. It is absolutely insane that this is open source and free.
Check out these videos:
https://vimeo.com/164067136
https://vimeo.com/173325517
https://vimeo.com/171657200
https://vimeo.com/168843957
https://vimeo.com/160449173
https://vimeo.com/157427555
https://vimeo.com/155635261
https://vimeo.com/140897174
https://vimeo.com/152889436
https://vimeo.com/148821220
Here is how it all started (a year ago): https://vimeo.com/113610809
Production ready yet? Well, almost there :-) https://vimeo.com/172388563
Impressed yet? Toonboom eat your heart out.
How about combining that with 2d cutout IK driven puppets which are created in Photoshop, and then automatically converted to a puppet in Blender?
https://github.com/ndee85/coa_tools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TfGlQrxa8k&feature=player_embedded
Blender is about to become a nightmare for 2d animation software vendors.
And easy rigging tools are around the corner as well:
https://vimeo.com/174428931
https://vimeo.com/167102398
Good times indeed.
