Create an Animated Character in Blender 2.9

Course details

If you’ve ever wanted to create your own 3D animated character, this course is for you. Using open-source software—Blender and the paint program Krita—instructor Darrin Lile goes through every step of the process. He starts with creating the look of the character, showing how to bring in reference images, create textures for clothes, rig the bones of the character, and create, cut, and style your character’s hair. Darrin then gets into the animation process, demonstrating how to set up a reference video in the Blender interface, animate character movements, and create lip sync animation for a dialogue track. He finishes the course by adding music and sound effects, then rendering the final animation to a video file, so you can share your new creation.

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Create an animated character in Blender 2.9
02 - What you need to know
03 - Importing reference images

1. Modeling the Character

04 - Beginning the Loop mask
05 - Completing the Loop mask
06 - Pulling the face into 3D
07 - Adjusting the face and adding the eyes
08 - Extruding the forehead and top of head
09 - Creating the back and side of the head
10 - Extruding the neck
11 - Creating the ears
12 - Creating the inner mouth
13 - Adjusting the lips and extruding the tongue
14 - Beginning the gums
15 - Modeling the top teeth
16 - Finishing the teeth
17 - Extruding the torso
18 - Modeling the legs
19 - Creating the arms
20 - Creating a finger
21 - Extruding the hand
22 - Connecting the thumb
23 - Extruding the foot
24 - Finishing the feet

2. Modeling the Clothes

25 - Creating the shirt
26 - Modeling the shorts
27 - Beginning the shoes
28 - Continuing the shoes
29 - Finishing the shoe
30 - Creating the shoelaces
31 - Sculpting the socks

3. UV Mapping

32 - Preparing the model for UV mapping
33 - UV mapping the shirt
34 - UV mapping the clothes
35 - UV mapping the legs and arms
36 - UV mapping the head
37 - Organizing the UV map
38 - UV mapping the eyes and teeth

4. Materials and Textures

39 - Establishing the materials
40 - Beginning the color map
41 - Working on the color map
42 - Generating a normal map in Krita
43 - Texturing the eyes
44 - Beginning to texture paint
45 - Texture painting the skin details
46 - Painting the freckles
47 - Painting the shirts stripes

5. Creating Hair

48 - Beginning the character's hair
49 - Texturing the hair
50 - Cutting and combing the hair
51 - Creating the eyebrows

6. Rigging the Character

52 - Placing the joints of the rig
53 - Adjusting the finger joints
54 - Placing the joints of the face
55 - Continuing the face joints
56 - Modeling the eyelids
57 - Arranging the joints of the eyelids
58 - Completing the MetaRig
59 - Adjusting alignment of the rig
60 - Rig layers and control objects
61 - Modifying the control objects
62 - Binding the rig
63 - Parenting the eyes, hair, and teeth
64 - Adjusting the character weights
65 - Assigning weights to the leg
66 - Finishing the leg weights
67 - Adjusting the torso weights
68 - Assigning weights for the fingers
69 - Assigning weights for the arm
70 - Adjusting the weights of the face
71 - Creating a shape key for eye blinks
72 - Testing the rig

7. Animating the Character

73 - Setting up the interface for animation
74 - Beginning the contact poses
75 - Continuing the contact positions
76 - More contact positions
77 - Ups, downs, and planting the feet
78 - Working on the feet
79 - Arms, fingers, shoulders, and head
80 - Animating the wave
81 - Creating a FaceCam and eye blinks
82 - Beginning the lip-sync animation
83 - Continuing with lip-sync animation
84 - Creating a test render
85 - Making final adjustments
86 - Using the graph editor
87 - Fixing the weights of the shorts
88 - Adding music and sound FX
89 - Rendering the final animation
90 - Conclusion