3D Animation for Stop-Motion

3D Facial Animation for Stop-Motion Production

In 2023 I worked with stop-motion studio Fantasmagoria on an animated short film. We wanted to use 3D printing for replacement parts, specifically faces, to modernize stop-motion production, save time, and get high-quality results. The plan was to animate facial expressions and dialogues in 3D, turn it into separate objects, print them, and give them to set animators so they could attach them to puppets on each frame.

While this technique already exists in big studios, it's rarely used in small productions. We found next to zero documentation or guidance. So, we had to create our own tools. Faces and rigs were created, and I animated them for each shot, sculpting each expression by hand to keep stop-motion feel. I wrote several Python scripts (and upgraded abandoned Keymesh addon) that turned frames into objects and polished them for printing.

I talked about the whole workflow at Blender Conference 2023, which is available on YouTube.