I’ve been using Anime Studio for several years now, and I really like the fact that it has a 3d workspace and the camera is able to move in 3 dimensions. I’m not interested in getting into full-on 3d animation, but Anime Studio has a lot of frustrating shortcomings. I’m quite sure that 3DS Max has the animation stuff figured out, but what I want to know is if animation of 2d objects or images is possible in 3DS Max. I know that South Park uses Maya, and I’m not trying to copy their look, but it seems like it might make sense to use a more robust piece of software to make the actual animation easier. Anyone have an opinion on this?

Sure.

Create a Free camera in the Front viewport.
Go to the Modify panel and set the Camera to Orthographic Projection.
Use the viewport navigation tools to to Pan and FOV (for a zoom effect). This is animatable, whereas an orthographic view such as Front, is not.

Set up your objects in depth away from the camera.

You can create a variety of 2D objects by drawing shapes, or using the Shape primitives, and adding an Extrude modifier. You can animate the positions, rotations, scale, materials, etc., as well as the objects parameters and sub-objects to control shape.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

Just happened to browse past this before reading your post -> http://scriptspot.com/3ds-max/dviewpaint Looks interesting.

MP

Max 2009, 2010 32/64
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