Blender 2.8 storyboard and animatic workflow enhancements

Archive User Feedback
1

Blender 2.8 for making storyboards and animatics could be significantly improved with some workflow enhancements.
The video editing workspace can be used to arrange scenes containing Grease Pencil objects, 3D objects and animation data – great!

Basic setup:

  • Create an empty scene and choose a video editing workspace (name the scene e.g. “animatic”)
  • For every shot of a script (screenplay) create a dedicated scene with its own workspace (name each scene “shot.001; shot.002; etc.”)
  • add the shots (as strips) to the sequencer of the “animatic” scene in the video editing workspace

Problem:

  • if you switch from a “shot” scene to the “animatic” scene you have to change the workspace manually every time

Enhancements:

  • Workspace could be connected to a scene so when I am switching between scenes I can immediately work in the last workspace of the corresponding scene (as an option?)
  • in the video editing workspace it would be great to double-click on a scene strip to get immediately to the scene with the last corresponding workspace (e.g. 2d animation)
  • the Text Editor could have more formatting options for screenplays (standard screenplay format)

Current use case:

  • I created some scenes with 2d animations for making an animatic in the video editing workspace.
  • i create an empty scene and choose the video editing workspace and name the scene “animatic”
  • I add all the scenes with 2d animations as scene strips into the sequencer
  • i arrange the strips in the sequencer for the right timing
  • now I like to change something in one scene
  • I switch to the corresponding scene but the workspace is still the video editing workspace
  • i change to the 2d animation workspace and make some adjustments to the Grease Pencil animation
  • I switch back to the “animatic” scene with the arranged strips but it stays in the 2d animation workspace
  • this process repeats itself constantly (very annoying)

Thanks,
Thomas

4 Likes
2

@MaxPuliero if I’m not mistaken, he made a similar suggestion here


edit:
I read better, maybe it’s a different proposal, but it could be useful anyway

3

Nice to meet you. I also have exactly the same problem as you.
In 2.79 the scene belonged to a layout.
This feature enabled your storyboard workflow.
I also very liked this method.
In 2.8, however, the scene and workspace are completely separate.
It is very tedious to manually change the VSE and 3D viewport every time you switch scenes.

Note: Here is my post on the blender stack exchange.