Hello fellow animators and artists!

Wow! Have you ever thought to yourself,

"Man, how can I keep my character's poses the same when animating?"

or

"I wish there was a way to consistently keep my character's poses without too much fuss."

 

Well, good news! There is a way to do that! And I am here to tell you how.

 

Let me mention that the tutorial video below only explains how to apply 3D models to your animations and how it helps make animating a character easier.

It is NOT an animation tutorial.

Set Up

For a simpler breakdown tutorial let's go through the steps from the video here.

 

First Open up a new animation file.

Then set up your dimensions.

I always use 1920 x 1080 px with a frame rate of 12fps

Now open up Clip Studio's Assets Materials. If you don't have the quick bar there go to:

Window > Material > Material[Poses]

Can't find the pose you're looking for? don't worry! There are a ton of poses available to download from CSP's community materials list. Search away and find the pose you need! Download it and you'll be all set!

Simply drag and drop the pose you want onto the canvas.

 

Nothing happened, right? Don't worry it worked.

Next, you have to look towards the "Layers" tab.

There you'll notice a few things. You should be able to see

1. the paper layer

2. an animation folder

3. a blank layer in the animation folder labeled "1"

4. an object layer in the animation folder labeled "3D pose" (or whichever 3D pose you dragged into your canvas)

 

What you have to do now is rename the object layer to "1"

 

Next, delete the other blank layer in the animation folder.

Then tada! Magic! It appears!

Navigating the Model's Properties

Once the model is there, make sure you have the object tool selected and then you'll see this toolbelt that appears above it. These tools are important and useful for your animation.

 

This will move the CAMERA over/under and around the object

This will move the position of the CAMERA

This will zoom the CAMERA in and out

This will move the OBJECT

This will rotate the OBJECT over/under and around

This will rotate the OBJECT left and right on that perspective

This rotates the GRID over/under and around the OBJECT

This allows you to move the OBJECT on the GRID for perspective

I'm going a little out of order compared to the video here because what you SHOULD do next is change the body shape of your object to how you see fit.

To do that you should see a grey bar at the bottom of the model when you have the object tool selected.

At the very far right corner, there should be an icon with a small white figure next to a slightly larger grey figure. Click there to bring up the model's properties.

Immediately a window should have poped up.

Now don't be intimidated because it's really simple to navigate and we'll only be focusing on 3 of the menus you see there.

 

First off, locate the menu labeled "Body Shape" and click on that.

You should be able to see a miniature figure on the screen with its limbs broken down as something to resize.

This makes more sense when you look at the picture.

But that miniature is how you'll be able to adjust the model's body shape to how you see fit.

Once you have the shape you want with your model locate the "Light Source" menu in the model's properties.

 

You'll see a sphere there, and this menu allows you to change where your source of light appears on the model. Simply click and drag the light on the sphere, and it will move the light on the model as well.

The last menu that you'll be using the most for your animation is located in the "Pose" menu in the model's properties.

This allows you to change the hand shape. You can make a straight open hand, an open wide hand, or have your model make a fist.

 

Included in this area, you'll see these chainlinks above each finger. Here is how that works:

 

Say for example you want your model to make a peace sign. To do that first, have your model make a fist.

Then click on the chainlinks above the pinky finger, ring finger, and thumb.

Next drag the slider to the open wide hand area, and as you'll notice, only the index finger and the middle finger are now moveable.

Now you have your peace sign.

 

As I mentioned before, there are many, MANY more options there but the three that I have mentioned so far are the menus you'll be using the most.

Changing the pose

Moving on, the next step we can do is changing the model's pose.

 

To make your model have the pose you want, first with the object tool selected, click anywhere on the model.

 

You'll notice these blue dots appear.

Each blue dot controls a limb on the model allowing you free range to manipulate the pose as you will.

When first starting out with 3D models, play around with it! I'm not joking, try making obscure poses, the more obscure the better! Have fun with manipulating what you can. This will give you a better idea of which dot controls which limb. It's good practice.

 

Once you do click on the dot you'll notice at least 3 lines appear around it. These lines will rotate that limb from a specific perspective. You should play around with this too, to get a better understanding of which line rotates the limb in which direction.

Animating with the 3D Models

Once you are satisfied with how you positioned the 3D model in your first frame, now you need to add your next frame. Easy!

Just go down to your timeline and select the "Add Animation Cell"

 

CSP will then automatically take the model from the previous frame and apply it to the new one.

Make your adjustments as needed for this frame by moving the model, and rinse and repeat.

That is how you'll be animating with 3D models!

Also as your animating, remember to make use of the "Onion Skin" option. Super useful to see the little adjustments you need to make compared to the previous frames.

Drawing over your 3D reference

Once you are all set and have your 3D model posed and animated how you want, next comes down to drawing over it with your character!

 

Simply navigate to your timeline and click on "Add Animation Folder"

Then in the first frame, "Add Animation Cell"

You could just begin sketching right away, BUT! A tip that I always do is navigate over to the "Layers" tab. Then select the animation folder that has your 3D models in.

Go into "Layer Properties" and apply the Layer color option

If "Layer Properties" is not there for you go to

 

Window > Layer Property

and make sure there's a checkmark next to it.

Then lower the opacity which can be found in the layers tab.

Now go back to your other animation folder and you can begin drawing over your reference.

Perks on using a 3D model as reference

A perk that comes with using 3D models as reference for either animation or any illustration drawing, is if at any point or in any stage in your process you need to make any slight or dramatic changes to the pose, you can easily do that while maintaining the character's aspect ratio.

 

You can easily change the pose or the angle of the character, without having to make sure, the ratio of the character remains the same. Why? because it's a 3D model whose shape and size you generated before making your pose. So you won't be changing the body shape, you'll be adjusting the pose.

 

Another perk that I have not mentioned yet is, 3D models will help you in defining angles and perspective. We all know how difficult it can be to draw a good perspective character, but the 3D models help with that.

Final Results

And that's it! now you know how to use 3D models as references in your animation.

 

As a note, you also know how to use 3D models as references in your drawings too since most of what I said can be said the same when using these models in webtoons, manga, and illustrations.

 

Hope this tutorial was helpful to you!

Keep on being creative everyone!