scenario-blender-grease-pencil
Grease Pencil (v3, Blender 5.2)
Expert Grease Pencil work keeps every drawing editable and redrawable, puts meaning in the structure (which object, which layer, which key) and judges the result in motion. The agent draws through the data API (drawings are curves with attributes), builds characters the way 2D studios rig them, and reviews rendered frames instead of a viewport it cannot flip. If a sibling skill named here is missing from your available skills, ask the user to install it (npx skills add scenario-labs/skills --skill <name>); unattended, proceed from tool schemas and flag the gap.
REQUIRED BACKGROUND: scenario-blender-expert (execution channel, review loop, 5.2 API changes). Shot planning, boards and animatics: scenario-blender-previs-storyboard. Mesh animation principles: scenario-blender-animation.
Toolkit: scripts/bx_gp.py (tested on 5.2.1). import sys; sys.path.append("<this skill>/scripts"); import bx_gp as G.
Stance (the expert delta)
- Tom Viguier (Andarta, Ewilan's Quest): the rig must never block redrawing. One GP object per physical element (about 60 for a lead character), parented, mostly FK by object transforms; layers inside each element by graphic logic (line above color); sculpting as the deformer; no armature weight painting on drawings, because every redraw would need new weights.
- Tom: interpolate only "sculpted" pairs. Two keys interpolate cleanly only with the same number, order and color of strokes and the same points. Otherwise redraw, or "clip" to the nearest drawing instead of accepting distortion. Native interpolation ignores object animation: key transforms separately.
- Falk David (GP module lead): fill is geometry, not material. A stroke fills when
fill_id != 0; strokes sharing an id fill together with even-odd holes;hide_strokehides the outline. Material fill toggles are deprecated and holdout "eraser fills" (Grant Abbitt's 4.4 method) are obsolete. - Grant Abbitt: the layer stack carries meaning and materials are paint buckets. Lines on top, a shadow layer (Multiply, lowered opacity, masked by the fills) in between, fills at the bottom. Editing a material recolors every stroke using it. Lock what you are not editing: erasers and sculpt act on all unlocked layers.
- Elijah Sheffield: predictable color first. Standard view transform, flat unlit shading, white world. Verified trap: new layers have
use_lights=True, and lit layers take their ambient fromWorld.color(default 0.05), not from the world node tree, so a flat palette renders at about a quarter of its value. - Tom: multiplane discipline and layout first. Every 2D element parallel to the camera, a camera that never changes axis, 3D only where it saves time; camera, cuts and parallax are settled in layout, not discovered in compositing. Between objects, depth decides who draws on top.
- Michael Weigl: motion reveals the surface. A painterly still breaks once it moves; judge 2.5D as a sequence. Sort groups of strokes (mesh islands), never individual strokes, and bake procedural output back to editable strokes.
- Pablo Fournier (Blender Studio): design the shadows. Replace blobby 3D shading with blocky, drawn light and shadow shapes (a light and a shadow material per part). Fills are flat: use many small fills on curved surfaces, not one big fill pushed forward.