I can see that blender will be in the anime industry a thing. There is already ryo chimo a keyanimator(birdy, noein etc) that tries out blender: https://youtu.be/SFVliEZimQ0
"Blender will soon be considered a serious contender for 2D animation" For interest's sake, how "soon" in your opinion do you think? Oh...and happy 20th!, hard to believe it's been that long since Blender went fully open.
Technically, Blender already competes (since its shtick is it's all free), but it still needs the mass adoption or a well known studio to receive the major backing of it. For example, here I am sitting on 3DS Max which is one of the official industry software, and yet there are still studios that are Maya only. If Max…
If you want to get technical, Max/Maya absolutely have a purpose in the 2D animation. It's not unusual for cartoons to use 3D models as part of scenery or actual props. Or that South Park is entirely rendered with Maya (it's way cheaper to digitize the textures instead of the early seasons using real construction paper).…
https://youtu.be/pKmSdY56VtY?t=2m35s I've played with the Grease Pencil a few time and while it can get finnicky, it holds great potential. This short film just confirms every optimism I had for the tool overall. Man..when 2.8 will be out... [mod edit: changed shitty title to informative title]
a few months ago someone here posted a video for a nifty looking max plugin that seems like all the rage for producing anime. sounded like max indeed is a player when it comes to 2D animation. anyway, it's all just tools and daniel lara has been around for a good while, working with grease pencil in blender.