Making 3D Animation Movies
by Riyaz on Nov.28, 2010, under 3D Animation Courses, 3D Animation Institutes, 3D Animation Studios India
In this post i’m going to explain the production cycle behind creating 3D animation movies. An important point to note is that it usually involves a team of artists to create a 3D animation movies and the size of the team is directly proportional to the size of the movie.
These are the usual processes:
Preproduction Stage
1. Script
All 3D Animation movies start with a script. A script is basically a written down version of the movie and the more detailed the script is, the more time is saved during production. A script should read like a novel and contain all details of the characters, sets, environments and dialogs.
2. Storyboard
While the script reads like a novel, a storyboard takes that novel and converts it into a comic book. The storyboard artists draw out images which when put together allows the 3D artists working on the film to see the script in visual form and come together to achieve the same objective. The storyboard works out the look of the film, characters, the camera angles, the props in the set, the environments, etc.
3. Animatic
The animatic is a series of storyboard drawings and images put together to form a video. The animatic is pretty much like a rough 3d animation movie that gives the 3d artists a chance to see if a scene works or not and also is very important for the artists to get a sense of timing.
Production
4. 3D Modeling
3D Modeling is a process of creating 3d objects out of polygons. 3D Modeling is actually comparable to sculptors creating a model out of a lump of clay by pulling, pushing and shaping the clay.
5. Unwraping
Unwraping is rarely taught by 3D animation institutes but it is a critical step required before applying textures on the model. Unwraping is a little complicated to explain but I’ll try 
While texturing an object, we need to put a 2D image (all images are 2d ) onto a 3D object. To do this we first unwrap the model. Unwrapping is the process of properly creating UV’s ( UV’s are a 2d representation of a 3D object) to control exactly where and how the 2d image will be displayed on the 3D object.
For example: Imagine taking a football, deflating it and cutting it open so that it lies flat on the ground. This flattened football has now become a 2d object.
6. Materials and Texturing
Materials and Texturing are the process of defining the look, color and surface of the object.
For example: In a shiny checkered plastic ball, the plastic would be the material of the ball. This material tells us that the ball is made of plastic because of the way it reacts to light and the checkered pattern would be the texture because it is controlled by a checkered image.
This video contains the entire process of Unwrapping and Texturing and was recorded by the artists here at Dimension-Z Studios.
7. Lighting
Lighting enhances the look of the scene by making it look realistic. Lighting creates mood, defines the time of the day and controls the shadows and environmental effects like fog, rays, halos, etc.
Lighting is often overlooked by 3D artists starting out but no matter how realistic the model, texture and material are, without proper lighting setup they will never look realistic.
8. Rigging
Rigging is the process a adding a skeleton to characters and objects. All models from vehicles to characters can and should probably be rigged if the model is to have advanced animation.
Rigging defines how the object and character will be animated and will gives animator an easy way to control the animation.
Rigging does not need to necessarily come after lighting and and also be down after modeling or later in the production cycle.
9. Skinning
So now you have your character model and your skeleton rig to animate the character. Now we need to attach the rig to the character. This is done by skinning.
Skinning defines how the model bends with the skeleton and what part of the model is controlled by which bone of the skeleton. Skinning happens after modeling and rigging.
This video contains the entire process of Rigging and Skinning and was recorded by the artists here at Dimension-Z Studios.
10. Animation
Animation is the process creating motion over a series of frames. Basic 3D animation can be done by simply moving the postion, rotation, scale of an object over a series of frames.
However having the computer control the in-between animation is never a good idea because the computer is programmed to create the in-between animation the fastest way and not in the most realistic way. This is where use of the curve editor comes in, giving you full control of the animation.
11. Rendering
Rendering is the final process in the production stage and simply put To render a 3d scene or object is like photographing all the elements of model + texture + light + animations (if there are any) together. The renders are what you can share with your friends and what the viewer gets to see. A single rendered frame is an image and rendering multiple frames of animation make a movie.
Post-Production
12. Editing
Even if you planned your scene to perfection, its very likely that you have extra bits of shots that would look a whole lot better if you just cut it out or placed it somewhere else in the movie.
Editing allows you to provide the edge to the movie and keep the story on track by cutting out unnecessary bits or re-positioning scenes in the movie to make the story stand out. Editing has been known to make or break a movie and bad editing can leave the viewers not getting the movie’s plot.
13. Compositing
As artists, its important we have control over the look of our final renders. More control allows us to fine tune our renders and helps us make prettier images . While rendering out a movie, we usually split each frame into multiple pieces and layers to get ultimate control in composting software.
For example: A scene of a boy playing under an apple tree could have many layers like Boy Layer, Apple Tree Layer, Apple Layer, Background Sky Layer, Background Cloud Layer. These passes could further be broken up into passes like Boy Layer – Boy Color Pass, Boy Shiny Pass, etc.
These layers and passes allows us to control every layer and pass individually and on completion of these adjustments, we merge all the layers and passes together to create a final image.
14. Visual Effects
Visual Effects is a very broad term that includes 3D, 2D, Particle Systems, Camera Tracking and Matching, Matte Painting, compositing, etc.
Visual Effects include but is not limited to particle systems like fire, water, explosions, dust, smoke, etc and while its usually done in post-production it usually includes 3D too. Visual Effects artists need to have a general knowledge of the entire 3d production processes because it encompasses everything from visiting live action sets, planning shots, 3D, compositing, matte painting, Particle Systems and much more.
The below video is a good example of a vfx shot.
About the Author:
Riyaz Gomes started out as an 3D artist working with Virtual Reality Interactive Technologies and has worked with international studios like Octoplus Entertainment and BlueMoon Studios as Lead Artist before setting up Dimension-Z Studios.
At Dimension-Z Studios, Riyaz has supervised over 65 commercials, 4 channel promotions and 8 international games. He has been responsible for everything from hiring artists to managing projects, in-house training, upgrading in-house artist skills and provides one-on-one training with students, sharing 13 years of his experience teaching them the art of 3D.
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