Animation is a concept of giving life to a dead character. The animation era was started with 2D animation and now it has been decades that 3D animation has come into the picture. 2D animation has always been a confusing concept for many and after 3D has been introduced, it has become more mystical and hazy.
The main difference between 2D and 3D is nothing but the Z axis. 2D and 3D animation, both have the two axes that are X and Y, but 3D also has the Z-axis that makes it look real and 3 Dimensional.
The 2D animation and the 3D animation pipeline are quite different. A 3D animation project takes more time than that of a 2D and is more complex than any other.
Here, we’ll be discussing the stages that are involved in a 3D animation project pipeline.
As any other movie project pipeline, Animation also has 3 main stages that are:
-
PRE PRODUCTION
-
PRODUCTION
-
POST PRODUCTION
AND AFTER FOLLOWING THIS PATH, WE REACH TO THE FINAL OUTPUT.
Though there a few more things in between the main stages, however, those are optional and preferred as per the studio guidelines or working process. All the stages are further discussed briefly in the article.
Starting with the first stage:
PRE-PRODUCTION:
It is the initial and considered to be the most important stage of any project pipeline, but for animation, it holds way more importance. It is a stage in which the story is developed. It is the backbone stage. Everything from the story of every single character is finalized here. It concludes the basis for the further stages.
The 3D animation Pre-Production stage includes the following:
- RESEARCH:
In this step, a thorough research is done on the basis of the story and the points are stated that are to be considered in the whole process.
- SCRIPTING:
Scripting is a document that includes the story, dialogues, shots, camera angles and every required detail, scene by scene. It is like a blueprint for the whole project pipeline.
- STORYBOARD:
Here, the boy has been punished for his long hair in the school and not given food, so one of his classmates feels bad and offers him her food for which she gets punished.
A storyboard is a sequence of scenes divided by shots in the form of illustrations or images made for the purpose of pre-visualizing animation. Â It gives the idea of the motion, feel, and timing and how the scene will look.
It includes:
- Sequence of scenes as illustrations,
- Types of shots and camera angles used in every scene,
- Explanation of the scene and
- Sometimes the dialogues.
Storyboard brings the picture of how the final output will look like. This stage helps in avoiding editing of scenes in the production process. These images can be further combined with dialogues and soundtracks to visualize how it will turn out to be. Though it is an optional part. The storyboard animation is also known as the animatic.
- CHARACTER DESIGN
This step states how the characters will look like and their physical characteristics.
It has 3 categories:
- Character Sheet:
Character sheet defines or states the views of the character. It shows, how the character will look like from every angle that is required as per the story.
Total views= 7
Number of 2D views= 6 – TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT, FRONT and BACK
Number of 3D views= 1.
A Character Sheet with 3 views.
It is not necessary to portray the character from every angle, but only from the ones required as per the story.
- Model Sheet:
Model sheet defines all the required Flexibility, actions and gestures of a character. It solely depends upon the character sketch of the character.
It includes its walk, run, jump etc.
- Â Expression Sheet:
As the name suggests, this step shows the number of required character’s expressions and how they will be shown that would be followed throughout the animation process.
Here ends the Pre-Production stage. The next stage is the Production stage (Which we will discuss in next upcoming article), but before that, there is one more stage that is purely optional and is not always followed be all the animation studios. It is called as The Pre-Viz (Visualization) stage. Here, a rough 3D presentation is made for the pre-visualization of the project and to make changes if required before entering the production stage to minimize any sort of editing in the further stages. It is usually used for making game trailers.
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