PRODUCTION:

Once the pre-production part is over, the project lands on the making of the animation, where all the work from modelling to lighting is done.

The steps are as follows:

1. MODELLING:

Designing the structure of anything is modeling.

This step is the first step of the production process. It includes designing each and everything that is to be used in the animation. Modelling could be done with any 3-D animation software, but Autodesk Maya is widely used. Modelling artists closely observe the 2-D image or illustrations and convert it to 3-D models with high details.

Modelling is of two types:

• Organic Modelling- The organic modelers model all the free-form surfaces. In simple words, organic modeling is modeling a character or any living thing.
• Inorganic- It is the opposite of organic modeling. It is hard surfaced modeling. The buildings, vehicles, weapons and all the kinds of props, come under this category.

Organic Modelling.

After modeling is done, the next step is skinning. As an organic model is a skeleton of the character, skinning is a must for further texturing and rigging to bring up reality.

2. SHADING & TEXTURING:

Shading= Mono color

Texturing= more than one color

Shading and texturing deals with the physical appearance of the models. It is providing colors and textures and giving roughness, smoothness, bump, marks etc., whatever is required. The textures are either made from scratch or an existing image is called, the texturing artist is responsible for texturing and writing shaders as per the requirement.

UV Mapping

The textures are painted as maps that are assigned to the model.

3. RIGGING:

Rigging is a setup of controllers of a model to make it work. It is defining the working and the movement of the character and making the setup of bones for organic models so that they can be further animated.

Face Rig with all the controllers.

Body Rig

In some studios, the rigging department is also responsible for cloth simulation.

4. ANIMATION:

The animation could be defined as, ‘putting life to a character’ or ‘Moving a dead object’.

This is a stage where the fully and accurately modeled, textured and rigged model arrives for animation. The performance of the character is planned frame by frame using the same basic principle used for stop-motion and 2-D animation.

Run Animation

5. DYNAMICS & SIMULATION:

A physical phenomenon that can’t be affected by environment force or it can be defined as the movements of the universe that can’t be controlled like Gravity, wind, smoke, dust, water etc.

Particles collision

6. LIGHTING:

Lighting is the medium to see anything. It shows the important areas of the scene, creates feelings and expressions that the scene wants to convey. The lighting artist has to consider not only the lighting of every scene but the elements by all the departments too.

Lighting artist possesses a lot of responsibilities, including the interaction of lights with the scene, the character and different types of materials, light properties, textures, mood and the color theory. It also plays an important role in the placement of shadows.

It is one of the most important steps.

POST PRODUCTION:

After finishing pre-production and production, the project enters the Post- Production stage. Here, the project is given the final touch and is prepared for completion.  The project goes through many steps depending upon the requirement of the project.

These are stated below:

RENDERING: Here, the scene is exported to an image form.  It is the last step in the pipeline but is not the last in the production process. Beginners usually overlook this step, but it is an extremely important one. On the basis of renders, further post-production process takes place.

COMPOSITING: Here, the final rendered images are made ready for the film. It can be considered as a part of rendering as it is basically rendering the different passes (ambient occlusion, specular, shadow etc.) and handles the general color grading.

COLOUR CORRECTION: After rendering, the images are taken to Photoshop or any photo editing software and made it suitable for the scene.

EDITING: It includes

Sound editing: This department handles final soundtracks and lip sync of the characters.

Video editing: Here, the unwanted scenes and footage are removed. It works on the smooth functioning of the film to deliver seamless final product. This department makes sure that the video is meeting the ultimate requirements of the flow of the film.

ROTOSCOPING, CHROMA, TITLES & CREDITS and many more steps could be followed as per the project requirements.

VFX:

VFX is the special effects given to the scenes to make it look more flashy or real. It is the combination of both production and post-production stages.

CONCLUSION:

The 3-D project pipeline discussed above is common in most of the 3D animation studios, but it may vary at many. Many studios possess their own pipeline that is different from others. It is an individual choice. Many studios also adopt THE REFERENCING FORMULA, in which mainly modeling and Animation is done side by side working with other departments connected with a referencing software which connects them all, irrespective of their physical location.

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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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.  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.

4. 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.

•  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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