Tastes of Culture

Art has continually had a exclusive role in the life of humans, and with age, this human self-expression has found new ways of showing itself. As quick progression in technology has changed our lives as a whole, it has also had its impact on art. This form of art has made a transformation, by the virtue of computer technology, to something even more spectacular: Computer 3D animation.

3D Animation is a method that allows to build and show digital moving objects with a Three Dimensional touch on a 2D screen. 2D animation has been around for a long time, but 3D animation has overtaken it as the results of the later are amazingly realistic. 3D Animation is not restricted to movies, but is also used in architecture, PC games, web designing and displaying various scientific theories.

Three Dimensional Animation consists of an elaborate process of 3D modeling, texturing, animating and rendering. 3 Dimensional Modeling is the sculpting of any object or a scene in its digital Three Dimensional representation through special software. Texturing gives a natural colouring to the 3 Dimensional models, which makes it possible for the audience to relate to an object or a person, or even a location in a 3D Animation. It is much like painting into pencil sketches and gives the model its final look.

3 Dimensional Animation may not look like the cartoons when characters like Mickey Mouse were first displayed, yet the principal concept of animation remains identical as in traditional animation. These principles have taken the shape of Key-framing and Motion Capture with technological advancements. Key-framing, descendent of traditional animation method, involves setting up of two or more key object positions in different time frames , these frames were then called key frames. After this the animator assistant was drawing all the frames in between the key frames by hand, these gradual changes in repetitive illustrations that made up the animations where called by professionals in-betweens. Today the computer fills the 3D Animation with automatically rendered in-betweens.

Motion Capture is a procedure of recording of motions of real characters for a near-reality imitation in an animation. The method is expensive, but can bring exciting realism to the cartoon production if carried out in a proper fashion. The actor who is to be imitated is worn a ‘Mocap’ suit which delegates his movements through special sensors to the digital actor. 3D Animation, in order to hold its realistic look, needs much greater frame rates than 2d animation, or even television broadcasts, which are about twenty five frames per second.

Computer Animation is a challenging and exciting profession. Before you begin some serious professional work, it is always helpful to study in quality institutes that offer animation courses. You should focus on schools like Gnomon School of Visual Arts and Vancouver Institute of Media Arts, to really have a substantial foundation to your career. However, attending short duration courses will do you no good as this way you will only learn to work with different software, which is not enough to become a great 3 Dimensional Animator.

In order to become a good 3D computer animator, you need to have a thorough understanding of computer design on a simple level, such as Photoshop and Flash. You should have knowledge of constructing Avars, or Animation Variables, which constitute the basic bone structure to 3D skeletal models, which will assist you in animating life-like characters.

You should master the basics of art and must have a deep knowledge and understanding of how colors work. You will be continually playing with them for the rest of your lives. You must have a good sense of light and shade, which actually sum up the basics of all visual artists. Apart from the technical knowledge, it is your sense of film-making and story-telling which will help create a superior animation.

But what if you are not a professional animator? That still does not stop you from benefiting from it. A number of Three Dimensional Animation packages exist to help you out. SideFX Houdini, Motion Builder, Softimage XSI, Lightwave 3D and Hash Animation Master are very wide spread but complex software, and top choices of experienced animators. Although some of them are accommodating to novices, you could find yourself more at ease with simpler software like 3D GIF Designer, RealSoft 3D and Poser. You should research carefully before purchasing one of them, as you would want all the features and tools you need from a single package as per your needs.

If you wish to use 3D animation as the content for your web page, you could settle for software with simple features and an easy and accessible user interface. 3D Animations have become an effective communication tool of our century and can be a source of good traffic for web developers as computer programs have brought this technology into their access. This technology allows you to explore new horizons on whatever front it can be utilized. It is up to you to use it efficiently now.