Back in the good old days (when we wore onions on our belts) I did a practicum for a company that did professional 3D animation for film, video and television. The system they used was called Alias Power Animator and ran on Silicone Graphics Workstations. At the time, the Silicone Graphics Crimson Iris Elan was the cream of the crop and I watched a buddy design animations for Q-Sound (remember that one?) and Taco Time. In fact, Taco Time still uses the animated cactus he designed!!! Strangely enough, if you know the guy that designed it and look carefully at the cactus mascot, you'll notice some hilarious similarities between the two faces!!!
Anyhoo, I believe now that Alias isn't around any more, but they did use that exact software for the movie "The Abyss" for designing and animating the "water weinie" as it was known as. Bottom line though... for truly professional throughput, you need to consider dedicated workstations that run Unix and can render frame by frame to a video capture device or HD unit. Otherwise, your animation will a: take forever and b: be substandard to the industry. Remember, Dolby 70mm takes no prisoners... every single detail shows up!!!
Back in the good old days (when we wore onions on our belts) I did a practicum for a company that did professional 3D animation for film, video and television. The system they used was called Alias Power Animator and ran on Silicone Graphics Workstations. At the time, the Silicone Graphics Crimson Iris Elan was the cream of the crop and I watched a buddy design animations for Q-Sound (remember that one?) and Taco Time. In fact, Taco Time still uses the animated cactus he designed!!! Strangely enough, if you know the guy that designed it and look carefully at the cactus mascot, you'll notice some hilarious similarities between the two faces!!!
Anyhoo, I believe now that Alias isn't around any more, but they did use that exact software for the movie "The Abyss" for designing and animating the "water weinie" as it was known as. Bottom line though... for truly professional throughput, you need to consider dedicated workstations that run Unix and can render frame by frame to a video capture device or HD unit. Otherwise, your animation will a: take forever and b: be substandard to the industry. Remember, Dolby 70mm takes no prisoners... every single detail shows up!!!
Cheers, Phoenix
If you want a free animating program out there, just go look around. There is one at serif programs free website (free programs that they give out) and then there is one called anim8tor and then there is another called wings 3d that i have used. I liked wings the least though. Oh yes, and then there is another by a japaneese guy that made a 3d program in java (and some texturing programs) that you just draw lines and then it makes a 3d image of what it thinks you want. You can do stuff like extruding and the such, but its not as top of the line notch as some of the others.
Wings 3d as i've been told was probably a program made to be used as a model maker to a real 3d program. Supposedly anim8tor is a stand alone to be free and hopefully be your answer to your 3d program quest. Serifs free 3d thing isn't as good as others because you can't do things like extrude and stuff, but you can light models and sceans fairly easily. The japaneese guys you can extrude and stuff, but its not as professional looking.
If you are willing to spend some money, check out 3d max. I've heard its good.
pixar uses their own animaiton program called marionette. I think Dreamworks uses maya with their own proprietary plugins. I think a good start would be learning maya because most professional visual effects companies uses maya because of its configurability for all kinds of jobs.
hi..sup man..well im gonna go straight to the point.. try searching for 3ds max..thats a really good application and has a lot of tutorials in the net...and if you buy their dvd tutorials..dude they are awwesome man....lol..they cost a lot of of money though so..well your prolly rich
I had this conversation in depth with a guy who worked on the matrix sequels.
Maya IS the industry standard if its not propiotary. Because like most for you know most major effects houses do write there own software.
But few things to note.
Outside freelancers- We all know ilm works on Star Wars right? Well something that goes unnoted that ive read is the amount of people they hire just for that show. You do have a large chunk doing animation modeling. But then the other half matte paintings, explosions all the particle simulations and any other off the wall stuff is mostly done outside by using anything and everything under the sun.
With that said..
Alot of questions arise? What programs best for doing what.
What I keep getting told is dont be a "jack of all trades"
Find out what you really wanna do and become good at that because if you do wanna get hired by a company theyll only have you working on one task. Its logical 1 man cant do everything. So really nail down what you want animation, compositing, modeling, fx.
Back to software.
What do I need to use.
My friend asked the fellow from the matrix whats the best software. Whatevers the short basic awnser. Dont fret over needing to be able to work in other packages. If for whatever reason our using something as long as you like it and are good at it stay at it. If your good enough to hire then they make way for your needs but I havent ever heard of someone having problems or not being able to convert max to maya or maya to blender or so on or so fourth.
But recomendations
3ds max for modeling and known as a all-in-one which is character animation, modeling, fx, dynamics yadda yadda,
Now I stick to fx, and modeling so I wouldnt know but alot of people I know HATE character studio in max and animating characters in general.
But the best choice for a beginer just getting into it
Maya ive never heard any real complaints about accept how long and hard the learning curve is. If your a programming type of guy youll like how open maya is to writing your own stuff and collaborating.
Blender- Cant say much about blender I didnt use it more than 3 days out of frustration and went on to max.
Poser- This Ive been told is awesome for animating if your jsut getting in. but like I said im not much of a animation guy so try a demo or something first.
First you should understand the distinction between Modeling (building 3D Geomety), Animating (programing motion in or around the Geometry), and Rendering (generating 2 Dimensional imagery from the Geometry).
If you haven't ever used a 3D application before, I would suggest getting your feet wet with something like Google SketchUp. It's free, and a good (albeit extremely limited) software.
Modeling. What's best is a loaded question. There are multiple modeling geometry types Polygon Mesh, Triangular Mesh, NURBs, Solid, Paremetrics ...
There is software that works best for one or another geometry type, and software that works decently for some or all. Depending on what you will be modeling will help determine the best geometry type and based on that the best modeling software.
Most of the time, a modeling software will be part of a package that also includes animation and rendering solutions. The default rendering solutions in most packages are typically either needlessly complicated, sub par in quality and technology, and/or require ridiculous rendering times.
After market or plugin rendering packages mitigate this issue. Software such as POV-Ray, V-Ray, Maxwell Render, Renderman, or Brazil are renders. You cannot buy a renderer and do anything with it if you have not already generated a 3D model and/or animation elsewhere (and some of which that are plugins require a software package to attach to).
Some of the more popular 3D Packages are Autodesk Maya (Maya is evolved from Alias products, and Alias was since purchased by Autodesk), Autodesk 3D Studio Max, Maxon Cinema 4D, NewTek Lightwave, Softimage XSI, etc. Cinema 4D is likely the least expensive, with 3DS Max the most widespread, and Maya likely the most powerful.
Maya is very robust, but has a steep learning curve as previously mentioned. Pixar Renderman is in fact commercially available as a plugin rendering solution for Maya.
My standard workflow is modelling in Rhinoceros 3D, Layout and Animation in 3D Studio Max, and rendering in V-Ray. This workflow is the product of years of work and experimenting to get the results and toolsets best for me. If you are just beginning, working with Maya or 3D Studio Max will probably give you more than enough to keep you busy for some time.
Autodesk provides a personal learning edition of Maya for free download on their website. So if Pixar is what you want, and you are committed enough to learn, I would suggest downloading Maya and toiling away.
I used Maya for about 2 years when I was more into detail 3d modeling and animation four or so years back. If you want to do more animation based work, definitely go for the latest Maya. Buy a few books, get the basics and let your mind flow. Maya is a much better program than 3dsm which is basic for game and limited graphic development. Although some pros can make stunning stuff with 3dsm, it's much easier for moderate users of Maya to make the exact same stuff.. And then they can animate theirs also. You're going to need some serious computing power if you plan some of the animation renders though. Just a heads up.
It should also be known that Adobe CS3 photoshop accepts .Obj files now also, which is the main Maya object file type. This makes them easy to texturize in photoshop if you don't like. CS3 runs around $600 for a student, and $1,800 for any average designer.
Pixar tweaks the mathematics behind Maya to optimize their animations. However, this isn't necessarily better or worse for what any new to moderate to experience animator needs to make some incredible stuff.
Now I m doing 3ds max now you can say I m new in 3d. I have completed modeling. And now I m doing animation but I want to know Is 3ds max is not useful in future... Everyone say that maya is best. But I think the software is not important the important thing is your creativity... And basic of 3d. Any one can tell me... Which software should I learn if I want to work(modeler) in walt disney com.?
Does anyone know how to animate hypercubes? (Like the one here .) I want to import it into flash,
so Java isn't really an option for me. I don't have any screen capture software that makes
animation either, so I can't do that.....
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