A Specialist 3D Animation Agency based near Bristol

Once an object has been created, it needs to be textured to give each surface the detail it requires. This involves wrapping the surface in a tile-able material as well as aligning or mapping necessary imagery onto areas of an object’s surface, using a 2d co-ordinate system. It could involve painting additional details directly onto the skin of a surface as well as using individual images or materials to control separate properties of a surface such as its bumpiness, reflectivity, transparency and many others texture-based attributes.

When texturing a scene, just like modelling, it is key to only add as much detail as is necessary. You should avoid needless calculations that do not noticeably affect the appearance of the final rendered frame. For example, a furry object in the distance would require much less work and detail than one in the foreground, and you can often cheat by wrapping a simple 2d image onto a 3d model in the background and still convince the viewer that it is real fur, grass, bricks, animal scales e.t.c.

The best example of this is seen within computer games or VR apps, where the restricted processing power of the hardware used means the 3d environments have been designed specifically to keep the models and textures simple, so the experience can continually run in real-time. As hardware has become more powerful, the possible polygon count and texture map resolution has been increased, in turn adding more realism to the overall experience. Still, cleverly designed textures will be used to cheat the level of detail experienced by the viewer, by adding details within the 2d texture image instead of the 3d model.

Once a 3d scene has been built and shaded, it is ready to animate. However, many objects require the creation of a rig which incorporates the drivers and controllers for the objects necessary animation. In its most obvious form, this would involve building the skeleton of a character or creature that will be animated. This could include muscles for the character, so that biceps bulge automatically as the arm bends, for example. The characters’ rig may also require controls to help animate eyes rotating and blinking, as well as having individual controllers for the various mouth shapes. All this setup takes time and involves testing, therefore it is important to know exactly what movements are required from each object so that they can be designed and rigged with those specific movements in mind.

Rigging for animation does not only refer to a character’s movement, but can involve other inanimate objects such as a vehicle. It often makes sense to rig a car such that as the position is animated, the wheels automatically rotate and by adjusting the vehicles rotational attribute could also systematically turn the steering wheel and front tyres, whilst being limited to certain angles to avoid impossible movements whilst animating. Rigging can refer to any object setup that helps automate the animation process, so you may decide to rig a flickering light, opposed to animating the light on and off repeatedly by hand. In these cases, it is important to decide which is the most time efficient approach to create the desired effect.

If all rigs have been tested, it is time to begin animation. Virtually anything can be animated in any way, but it is always important to animate the cameras in the scene as early as possible, so that you know what objects will be in shot and require animation.

Animators must have a good understanding of movement and timing, as well as a keen eye for the characteristics and patterns of motion. Every 3d object has numerous properties that can be animated, not just the obvious position attributes. All these value-based properties that require animation will have key frames applied at certain points in time. The software then calculates the in-between movements that occur amongst these keyframes based on the values keyed. These calculations should not always result in linear motion, just as a bouncing balls’ vertical movement continually slows down until the equilibrium is reached and gravity takes over accelerating it’s decent. Therefore, it is essential to understand how animation curves work to create the desired and believable animation between placed keyframes.

Realistic motion can also be created using physics-based simulations, such as having objects collide with one another, adding dynamics such as gravity, adding hair to objects, generating waves in the ocean or creating cloth materials such as flags or clothing. These more technical approaches to creating animation are essential in certain circumstances, and can produce impressive results with much less effort than attempting to animate by hand.

Lighting a 3d object or scene follows the same principles of real world lighting, allowing us to create light sources similar to the sun or a spotlight. 3d software also gives us additional options to simplify how our light source behaves, along with the ability to edit colours, intensity, direction and other attributes of each light.

The techniques to light a scene are similar to those used in studio photography, therefore the same understanding of the principles of light are required to produce a well-lit 3d scene. In addition to this, 3d scenes may include outdoor environments, so animators must also have knowledge of how natural ambient light sources, such as the sun, work in real world situations. 3d software allows for both realistic and excessively atmospheric setups, and along with more modern lighting techniques such as hdri maps and ambient occlusion, the results from 3d lighting rigs can be achieved much quicker than before. However, there is no right or wrong setup, and like any photographer, decisions must be made on what lighting style will work best for each scene.

A 3d scene will almost always be made up of multiple light sources all working together to create the right atmosphere for the final renders. These lighting sources may be emitted from objects, be used to create volumetric effects such as fog or dust and animate over time. Furthermore, 3d lights include options that do not exist in the real world, such as switching off shadows or reflections, or only being linked to specific objects within the scene. This large array of possibilities makes CGI lighting much more versatile than setting up studio lights for a product shot, hence why many companies will use CGI models to create the perfect product image over photography.