| Making a 3D Animation Video | ||
|---|---|---|
If you thought, as I did, that such software must be too expensive, think again. I found a powerful program on the Internet called Blender and it can be downloaded for nothing! It is "open source" and hence you can use it freely. See the website www.blender.org for details. |
||
| Powerful stuff! With Blender you can create a virtual set, virtual actors, set up "lights" and have as many "cameras" as you like. You create a "solid" model layout which you can manipulate in virtually unlimited ways. Isn’t it a lot of fiddling to create 25 (or 30) images for every second of video? Don’t worry, you just have to set up the "key" frames and Blender will generate the intermediate frames for you. Furthermore you can get objects to follow paths, can repeat "actions" like a walk step and combine simple actions to form complex movements. You can duplicate and distort objects, create effects such as smoke and fire and much else. Human and animal figures can be realistically animated using a system of "bones". |
 |
|
| What are the drawbacks? The main one is that you need to feel happy sitting at a computer for hours on end. Blender is full of bells and whistles and not exactly user friendly. You will need to buy the manual (around £35 from Amazon) to be able to use it effectively. The program is complex but if you can cope with Premiere you can handle it. Rendering times depend on many factors but for my animation video Blockhead I was taking just under nine minutes per 25 frames, including "motion blur". Another drawback is that you can only get a real feel for timing and lighting by doing a trial rendering. This can be a lot faster than the final rendering though. |
 |
|
| Blockhead was my first serious attempt at animation and its main purpose was to familiarise myself with Blender. I chose simple objects to animate: cubes. This led to the idea of toy-blocks and the age-old "toys playing" theme. The designs on the cubes are mostly clipart, in some cases enlarged to form abstract patterns. My first idea was to have the cubes form various structures: an arch, castle, car etc. This seemed a bit tame so I introduced a series of conflicts between a "clown" block (head of the blocks – Blockhead) and a sinister "skull" block. The final denouement was not decided until I had nearly finished the animation, which was done a "shot" at a time. In retrospect better planning would have paid off. |  |
|
| One problem with an animation is that there is no "natural" sound; the sound track has to be made up from scratch. The most difficult section to animate was one where the blocks form a "conga line". This had to be synchronised to music. I made the blocks "kick" regularly based on a rough idea of the music then composed a MIDI compilation and tweaked the tempo to fit.
You need only look at TV to see how the professionals are using 3D animation. It is not only for children’s cartoons but is used for titles, adverts, promos, logos, illustrating documentaries etc. etc. |
 |
|
| There is now no reason why we amateurs shouldn’t get in on the action. | ||
|
John Howden - March 2005
email: mg35@btinternet.com |
||