For me there is nothing as exciting as software that can create professional animations quickly and easily in three dimensions. 3D animation software is easy to find, and can be free. DAZ Studio is one of them. A lot of people use it. Not necessarily because it is free, but because it offers many easy to use features for animating and rendering.
I can create very professional animations in minutes with it, either through key-framing, which is a more advanced technique, or through a plug-in call AniMate, which uses pre-designed motion-capture files. This plug-in allows me to merge, shorten, copy and paste key-frames in unique and interesting ways.
This allows me to intuitively redesign my own animations. From a small collection of Mo-cap files I can recreate many different personalized animations. AniMate uses modules called aniBlocks that can seamlessly be inter-cut with each other.
There is easy to learn beginner software, and advanced software available to anyone...
For more advanced and professional animation renders it is also possible to import aniBlocks into Carrara 8.5. This gives me even more control over a higher-end look of my animations, and the possibility to do advanced effects for movies.
There was a time when an animator was an artist, who went to an art school to learn the profession. Today the processes has been simplified and sped up, so that anyone can create amazing animations with little experience. DAZ Studio offers this kind of simplicity.
The one thing I should mention is that I have never taken any serious animation courses. But it was possible for me to effortlessly produce some uncanny realistic CGI movement for a short movie.
Anyone can do this!
Granted, you will need to learn the software, but this is easy too.
To show you an example, I made this quick experimental piece of 3D animation combined with live action footage using aniMate and aniBlocks, combined with DAZ Studio, and Final Cut Pro X.
This short took about 20 to complete.
Could it be improved?
Immensely!
Don't be too critical. This short zombie movie is just an exciting example of the power of today's 3D animation software.
Another great program to use is Poser, which is the one I started out on. I haven't upgraded Poser for years however, because I think between DAZ Studio and Carrara I have the perfect workflow.
On another note: I found a video of this CGI looking bear walking up some stairs. I thought is was interesting. It looked like CGI.
This movie looked like it was rendered inside 3D animation software, but it was not.
It was printed. Each frame was created through a 3D printed model. This kind of stop-motion animation takes me back a long way, when most 3D movies were made with tiny models, and where incredibly time-consuming and complicated to make. Today it is an art-form in my opinion.
Although I think it is a novel idea to print out each individual bear climbing the stair model, and film it. I don't think regular people would care. The same thing could easily be recreated to look exactly the same way with less effort, and less cost in Carrara 8, for example.
Carrara is a practical 3D Authoring Suite for me, because of the straightforward linear workflow.
The way this software is set up just makes sense. There is a series of tabs at the top of the main window, which has an A B C effect. Just follow the tabs, which takes the 3D artist from creating scenes, models and textures, to animating and rendering.
Carrara offers advanced tools for every kind of 3D creation, and animation. One of the advantages it has, over DAZ Studio, is being able to create dynamic hair for your CGI 3D characters. It also has a more advanced rendering features that includes things like caustics.
But dynamic hair means creating animated characters that have realistic hair movement. This means you can create hair the bounces, falls, and sways like real hair. Combine this with dynamic clothing and aniBlock motion capture animations, you can then create 3D characters that move and look like real people. The true potential of a 3D animation software is beautifully realized in Carrara 8.5 Pro.
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