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Regarding my upcoming animation short project
Hello CC members.
This is my first post in this forum and i don’t think it will be my last, i’m a 17 year old media student. I’m an aspiring to take a high degree in animation and VideoFX at a college/university. I’ve been working with After effects for about 1 year now, but i mostly practice and do the tutorials i find on https://www.videocopilot.net (greatest site for AE, but i guess you know that) I’m quite good at photoshop and i’m an easy learner. what i came here for is the following:
I’m starting an induvidual school project where i can basicly do what i want, and i wanted to make a animated short movie, i’ve got some experience with After effects, and i’ve just gotten into Cinema 4D after i tried to do some tutorials from the wonderful Andrew Kramer.
I’ve not come up with the script yet, or character idea. Actually i’m starting the project today and i just wanted to get some guidelines and time estimates on how long this will take, i’ve got close to three months. I’ll start by explaining my project and you can form your response out from that.
The Project
I’m thinking a 10-20 minute long 3D animated movie with a self-written story.Level of Detal
I want to do this good, i might just have started with the program, but i’m a fast learner and i think i will get into the programs functions in about a week or so (correct me if i’m wrong). I’ll give you an example of how i want it to be. If i were to make a rat as the main-character i would like his fur to be really life like. his tail moving like it would in real life: i think you got the basic idea now of what i want.Backgrounds
I’m kind of wondering about this one, i would like some tips on how i am to make the backgrounds for this movie, do i use Cinema to make the scenes, or do i use something like Photoshop? I want them to be high in detal and textured nicely.Software
I currently got Cinema 4D installed on my desktop computer, i know there are other alternatives like Blender. What do you think i should use? Cinema 4D or Blender? I think blender looks hard, and i’ve already got a slight understanding of how Cinema 4D works.Tell me what you think, give me and estimate time you think this project will take, how able i am to complete it.
-Arne
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3 Replies
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I think your going to find out that what you want to achieve and what you can achieve are going to be very different. 3d modeling programs are very complex, time consuming, and difficult. There is a reason why so many people work on full cg movies/shows, and takes sometimes years still to complete.
Fur and hair are another complex area of 3d modeling and animating. To get realistic fur it will take lots of particle and work. You will need to have understanding of particles, particle systems, dynamics like gravity, wind, etc, the list goes on and on. It also will increase your render time significantly!
Backgrounds will depend the scene. If it is far off in the distance then you can use matte paintings made in photoshop. Otherwise closer objects will need to be 3d models textured and modeled realistically.
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Thank you for answering, i’m thinking of doing it in blender.
I think i’m buying the “Learn Character Animation with Blender” DvD where you learn everything you need to know. Can’t wait to get started with this. -
I’ve never used blender personally. But you can’t beat free. I use 3ds max. Anyways 3d modeling can be fun and exciting, but be prepared to run into endless frustrations and problems and things not working the way you want, etc. I think buying that book is a great idea, they usually are very good and teach you all the basic tools while guiding you through a fun project. Good luck 🙂
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