Introduction

This illustrated essay is all about the world and history of 3d animation, I will cover many topics such as the history of 3d animation as well as the history of animation, I will then move on to the subject of 3d animation talking about what companies offer employment in this area, the films that have been created in this industry, what software packages are used to create 3d animation and qualification that’s are needed. 3D animation is a fat growing industry that has a number of companies involved in this area as well as thousands upon thousands of employees. After I have discussed the film side of this area I will briefly look into the television side, as a number of television studios now create 3d animated cartoons or use 3d scenes in television programs. I am basing my essay on this subject as 3d animation is one area of work I am interested in, I would like to know all I can about 3d animation so I have a better knowledge of were it came from and what I will have to do to enter this industry after college.

Background to 3d animation

To understand where 3d animation began we first must look into early animation, with out animation we could not have progressed into 3d animation. When people today think of the term animation they instantly think of cartoons and computer generated films but before we had devolved the technique of animated cartoons there was the Phenakistoscope this invention allowed simple drawing one after the other to move and seem like an animation.

Another big step before we came to see a animated cartoon was done by J. Stuart Blackton he created a short animated feature called “Humorous phases of funny faces” this was created by drawing simple faces on a black board then taking a picture, he would then erase the last drawing and create a new one and take another picture, this allowed him to piece the pictures together to create what seemed like pictures coming alive.

Winsor McCay took the next big step in creating the animated feature called “Gertie, the trained dinosaur” this short cartoon actually contained close to 10,000 drawings. It was shown in theatres and in a large multimedia event in the 1914’s. This was one of the early animated features that entertained large numbers of people.

Felix the cat also came out around this time; it was one of the first most popular cartoon characters and even spawned the way for merchandise which is a big part of any animation in this age.

1923 is one of the biggest years in the history of animation Walt and Roy Disney create the Disney brothers cartoon studio, one of the first studios created for the purpose of animation.

Also around this time Warner Brothers Studio start creating some of the world’s most popular animated characters, classics such as Donald duck, Pluto and Betty boo.

The one major break through at this time was of course “Steam Boat Willy” this introduced Mickey Mouse and of course the first ever animated cartoon that had sound, it was a huge success and made Walt Disney what it is today.

Also I should mention another major Disney film which was Snow White and the seven dwarfs at this time no other animation and achieved what this did, it won awards not to mention was a feature length unlike anything else at this time, it was full sound and full colour, it was Disney’s first fully animated film.

Now that’s the history of animation from here until the present day we see new animations been created often, Disney have created over 30 feature length animated movies as well as countless cartoons.

Other studios have also created there own animations with creations such as the jetsons and the Flintstones, the animation world is endless.

But in 1995 the first real major breakthrough in animation happened we saw the birth of the first fully length computer generated animation “Toy Story”, this film was a huge success lasting over 1 hour and 20 minutes it was the first 3d animated film.

But before this film was released certain studios had been using computer generated images in their films such as Tron, the film had 15 minutes of computer generated images, this was one of the first films to use this technique.

The last star fighter another feature that had this time 30 minutes of computer generated scenes, the difference is this cost the studio close to 3 million compared to Tron’s $1000.

Luxo JR is one of the biggest break troughs to me, this was Pixars first fully computer generated short film. This short film took the pixar team nearly a year to create but was the first 3d animated film.

Now from this point today we see so many 3d animated films created such as toy story 2, shrek, shrek 2 and final fantasy spirits within.

Films

Everyone as a knowledge of one or more computer animated films, as I have mentioned in the history the first ever feature length animated film was Toy Story, this film was not the first 3d animated feature but the first 3d animated film. The film was created by pixar, the process for creating a 3D animated film is different from company to company but most follow a similar order, in pixar the process goes from a pitch, this is the first stage of the process here the film idea is pitched to directors of the company to see if the film should begin pre production if this is a success then we go to the next stage, a treatment is created this is a document that is written to get down the basic idea of the story well as creating solid ideas and some possibilities along the production line this document is filled in by all the different people working on the film to document their own ideas for the film, next we enter the first creative section which is story boarding, these are so important as they show the animators what each character will be doing in each scene making the animation process easier and smooth, then the next step is to begin voice recording the first step here is for something called scratch voices, this is basically members of the staff creating voice over before the actual stars come in to do their voice over this saves on expensive and also the scratch voice over are used on the story board show reels to give voice to the hand drawings, now a reel is created using the tidied story boards these are used to show people as well as the actual animation staff what is happening in each scene along with voice over, plus at this stage the film is already pitched and doesn’t really need to be pitched again but shown in some context, now we have the story boards and some early concepts that would have been created for the storyboards the concept artists really begin work on creating the characters and environments everything you will see in the movie is usually concepted first so the modellers and animators know what they have to create, the next step is my favourite the concepts are taking in two different ways some are taking and made in to sculptures that are then scanned into the computer and then used to model the characters or the concepts are taken from paper straight to computer and modelled this way, pixar have their own program that they created them selves and use, next the set dressers begin work, set dressers are 3d modellers that have the job of creating the environments that will feature in the film this could be something as little as a leaf to a boat, they work closely with the director to make sure that is vision is been created in the movie, then the models then are taken and laid out in a shot pose, here nothing is animated but everything is placed where they need to be, then the animators come in and make the scene come to live, using the voice over and the storyboards they begin to create the actual scene, once the animation is done then the scene is lighted so that shades and real textures are applied to the scene, the next step is to render out each scene in this industry they have huge render farms where computers are all used to render out scenes, a render is where all the data from the scene is taken into account and created into a image file, in this area of work some renders can take up to 6 hours were some have been known to take 90 hours for one image, the next is the final step which is actual a lot of different areas pulling together, the film is passed to special effect animation where they add special effects to the film its then passed over to the sound studio who add the voice over and all the sound effects for the film, its then viewed by the director and his team to make sure everything is how they want it to be, sometimes this is done before everything else is added, and then finally it handed to the studio were they burn the film onto a film tape ready for the pictures.

This is the way most 3d animated films are created as you can see its along process that can take years to complete 1 film, but some studios have large teams working in short films at the same time this is to get some of their new talent work experience.

Other huge films such as Shrek created by DreamWorks have won awards, Shrek took 5 years to make and was created following the same process as Toy Story, studios and directors are leaning towards 3d animation as it allows you to create scenes that you would have thought was never possible.

Companies

As I have mentioned above there is Pixar who in my opinion are on of the most leading 3d animation studios, they have created a long line of 3d animated films and also created the first ever 3d animated film,

They created Toy Story 1 and 2, a bugs life, the incredibles, monsters inc, finding nemo and their newest film cars. Though they have created all this feature films they also created some short length films like tin toy, for the birds, geri’s game, jack jack attack, one man band, boundin, Luxo Jr, mikes new car and red dream these are a selection of their short animated films.

Pixar was created in 1986 when Steve jobs buys out the computer group from George Lucas for a staggering $10 million, he then changes the name to Pixar, and the company employs 40 people and in this year releases its first 3d animated film under the pixar name Luxo JR.

The Pixar studio have created some of the greatest technical software for the world of 3d animation they created Renderman which is an award winning render software, this is now sold by the company to other studios and people, they also created Marionette which is there own 3D animation software which allows models to be created, textured and animated though Renderman is needed to render the images.

Pixar have won many awards in their short time such as Oscars and acemedy awards for some of their films, this company is one of the leading 3d animation studios in the world.

DreamWorks are another studio that create 3D animated films though they also create traditional and animated films as well, saying this they have created a great range of animated films such as over the hedge, transformers, Madagascar, shark tale, shrek 2, shrek 3d, shrek and antz.

Antz was DreamWorks first animated film that was a feature length, it isn’t as well known as their first real blockbuster 3d animated film Shrek, DreamWorks just like Pixar have won a long list of awards such as a Oscar and acemedy awards, DreamWorks were set up in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, The studio have their own software they use to create their 3d animated films and employ over 200 people today to create their films.

The last company I want to talk about is Blue Sky studio, these are the people behind Ice age and robots, they have only created two films plus two short films, however they have shown that with ice age they have a lot of talent and can go along way, plus right now they are creating ice age 2.

The company used Maya to create ice age 1 but since then have moved onto a package called CGI studio that allows them to create the models, animate them and render them out, the company was created in 1997 and is a division of the Fox entertainment group, all though this is when it was created it was set up ten years before with the challenge to create 3d animated films.

The company as won awards but so far none for its animated films but it has a long way to as yet.

Software packages

The main problem working in this industry is a lot of the bigger more experienced studios have created their own 3D packages. The simple reason is that they find out some already made packages have constraints on them that won’t allow certain models behave in a certain way, though the list here goes on and on. This problem is solved when they create their own packages to use; this allows them to build the software as they want.

A lot of companies not only build their own 3d software but a render package to go with it as like the 3dsoftware some pre built packages don’t do what they want.

The problem with this is going from college or company to company you really don’t know what package you’ll be using which can be confusing and hard to get to grips with.

Not only this but not a lot of companies out there will give information out about their award winning packages they have created, this makes it even harder to get a background on what software you might be using at one company.

Though companies do often say that their packages are similar in design and use just that they offer more choice or better facilities in the package, if this is true then knowing one package will help as you might be able to pick up a new package rather quickly.

One package that I am very familiar with is Alias Maya, this package allows you to create models and then texture, animate and light them plus a lot more, this software is a industry standard and a lot of the television studios use this package.

Maya is now at its seventh version it can create a number of solids such as polygon (mainly used for the games industry), nurbs and sub d. These are different types of solids that you then manipulate to create objects and characters, it has its own versions of animation where you can create clusters or bone structures to move your characters.

Maya allows you to even render out your finished animations of if you choose you can use another program to do that, this is a clever piece of software that is easy to use.

Maya was founded in 1983 under the two separate names Alias research and wavefront technologies then in 1995 the two comapines merged to create Alias,

Alias have won Oscars for the technology that had innovated the 3D world, they have created Maya as well as a number of other software packages, they are one of the top leading 3D speacailst companies and even have their own team to run lessons on how to use their software. They have a number of big companies that use their products such as industrial light and magic and even Disney.

Another package is 3DS max this is Maya’s rival, once again it is a all round package that allows you to model, animate, light and render, it is also used by television studios to create their animations. It has a very similar layout to Maya and basically works on the same principles as Maya this allows people easily to go from Maya to 3DS max or the other way round.

3DS max is created by a company called Discreet that have also got a number of large clients that work in the media industry such as Blizzard storm entertainment, discreet are now under a company called Autodesk that are a 23 year old company that have created a lot of CAD programs for the 3D world.

I have mentioned two of the biggest packages out there but there are some smaller packages that are used, there is a program called Cinema 4D though I have never used this I have been told it is similar to 3DS max. Cinema 4D has been used in a lot of television adverts to create model cars.

Cinema 4d is at its ninth version at the moment, the program though similar to other programs it does have a few idead that others don’t, it has its own method known as N-gons that is a special kind of tool for polygon modelling.

Cinema 4D is made by a company called Maxon which was set up in 1985, before making 3D packages the company worked on games for a number of different console systems, around 1991 they first created Cinema 4D, though they are the creators of Cinema 4D they have also made Bodyshop another 3D program.

The next package is Light Wave 3D, this program is another big software package and is used in a lot of different media areas, such as film, television and games.

The package as been used on a long list of television shows like Alias, family guy and smallville. This is a small selection of a long list, the film list has some impressive films on it such as X-Men 2 and Serenity. Not to mention Toy Story 2 and Monster Inc, the biggest profile film for me on the list is Sin City this film though not 3d animated all the way through did have some nice 3D work.

The software as a render process built in but a lot of people choose to use a separate render program for this product.

Light Wave 3D is created by the company New Tek, they are a company that speacialise in software devoplment they also have made a number of other products for the media and visual industry, though none of their other programs are designed for 3D Animation.

New Tek was created in 1985 and since that time they have been another drving force in the world of 3D, they have created a number of programs and have set the standard for the 3D world.

Qualifications

There is no real set definition on what you need to enter the world of 3D animation as different companies will look for different qualities. I have looked into three top companies I have talked about and checked what they require for you to work for them.

One of the more scary aspects was that most wanted prior work in this area for no less then two years. Though some did say this was not a necessity it was still worrying for some one who would like to enter this line of work.

Another aspect they all agreed on was the fact you must have creative talents and be able to produce some 2d work; this would be for concepting your ideas.