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Animation advice for a newbie.

O

Oxonian3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 13, 2011
140
0
Trinidad
Hey guys,
I wanted some help from you professionals or graphic enthusiasts on animation software.I don't know if i can do this but i'm going to put a link as to the kind of video I want to make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoDigeQ4i2A.
How would you go about making a video like that
Animation+Photoshop+Final cut+Logic studio? I'm really interested in making vids like these please help.
 
Last edited:
You'll have to use 3DS Max, Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D...etc.

It's not easy to make something like that. You'll need lots of free time, patience and a really fast computer.
 
heehee said:
You'll have to use 3DS Max, Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D...etc.

It's not easy to make something like that. You'll need lots of free time, patience and a really fast computer.
Click to expand...

To expand on this excellent suggestion.

3DS Max - Free for students for 3 years

Maya - Same

Blender - Free and Open Souce

Also, that could be made with Garrys mod or another HL2 toolkit
 
It's pretty cheesy quality, so you could get away with using Blender and iMovie. If you want to get into doing good stuff that is a bit higher-end, you're looking at moving way up in price. You could go with Cinema 4d, Maya, Lightwave, 3dS Max, Or any other major 3d application that will run on your machine. To edit and finish, you could get away with FCX, but you'd be better served with Premiere or AVID (Final Cut Studio is discontinued, or I'd recommend that). If you go the Cinema 4d route, then I'd suggest you add on After Effects for finishing. Be prepared to pay thousands of dollars, not hundreds, for software. In addition to the cost of software, you are going to need a powerful computer to render out all of your animations. If you have an average computer, be prepared wait a long time to see test renders, and hours... if not days, to render out finals.

Your best bet would be to signup for a class at a local community college. There you would have access to software and computer to learn on. You might find that watching 3d is way more fun than actually creating it. I'm not knocking 3d creation, it's just that it can be extremely technical and a lot of people who think they want to do 3d, actually hate doing it once they try it out. The learning curve is enormous! I once took a class in 3d and it started off full with a half dozen people trying to add beyond capacity. By the time the class was finished 3 months later, there were only a dozen of us left.

Be sure to try before you buy.
 
Thanks for all the great suggestions,i will be looking into the software.I will be ordering soon a 17" Macboook pro,which will most likely be able to tackle this software
 
I just started with Blender and I'm trying to get into a Maya class at the local community college.

Blender is a good way to start and see if you like it.

Sooner or later you'll need a Mac Pro to do this kind of thing...
 
Go with C4D/AE

Cinema4D runs on Mac OS, 3ds does not, so if you are getting a MBP, I'd recommend the C4D/AE route.

Even though you can run 3ds using Bootcamp or Parallels, you'd be spending so much of your time on the PC side that you'd be wasting the "Mac-ness" of your MBP. Anyhow, with C4D, you'd learn the same concepts of 3D creation that you would using 3ds and you'd be doing the same cool creations, but at a fraction of the price and on a not so steep learning curve.
 
I have to be honest if you haven't touched a 3D package before you're not going to be able to recreate that. I would recommend you simplify your animation especially time wise. The longer you video the longer the render especially if you are trying to do so on a laptop. I had a project once that was a minute and thirty seconds and it took 9 hours to render using 16 Mac Pro's at the same time.

To do that project I would recommend Cinema 4D and After Effect to composite it. The modeling is a bit easier than Maya for those starting out. Also I would recommend that you look into render settings as well since a beautiful model wont be so after a render with the wrong settings. You will need to use both Global Illumination and Ambient Occlusion for the best shadowing. And Raytrace the shadows hard on any lights you will add. Good Luck
 
Learn the basics first then you can ask how this is done. The problem with a lot of people is they want to do advance things before they even know the basics. This is why so many people quit things.
 
Don't Overlook Cheetah...

You could also try Cheetah3D... mac only, does most of what the big names do (except volumetric lighting, coming soon), superb, multi-core renderer, easy to learn and it costs.... $149... oops, been reduced to $99!

www.cheetah3d.com
 
Guys changing it up a bit,Can anyone recommend software that can do 2D animation that is intuitive and user friendly please.If anybody has seen "Wish I had a portal gun" by dorkly that's the kinda thing
THANKS
 
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