Reply To: Homework / Study Guide Help

[Omar Domenech]

I think it goes as follows:

There is an artist with an idea, he wants to see it be a reality, so he goes to the big suit and tie guys to ask for money. This guys have no artistic skill but they like making more and more money and the artist convinces them to finance the production for his idea. Great, deal is sealed, it’s a go.  

First thing is the concept artist, you need concepts visualizations to go by off. So the concept artists are the first in the line, they produce the look and feel, how the world is going to look. After all of that is defined, now the modelers have concept arts to start modeling, so the building of 3D models begin. Now the models go to the texturing department, here texture artists make all the models look cool with awesome textures and shading.

Now that we have lots of models all textured and with materials, you can pass it along to a couple of places. Previsualizations of the shots can start taking place, layout artists can build where the camera is going to go, how a shot is going to be framed. Riggers can start rigging so animators can start animating, they have the models linked in, they can work an animations even as the texture artist are texturing models and the layout is taking place. Look Dev is taking place at the same time, lighting the shots, making appealing compositions. Voice actors are getting their scripts and making characters come to life. Sound is starting to get added. We are in the middle of the hurricane production. It’s a synergy of departments feeding of off each other. And the suits and tie people want to know how their budget is being spent, so now they also want to make choices and changes, but the director says they should keep their paws away. 

And now shots can start being rendered so it can be passed to the compositing department where it will all come together. As I understand it there is little editing when it comes to 3D animations. Editing basically takes place during pre-production as you plan what shots you want rendered. And now in the end those sequences of images are finally coming out, after the compositing department made some good old compositing magic. Voice acting is getting placed, music is getting placed, color grading. In the end, hopefully the movie is going to be a success and the investors will make a profit. You never know, after all the hard work hopefully it has that magic to it.