The end product of this process is an excellent 3d animation that can be used in various fields. From movies, television to video game design, the quality of the end product will help you compete with others in making high quality animations. This software is mainly used by animation designers, directors and producers. This software contains all the necessary tools needed to make professional 3d animations.
This course will teach you the ins and outs of professional 3d animation using Maya, one of the most popular 3d animation software packages available. These lessons use a project-based approach and will allow you to see your work done for an actual animated short film. You will learn core concepts such as character creation, texturing, rigging, animating, lighting and rendering. By the end of the course you will have a solid understanding of core animation principles as well as a detailed knowledge of how to create animations from start to finish.
Blender
This is an Open source free program that anyone can use without paying anything in return. The program is helpful in modeling, rigging, animation, composition, video editing, creating video games, and simulation. Since it is an Open and free program, Blender can be used by beginners, individual animators and students, studio artists, professionals, Game developers, and even hobbyists.
Blender supports a powerful toolset and a good platform to perform complex functions that helps in getting the process of animation and modeling easier. Blender also supports a default path tracer engine that is commonly called Cycles. The Cycles helps in getting realistic rendering outputs, VR rendering support, and HDR lighting support. All in all, Blender is a dynamic animation program that supports a user-friendly interface as well. The software is well equipped with 3d Painting tools, sculpting tools, and a scripting language as well. The scripting language is Python can be used to create custom libraries and effects on your own terms.
After Effects
After Effects is a motion graphics and digital visual effects application developed by Adobe. This tool helps you to easily remove elements in the film.
Features:
- This tool provides more than 100 options for selecting effects.
- You can preview your playback using GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
- It allows you to animate titles.
- You can combine images and videos to create animation.
- This tool provides more than 100 options for selecting effects.
- You can remove an object from a video clip.
Maya
Maya by Autodesk is a user-friendly software for motion graphics, wearable technology, and animation. It helps you design expansive worlds, stunning effects, and complex characters. The tool is packed with GPU, which helps to speed up the workflow.
The software includes different kinds of dynamics and effects like interactive hair grooming, ready-to-use graphs, Bifrost to create blockbuster-worthy effects, and much more.
Apart from this, it offers Bifrost fluids for simulation and rendering of photorealistic liquids along with ocean simulation, soft and rigid body simulations, etc. Here, you will also get a proximity wrap tool in the updated version.
Furthermore, it has several 3D rendering and shading features such as display scene shifts in real-time, including lighting, textures, and camera with Arnold RenderView. You also get color management, hypershading for look development, etc.
3D animation features are cached playback, library plugin for a native library, animation bookmarks, time editor, performance capture, and more. Using Maya, you get MASH nodes, create flying logos, branding, title sequences, etc.
Not just this, you can quickly create complex procedural effects and animations with instanced objects. You can easily integrate Maya with your production pipelines, create plug-ins and Maya scripts using Python or MEL (Maya Embedded Language).
The tool costs $1,620 per year with access to 30 day free trials.
Apart from Maya, Autodesk has other software like Motion builder and 3ds Max, which are also vastly preferred by many business professionals.
3ds Max
- Software3ds Max
- ApplicationMotion Capture, Keyframe Animation
- OSWindows
- Price$1,700/year
- Formatsstl, 3ds, ai, abc, ase, asm, catproduct, catpart, dem, dwg, dxf, dwf, flt, iges, ipt, jt, nx, obj, prj, prt, rvt, sat, skp, sldprt, sldasm, stp, vrml, w3d xml
3ds Max is one of the major commercial 3D animation software suites on the market. Its comprehensive feature set makes it a popular choice for game development, visual effects production, and architectural visualization.
This 3D animation software features particle and light simulation, a cloth-simulation engine, and even brings its scripting language to the table (MAXScript). In terms of 3D modeling, it is capable of creating parametric and organic objects with polygon, subdivision surface, and spline-based modeling features. Among the other techniques is the ability to create models from point cloud data.
The 3D animation capabilities of 3ds Max are comprehensive. It features two character animation tools. “character studio” that is designed to work best for bipedal characters. “CAT” can rig and animate non-humanoid characters. This 3D animation software also comes with a tool that allows setting up and controlling scenes with large crowds of people, dubbed “Populate.”
Take full control over your 3D animation with “Motion Mixer,” a tool that takes its cue from audio editing. It displays separate tracks for motion data from each body part that can be edited for speed, transitioned, looped, and more. Among the other tools in this 3D animation software are motion paths that let you modify animations directly in the trajectory as splines, giving you instant feedback in the viewport.
Recently, Autodesk has added two new features to 3ds Max – baking to texture and a weighted normals modifier. The former approximate surface effects and allows for objects to be rendered in real-time without the need to recalculate other elements such as the lighting and shadows. As for the latter, that improves shading on objects.
Adobe Animate.
Adobe Animate is a vector and 2d animation software that’s designed for web and mobile app development.
You can animate vector graphics, create interactive content, add effects, and more. This software also has built-in templates that you can customize to your liking.
Best for:
Adobe Animate is designed for people who want to either animate vector graphics, create interactive content, add effects, and more. This software also has built-in templates that can be customized to your liking. Adobe Animate is best for people who want to create animations or interactive web pages.
Advanced Features:
- Use Adobe Animate to animate vector graphics.
- Create interactive content with Adobe Animate’s features.
- Create content with simple drag-and-drop actions.
- Add effects to your animations with Adobe Animate’s built-in templates, such as the color and tone effects, the temporal effect for video, and more.
Pros:
- Extensive support for animation of vector graphics
- Built-in templates for simple customizations and interactive content
- Color and tone effects, temporal effect on video, and more.
Pricing:
Here is a simple breakdown of Adobe Animate’s pricing:
Adobe Animate costs $20.99 per month for the personal version.
If you want to get access to all of Adobe’s products you can pay $52.99 per month and get access to all of their tools.
Either way Adobe Animate offers a free trial that you can try 100% risk-free.
Conclusion
Our software is used by 3,000+ schools and industry professionals in over 80 countries around the world. We are dedicated to providing educators with the best learning experience so they can teach their students how to animate 3D characters in Blender. We are committed to making the best learning materials for our users so they can learn how to animate 3D characters in Blender