3D Pipeline - Movies

Production Pipeline

Storyboard

Storyboards are like a hand drawn version of the movie, the storyboards serve as a blue print of movement and dialogue. Each storyboard artist is given a script page and a map of the characters emotional changes which need to be seen through actions, using these as guidelines, the artist then draws out the scene.

After the storyboards are done, they are then digitally scanned and joined to create a story reel; this is like a flip book in a way because it lets you see all the drawings flow.

According to DreamWorks, this process can take up to 18 monthshttp://www.dreamworksanimation.com/dwa/opencms/inside/how_we_make_movies/development/3.html 

Visual development

After the story reel is complete artists get together to design everything that will be in the film, from the major characters, to the smallest props.

Thousands of blueprints, models, paintings and drawings will be created and eventually, a digital world and characters will have been created.

 Voice over’s

Now that the character designs are chosen, its time to do voice over’s. voice overs come first so that modellers can make the characters look like the speaking later on and is much easier

Modelling

From the initial designs, modellers will construct a digital 3-D model that will be used for planning and animation.

Rigging

The modellers start with a wire frame sculpture that is called called an armature that breaks down the design into workable geometry and allows them to “rig” the figure, which will give the animator the ability to move the 3-D figure in whatever way is necessary to get the articulation they want.

Basic Surfaces

Once we’ve set up the armature, we can begin to add basic surfaces. It is this simplified “puppet in a box” or digital marionette that is used in the next step.

Layout

Layout artists use rough “stand-in” shapes to block out the movement of the character in the scene. This rough layout or animatic is the blueprint from which we determine camera movement, character placement, spacing, lighting, geography and scene timing. The animatic maps out the entire movie, giving us a digital picture of each scene before we actually begin the character animation.

Character animation

Once the sequence is working well in layout, the animators start bringing the characters to life in the computer. They articulate the thousands of controls that were created during the character-rigging phase to bring each character to life and to synchronize them to the voice performances. Now the characters really look like themselves, but not quite. Remember, this is just the animation; the scene isn’t quite finished yet.

Effects

After the camera moves have been set and the characters have been animated, the next steps are effects and lighting.In a live-action film, it’s easy to photograph things like leaves blowing in the wind, waves at the beach or even footprints in the sand. In computer animation, these simple things are all designed and animated by the effects artists. In other words, if it’s not acting, but it moves, it’s an effect.This process can take up too 4 years