3D animation is a more advanced graphical presentation with the help of computer and digital displayers. Animations such as movies, presentations, walk through, cartoon films, television advertisements and web stuff (life on the Web or Internet) became popular after people tasted 3D graphics. In general Multimedia stuff such as 3D Illustration, AV Presentations, Digital Video, 3D Medical & Scientific Animations are very useful in real life application in respective environments.

Computer Graphics and Animations

3D computer graphics / animations are different from 2D computer graphics / animations in that a 3D representation of geometric data is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. The rendered images are used for later display or for real-time viewing. 3D graphics animations show the angle of camera or viewers, virtual shoot of aerial footage and put the virtual reality 3D model into it perfectly so the 3D animation looks absolutely real. This is called motion tracking, which is when we track the exact motion of the real life camera that shoots the footage and that is replicated perfectly in 3D. The same effect is also used often on the big screen where 3D animations are used to create movie scenes.

Making of 3D Animations

The 3D animations are created based on a theme or concept. The theme is expanded with more detail of the design; flow of the animations is called storyboards. The character and object design and development are the preliminary jobs for animators based on the specification. Based on the storyboard direction further key frames are to be developed. All the characters or objects are called 3D models that are data file that contain the information needed to view or "render" 3-D objects. Key-framing is the process of assigning values to parameters at specific moments in time that specifies frames in an animated sequence. A Texture Map is required for manipulating the scheme or pattern on the models. Texture Mapping is a way of controlling the diffuse color of a surface on a pixel-by-pixel basis, rather than by assigning a single overall value. The graphic designer / character developer can achieve by applying a color bitmap image to the surface. The color patterns / scheme can also be generated by the application itself to create a procedural texture. Finally, the sequences are to be rendered for getting an output with compression. Rendering is the process of producing bitmapped images from a view of 3-D models in a 3-D scene. An animation is a series of such renderings (taking a picture of the scene) each with the scene slightly changed.

3D animation software features:

3D Modeler, TrueType font support, Import and modify file formats, Export .3DS files, Built in 3D Object browser, Jointed character editor, Morph targets, Renderer for high quality, production quality images, Create 3D scenes and animations and output .AVI movie files, .JPG and .BMP images, Supports textures, bump maps, soft shadows, spotlights, fog, and much more, Texture support for .BMP, .GIF, and .JPG format files, Scripting language etc.

Standard Computer System Requirements from 3D Animation software:

Windows NT4, Win95, Win98, WinSE, Win2K, or WinXP, OpenGL accelerated graphics card with full ICD support, (ala GeForce), 64 MB memory, 128MB recommended, or 256MB if you use WinXP, 300 MHz Pentium, 5MB disk space.

AniBoom is involved in 3D Animation Workshop, Competitions, Seminars and online info centers, where you can learn about this beautiful medium, with a special eye for its use on the Web. You can learn how to create 3D graphics and animation step by step, gain knowledge and experiences. AniBoom makes aware of aspirants on computer, software, technologies, process for making of 3D animations.