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Is 2D animation background or diploma necessary for 3D animation JOB

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Is 2D animation background or diploma necessary for 3D animation JOB

Hi,
I am intersted in 3D character animation and applying for diploma in some schools and colleges for 3D animation. So I need to know what does he job market prefer for the 3D animators, I mean do they prefer an experience or diploma in 2D also. Do I have to first do the 2D animation diploma or direcly go for 3D ?

need to resolve confusion. !!!!

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sunny.......... Career Test

sunny..........
Career Test

Hi Sunnys and welcome to the AWN Forums.

It kind of depends on what kind of animation you want to go into. If you want to go into effects or animate cars and spaceships, I would say no, but it wouldn't hurt.

If you want to go into character animation, then I'd say yes, but you don't have to. The reason I say this is because most schools that teach 3D animation don't really teach you animation basics and rarely teach character animation. If they do, it's usually after several semesters of taking modeling, and lighting, and rigging classes. So if you want to be a character animator, you'll need to know the basics of animation first as well as learn how to breath life into a character, and not just make it move. Usually the traditional animation classes teach this. The only school that I know of that gets you animating in 3D right out of the gate is AnimationMentor.com, which I am a taking classes there. It's a great top notch school that really gets into teaching character animation, but I'm not sure how good it is for students that have absolutly no previous animation or computer experience.

I hope that helps you out some. I know it's early in your carreer, but if you can peg down what you really want to do, character animation, FX, etc. this will really help in determining what school you want to go to.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Is 2D animation background or diploma necessary for 3D animation JOB

no

.

Pixar hired a number of 2D animators for their movie " The Incredibles" and trained them to work with the in house 3D software.

Pixar used to only hire traditional (2d and stop motion) animators, but recently they've changed their tune. I don't have the article anymore but they said they've started hiring people with just 3D experience because of the quality of the work they're seeing.

And yeah, if you want to get into film work (SFX, creature animation), not having 3d will most likely hurt you more than having 2d will help you. Although really good stop motion work would probably be considered as it's much closer to how 3d works than 2d.

The bottom line is that the industry is hiring good animators and it doesn't matter what the medium is so much anymore. Altough not knowing 2d will more likely keep you from going into a 2d job.

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