Hey everyone,
I'm starting a 3D Animation club at my college. My plan is to spend half of our meetings working on a 3D Animated short and half of the meeting teaching new members and those who are less experienced some really interesting tutorials and lessons in maya and other 3d packages/related software. I was wondering if there were any 3D Pro's out there who had any advice on how to structure the club in terms of departments and talents in order to be efficient in our use of time and resources. I want to emulated the 3D Pipeline used by professional companies so that my members are familiar with it and can take that knowledge when they apply to the major animation studios upon graduation. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks!
Starting a 3d Animation Club at my School, need advice on emulating 3D Pipeline
Starting a 3d Animation Club at my School, need advice on emulating 3D Pipeline
There are probably a million ways to approach this ... here's my take as someone on the production side of things.
Set a deadline/goal for completion. How much time do you have? 12 weeks? 14 weeks? If it's one semester, I'd shoot for a 30 second short. If you were doing this over 2 semesters (Fall/Spring) then you can go for a longer piece - maybe 60 seconds). How much time can the members dedicate to the project? (build in downtime for midterms, finals and final projects). Be realistic. A good gauge is the 11 second club, they get 1 month for 11 seconds.
I'd probably divide time into 3 sections - previs/animation/rendering & compositing. Say you have 12 weeks ... I'd do something like this:
Previs (4 weeks) - work out your story, characters, storyboards, animatics, modeling, rigging, palette, sets, lighting, work flow and schedule
Animation (5 weeks) - break out your shots, review blocking/roughs, finalize animation
Rendering & compositing (3 weeks) - you should test everything along the way so you know how your sets & characters look.
Bear in mind, it's usually not quite this linear and you'll have back and forth within the pipeline. If you keep it simple and keep changes to a minimum it's doable.
I like the idea of tutorials and I'd make sure each one contributes to the project. You can be proactive and review topics that you'll have to deal with in the future or if people run into problems during production you can have a tutorial on the issue at the next meeting.
Someone should take the role of producer. Track the shots, wrangle the artists, make sure people have what they need. If you promise your sound guy an animatic or compositers rendered frames make sure they get them or crack the whip, reschedule, negotiate or all of the above. Be the keeper of the emails.
Good luck, keep it short and simple and have fun!!
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is a great resource.
Just wanted to throw out some pitfalls you may encounter. Modeling and rigging will probably be your biggest hurdle. Poor modeling will make rigging difficult and poor rigging will make animation difficult. Know your limitations but don't be afraid to try things out. Play around with free rigs online to see what they SHOULD be able to do.
Make decisions and stick to them - but realize when things aren't working and act accordingly. I think most production problems have to do with changes. Some are necessary and some aren't - may you have the wisdom to know the difference.
Create a comfortable atmosphere for people to show their work. Criticism should be constructive. People need to show their work sooner rather than later. If they're concerned about negative feedback they'll want to keep working on something before they show it (and working and working). The only way to know where a shot is is to see it. "Desktop" reviews are also helpful. Reviews don't always have to be in a meeting session.
Lighting can make or break a film - test, test, test and test.
Editing is your FRIEND - give them enough time to work their magic.