Animations in Three Dimensions

Science-fiction blockbuster movies today use both film and 3D Animation, which can make the most complex and stunning scenes that are impossible to produce in film. 3D Animation picks up where film left off.

3D Animation is three-dimensional representation of geometric data in computers that are rendered to produce a movie that can be easily viewed. Three-dimensional data can be represented by a 3D model with X, Y, and Z axes and they can represent any inanimate or living objects. However, the 3D models are not yet a graphic image until they are visually displayed or rendered into 3D animation.

3D animation works in three phases: 3D modeling, layout and animations, and 3D rendering. 3D modeling describes the shape of the object. An artist or engineer produces the 3D models, using a 3D modeling software, or by scanning the real-time object into a 3D image. The object in 3D data can be represented by X, Y, and Z axes.

After 3D modeling, artists produce the appearance of the object and background scene as planned. In the layout, the object\'s length, width, height, size, appearance, light, and depth of field (distance of the object to its background and viewers) all contribute. Artists then use different animation techniques to animate the object. Popular methods of animation are key-framing, inverse-kinematics, and motion-capture. Keyframing, as the term implies, connects several different frames of the object with each frame in transition. Inverse-kinematics is the process of determining the points around a joint flexible object in order to achieve a desired image. Motion-capture is digitally recording a moving subject by pinpointing important point of the subject and representing it as simple 3D data.

3D rendering involves representing the layout 3D object with the scenes into a virtual image. These virtual images are then connected in succeeding order. It is then projected as such to present an animation - just like a kid flipping several different placards with his drawing on it to see it move.