Making cartoonsThe animation production process was more complicated. First of all, there had to be a script. This was the foundation of animation. It would present the content that the director wanted to express in text form. Next, he had to draw the text into simple images, namely storyboards and storyboards, to unify the production direction.
After that, they entered the modeling stage. Different types of modeling software could be selected according to the designer's preferences. For example, props modeling could use 3dsMax, Maya, C4D, Blander, etc.; terrain modeling could use World Machine, World Creator; plant modeling could use SpeedTree, and biological modeling could use Zbrush.
After the modeling was completed, the model had no color, texture, and details. It needed to be unfolded, colored, and added with diffuse reflection, coarseness, and so on. During this process, designers usually used the Material Painter software. For moving objects, they also needed to use Maya software to bind bones and do weights. In addition, some special effects, such as fluids, flames, particles, etc., needed to be completed by Houdini software through complex mathematical calculations.
After the model was done, it had to be placed in the same scene, illuminated, and adjusted. Finally, the rendering output could be done using mainstream software such as Arnold, V-Ray, Redshift, and so on. In this way, a beautiful animation could be obtained.
In addition, animation production also had the form of stop-motion animation. Its working principle was to shoot the object frame by frame and play the captured image at a speed of 12 - 24 frames per second to produce animation effects. The so-called stop-motion animation was usually performed by clay puppets. Another production method was to use the principle of "residual vision." The artist would first design the character, then draw all the pictures of the character's movements according to the story content (which could be drawn on paper or on a computer) and connect them together. Then, they would be combined with various backgrounds, and after filming and dubbing, they would be made into an animation.