Anyone Experienced In 3D Animation?

DY357LX · August 2010

<div class="IPBDescription">I Want To Learn & Have A Few Questions About This Page</div>I want to learn about 3D animation, mainly character animation.

I love seeing other people's animations and creations. (Such as: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Qlz2631Ic" target="_blank">this guys'</a> who works for Lionhead.) And the fascination is the reason I've seen iRobot 18 times. (The animation on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oecf-DBwKWA" target="_blank">Sonny</a> is superb.)

So I did some Google'ing and found this page which shows how to rig and animate a lamp:
<a href="http://www.moddb.com/groups/noesis-interactive/videos/animation-with-the-softimagexsi-6-mod-tool#imagebox" target="_blank">http://www.moddb.com/groups/noesis-interac...d-tool#imagebox</a>

This seems like a good starting point because the model is free, the XSI Mod Tool is free and the tutorial itself seems detailed enough to learn from.

So here's my questions:
Is XSI|Softimage a good program to use or is the industry standard something like 3D Studio Max/Maya?
In the tutorial, he types 60 in the frames box. Why is this? Is it because adding 10 would make the animation really fast and 600 would make it really slow? (Find a balance via trial and error?)
Is there a place I can get (free) models to animate? (I remember a Steam SDK came with a rigged Counter-Strike model but I can't remember which SDK to install, can anyone remember?)
Is there a place where I can get some more animation tutorials? I've done a quick Google'ing but quite a few sites seem out of date (Last Post: 2007 etc) or they charge very hefty fees.

Umm, that's all I can think of right now (it's 4am here in the UK) but any links, info, advice etc; that you're willing share are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Talesin · August 2010

SoftImage XSI is a good one to start learning on, though alternates are Blender, Maya PLE, or the 3DSMax equivalent. I'm a Maya proponent. The PLE just watermarks any renders you put out, and is not cross-compatible with the full version on save file formats.

Prior to starting in on animation, I'd recommend getting some of the basics of modelling and rigging down first. It's an important skillset if your rig needs a tweak or some fine-tuning. As I recall, the TF2 Dance animations he'd put up have sections pulled in from mocap files, with the animator mostly altering them for the body sizes involved. It's also a LOT of work. Weeks to get realistic and fluid movement down to believable on a single complex animation. All the while watching the same loop over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. Only to realize that the next section got screwed up by the last section you finished, or you forgot to key a value at the beginning of the section you're working on, so get to go back and re-do it or try like hell to fix it again.

If you're good with that kind of tedium, take a look at Digital Tutors. They have some video tutorials up that are really quite good, but a lot are for-pay. Also, plan on buying a book for your suite of choice and spending a good bit of time reading, and just getting comfortable with working in your environment. If you're *serious* about it, plan on shelling out a good $200 or so for a revision-back set of books used. They go out of date so fast, it's not worth shelling out the $500 for the current version's set, and most of the skills carry across, especially when it comes to getting the fundamentals down pat.

Models are money. You might find some freebies, but generally they're going to be low-quality or have rigging issues, if they even come with a rig. Then you get to play with royalties, and defending yourself if the 'freebie' you grabbed was actually a pirated copy of someone else's model. When people will regularly charge upward of $50 for a very simple car model, a complex one gets pricey. Most likely one reason jazzman used ripped TF2 models... Valve likes free advertising. Want to do anything professionally? Contract with a modeller, or learn to make your own models. It's not too hard, once you develop the skillset.

Also, most 3D modelling suites require a workstation-class card. nVidia Quadro, or ATi FireGL. If you don't have one, it might still run... but you'll probably get HORRIBLE visual artifacts when you're trying to work. Maya is bad about that in the latest versions when it comes to editing isoparms in NURBS patches, leaving trails of red garbage all over the viewport, or selecting from the BACK of the mesh you're trying to work on.

Just a bit of caution from someone who's been through it.

Swiftspear · August 2010

I've done some work with blender. It's harder to learn, but more free than the other high power alternatives.

Svenpa · August 2010

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 30 2010, 08:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1796852"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Also, most 3D modelling suites require a workstation-class card. nVidia Quadro, or ATi FireGL. If you don't have one, it might still run... but you'll probably get HORRIBLE visual artifacts when you're trying to work.</div>

I've never understood these gfx cards, being a gamer who goes for the Radeon HD 5850 and nvidias equivalent. What is so special about them? Their specs isn't better and I don't think the memory is larger either than a roughly same priced highend gaming card.

Kouji_San · August 2010

Games and CAD apps probably don't render in the same way, so that is the main reason why there are cards specialized in one of these fields. Radeon and Geforce = Gaming while FireGL and Nvideo Quadro = CAD apps.

I think the basic idea behind these cards is that the drivers and architecture of these cards can be explain as this:

"Gaming cards" go for ultimate speed and FPS with higher clockrates, while the "CAD app" cards go for ultimate pixel precision and maximum texture quality. I guess the gaming cards are prone to more render/read errors, judging from what Talesin said about artifacts in 3D apps?

Talesin · August 2010

Short version, it's a blatant money grab by video card manufacturers.

The only difference between the two is the drivers used, and the part ID bits on the card's ROM or physical traces. The rest of the hardware is identical. It's so they can mark it up to INSANE prices compared to the gaming or 'consumer class' cards, as companies and 'professionals' who use the hardware to make money can take the financial hit as an 'investment' (and a tax write-off). There's NO GOOD REASON 'workstation' cards should cost any more than 'gamer' cards. The only difference is the drivers, as 'workstation' drivers will refuse to install on a 'gamer' class card without some work on the software side, hardware side, or both. Doesn't make sense to tape out a separate workstation card, when your 'gamer' card will more than fulfill expectations, and then some.

'Workstation' drivers (I won't call them cards, the hardware is the same) are set to abide by the strict OpenGL/D3D specifications in all things, at all times. The 'gaming' drivers are set to cut corners and 'cheat' on the back-end and on 'invisible' things for maximum possible framerate, going for the speed crown in video games above all else. Unfortunately, a lot of professional applications actually USE those functions, and ARE visible. Honestly, on equivalent-grade cards I have seen at <b>worst</b> a 10% difference in performance, on a single game. That's going from 60fps to 54fps. Not much of a drop.

Know all this because I have a Radeon 9800 XT which I 'soft-modded' into a Radeon 9800 XTPE, which I then driver-hacked into an ATi FireGL X3. Best part being was that the XT was a replacement bit for a 9800 Pro that the fan died on, and was swapped and bumped up under warranty. Go go $4500 card for the low, low price of $175 initial purchase... 96% off the MSRP at the time, shelf-price.
Of course, manufacturers have moved to block this kind of thing working on any modern cards... occasionally you'll get a driver that a group has cracked to provide workstation performance, but it's getting harder and harder as they get more clever with both hardware AND software based DRM, call-and-response, triple handshakes and so on.

Here's a <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/quadro-fx-4800,2258-10.html" target="_blank">review from Tom's Hardware</a> showing the disparity. Same card, same core, same memory... WORLDS of difference, because the 'gamer' class drivers are <i>intentionally crippled</i>. A fact which still pisses me off to no end.

Kouji_San · August 2010

Would be more fair to be able to choose your own drivers for your use, as the gaming drivers suck for 3D apps and the 3D app drivers suck for gaming.

Ah well, it's still not moronic enough compared to printer cartridges <img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/smileys/biggrin.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /> But while there are things worse out there, it is still quite criminal!

lolfighter · August 2010

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Aug 30 2010, 11:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1796940"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>ATi FireGL X3</div>
The mischievous catgirl graphics card!

DY357LX · August 2010

Thanks for the replies, some very interesting stuff there.

I do intend to learn to rig and model so I'll start looking into tutorials and see if there are any courses in my local area.

The graphics card info doesn't surprise me at all. I used to mod my laptop graphics card drivers using the <a href="http://www.hardwareheaven.com/modtool.php" target="_blank">Mobility Modder</a>.
The whole page is an interesting read.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>ATI have for many years had their hands tied with laptop manufacturers (OEMS) who request that ATI do not offer support for their device in the Catalyst Driver. This may seem strange, however makers such as Dell may have implemented their own support system and they do not want their customers downloading "reference" drivers from ATI's home page.</div>

The model I was looking for I eventually found: <a href="http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Rigging_in_XSI" target="_blank">info here (urban.scn)</a>

I now have to hunt down my 3D World disc that came on the cover of an old old copy of the magazine. The disc covered making character models in the XSI|Softimage mod tool for Half-Life2. (I think the dude's name was Jason Buzz/3DBuzz and ran his own site for 3D apps.)

/me goes disc hunting on eBay

Thanks again.

TychoCelchuuu · August 2010

XSI is fine to learn. All good 3d artists either learn most of the tools or just learn whatever tool their job wants them to use. You don't need a special 3d card unless you're seeing crashes/glitchy behavior in your modeling program, I'd say, and like Talesin mentioned you can sometimes find drivers that work pretty well too. I've used lots of modeling programs with an 8800 GTS and they all worked fine.

If you want to learn to animate, I would take an acting class or at least get used to watching people and things very closely and paying attention to how they move, in conjunction with one of those books Talesin talked about, because those can be very helpful. Cartoons are great too because of course those are all animated and they exaggerate all the tricks of the trade so you can see then easily and learn how they work.

I wouldn't worry about finding models to animate: Talesin is right that the free ones are crap, but you'll want to learn to rig your own models anyways so you should always redo the rig and it doesn't matter if the model looks like crap because you're just worried about the animation. If it has crummy geometry that will be a problem, but it will also be a learning experience and in the beginning you should probably just stick to animating balls and boxes and cylinders that move like worms and simple stuff like that so that you can get the techniques down before you worry about 4 limbs and 10 fingers and a head and a neck and a full skeleton with IK and everything.

Out of date animation tutorials aren't a big deal, especially for good quality ones, because people don't move differently than they did in 2007. Learning the tool will take either trial and error or a good book/video that you pay for, but free videos about techniques like IK or walk cycles or how someone turns their head (in an arc!) don't change over time.

The reason the tutorial picked 60 frames is like you guessed: a 10 frame animation would be over in 1/3rd of a second if you're animating at 30 FPS and a 600 frame animation would take 20 seconds at 30 FPS.

Chris0132 · August 2010

Generally a company would probably use 3ds max for everything, or maya if the company has a lot of people who know maya/has always used maya/can't afford 3ds max or whatever. XSI is used, but less frequently, nothing wrong with it as a tool though, does things a bit differently from max mind you so don't expect to be able to jump between them without learning both, and the principles behind it are the same, just the tools that are different.

3d studio max has at least one built in model, and you can create skeletons with all sorts of structures to animate. 3ds max has a really nice rigging/animation/modelling system, really nice tool all round really.

Animation is really hard and makes really good money, so you probably aren't going to be able to learn it for free, but one thing that might help you is that animation in 3d is basically the same as animation in 2d, the exact same principles apply, you just use different tools, a 2d animator uses pen and paper, you use a modelling package, but what you need to produce at the end is the same, and your animations will look good and bad for the same reasons. 3d has a few additional things like rigging, but if you can 2d animate, you can probably 3d animate as well with minimal difficulty.

So try looking for 2d animation info as well.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TychoCelchuuu @ Aug 31 2010, 04:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1797012"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>If you want to learn to animate, I would take an acting class or at least get used to watching people and things very closely and paying attention to how they move, in conjunction with one of those books Talesin talked about, because those can be very helpful. Cartoons are great too because of course those are all animated and they exaggerate all the tricks of the trade so you can see then easily and learn how they work.</div>

Also get used to learning how to stalk people because staring at them out in the open gets you funny looks.

Swiftspear · August 2010

I've played with Maya and I've touched Max a little, although the lions share of my experience is with blender, like I say. From my experience, don't worry too much about "this is the best" suite or "that is the best suite". Blender is blender and Max is Max, but to move from one to the other is more like moving from Microsoft word to OpenOffice writer than it is learning an ENTIRE new suite. The nouns and verbs are all there, but the grammar is a little different, so if you've learned blender, you will still know how to model in Max or Maya, but you will have to spend some time acquainting yourself to new features and different hotkeys and menus. The different suites have different workflow priorities which make them ideal for different applications... but fundamentally they can all do almost all the same "Stuff".

For that reason I recommend blender. It's free, and to me that makes it perfect for new people getting into the field and trying to teach them self the trade. And if you get good, you can improve all your own work and sell it without having to ever have worried about that initial investment.

Teaching yourself art can be hard though. There are 2 year post secondary programs that run entirely on this stuff. So don't be shocked if you get into it a bit, try things out, play around, but ultimately never end up an accomplished modeler.

[edit] Like chris says, if you become a professional sooner or later you will probably have to learn all the suites anyways, because you just use whatever suite the company that is hiring you has a licence for, and companies hire pretty indiscriminately irrelevant of software expertise if you're a talented artist. So there's no reason to play favorites before you've even produced any work yet.

frostymoose · August 2010

Alright- a little more on video cards. You DO NOT need to get some fancy pants ATIfireGL or quadro whatever for animating. I recommend getting a decent nvidia card (maybe gtx260 or better) ATI cards tend to be POORLY supported in major package viewports. I know this is true for max, and one other - I think it's maya.

If you are a student, autodesk owns all the most popular 3d suites (max, maya, xsi) and they do offer free student licenses on a yearly basis.

But i'm crap for brains as far as animating goes so that's all I've got for ya!

Talesin · September 2010

Er, no. Frostymoose, unless you animate yourself with one of the packages, please do not spread false information. In fact, even if you do.
I use a GTX260, which is how I know about the SERIOUS problems they have with Maya. I have a separate workstation just for modelling.
An ATi FireGL is what I use for modelling. It's worth it, and works significantly better (no garbage, better framerates) than my GTX260. Please present numbers otherwise.
You can pick up a cheap, older Quadro from Newegg for under a hundred bucks, and not have to deal with the headache.

Student licenses for Maya are NOT free, you have to provide proof that you're in an educational institution as well as your expected graduation.. because that's when they set the discounted license to expire.

frostymoose · September 2010

<a href="http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=home" target="_blank">http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=home</a>

As far as my comments on nvidia go. I own a gtx260 and have zero problems in Max and modo. so admitedly any info on ATI performance is second hand.
<a href="http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75619&highlight=nvidia+ati" target="_blank">http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread....ight=nvidia+ati</a>
Maybe it's mainly an issue with their older cards and drivers, but the general consensus in the thread is that in the past many people had problems with their ATI drivers and have switched and not looked back. On a second read it seems that the newer HD cards are better, but theres still not much reason not to go nvidia.

Anyhow, no need to argue. Just my 2c from what i've picked up.

I'm curious; what do you need to model that actually requires the power of a fireGL? Seems like overkill for most personal projects.

Obraxis · September 2010

Learning Character Animation isn't something you can learn in a short space of time. Books such as "The illusion of life" and "The Animator's Survival Kit" are a must. You could also do a course either at university or online like AnimationMentor. You can however learn 3D Programs enough to animate relativity quickly, as there are free tutorial all over the internet.

The main programs used in the Film and Games industry are Maya and 3DSMax. Get hold of a copy of one or the other. XSI is used by Valve and Lionhead, a few other TV studios but isn't used by too many games studios.

GFX Card wise: Ati GAMER cards are crippled in drivers to prevent yo from using them in Maya or Max properly (the viewports get really screwed up). So, you either need ANY type of Nvidia card (Geforce or Quatro) or a Pro ATi card like FireGL.

I'm a professional character animator for both TV and Games so I've had a bit of experience.

Drfuzzy · September 2010

cdg.net forums have some pretty good tutorials on starting with 3ds max

Talesin · September 2010

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (frostymoose @ Sep 1 2010, 01:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1797071"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>As far as my comments on nvidia go. I own a gtx260 and have zero problems in Max and modo. so admitedly any info on ATI performance is second hand.</div> Ah, may be the difference then; I don't use Max, just Maya.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Maybe it's mainly an issue with their older cards and drivers, but the general consensus in the thread is that in the past many people had problems with their ATI drivers and have switched and not looked back. On a second read it seems that the newer HD cards are better, but theres still not much reason not to go nvidia.</div>Price, performance, power efficiency, not wanting to buy into a company that has repeatedly pulled smear campaigns against superior, less expensive cards that would have demolished their lines if they were allowed to make it to the shelves... I have a problem with that. Take a look at their PowerVR Kyro2 smear campaign, back in the GF2MX days. Performance on a level with the GF2 Ultra (top-end), with a price point at or less than the GF2MX (budget card).
The drivers were highly customizable and tweakable, so nVidia turned on the 'dangerous' options, took screenshots and distributed pamphlets to all major distributors explaining that they'd get endless returns if they stocked them. So yes, I'm still angry at that dirty, dirty BS stunt.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I'm curious; what do you need to model that actually requires the power of a fireGL? Seems like overkill for most personal projects.</div>A FireGL is just a Radeon with uncrippled and OpenGL-compliant drivers. It doesn't intentionally limit the number of viewports permitted to be open at once.
Short version, it works as intended with Maya, and doesn't leave visual garbage all over the screen when performing certain actions, or display erratic behaviours like selecting from the back of the mesh you're working on, instead of the front.
Also, older cards (even if you can't softmod a current-gen card) can be had on the cheap.

Chris0132 · September 2010

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Talesin @ Sep 1 2010, 07:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1797068"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Er, no. Frostymoose, unless you animate yourself with one of the packages, please do not spread false information. In fact, even if you do.
I use a GTX260, which is how I know about the SERIOUS problems they have with Maya. I have a separate workstation just for modelling.
An ATi FireGL is what I use for modelling. It's worth it, and works significantly better (no garbage, better framerates) than my GTX260. Please present numbers otherwise.
You can pick up a cheap, older Quadro from Newegg for under a hundred bucks, and not have to deal with the headache.

Student licenses for Maya are NOT free, you have to provide proof that you're in an educational institution as well as your expected graduation.. because that's when they set the discounted license to expire.</div>
Yeah I had problems with my old 280 in max, caused update problems for the viewscreen, I got it working by disabling a bunch of windows stuff but it still had some issues.

Not sure how my 460 will fare, hopefully better.

Anyone Experienced In 3D Animation?

Comments