Software for animation movies

[Baptista]

After 4 years of studying and practising 3d modelling and animation for video games i decided to do a course about 3d animation.My question now will be what software should i use.So far i know max/maya and sometimes i am using zbrush,but i am using these softwares to make assets and human animations so i can import them into the game engines.

I've heard that cinema 4d is a nice software for CG animation but is it suitable to make small movies?And can i push its limit by using models with many polygons and very realistic environments?or i will have to bake them into the low poly? I need some advices from people who are doing something similar or having any knowlegde in that matter before i finally decide and take the course.

[rocneasta]

maya is more oriented towards stereoscopic animation, movies etc.
3ds max is more for shorted animation.
motionbuilder is also good, they did Avatar in it.

these are all Autodesk products so interoperability works excellent between 'em.
However i have very limited experience in animation, hence i hope you get some useful info soon

[Nukie]

In the end you can use any 3D program for any purpose. A few years back Max was highly aimed towards the gaming industry and Maya to the film industry, but today it doesn't much matter anymore in my opinion. If you say you know Max and Maya, I say stick with those and don't bother learning another 3D program. Sure, Cinema 4D can also create good stuff (They have used it for The Polar Express) but you can get the same results with Max and Maya.

[Baptista]

After i saw the modules that the course has,i am planning for 5-10 mins of animation movies,so i am not planning to make long movies,but can you have special effects with max/maya?or create big enviroments on them?I am a little scary of that animation thing cause so far max and maya was used to create human models/vehicles for video games but i never made a whole 3d enviroment where i am going to do a proper animation on it.

[rocneasta]

3d environments can always be created, a bit of later compositing could help you to make it whole. Using proxies can help you immensely in time and memory allocation when making the animation

[Vozzza]

Do not go to cinema4D. It is an absolutely great program, but it spoils the crap out of you and then massively limits you.

main problems: very slow viewport. I mean im absolutely stunned by xsi's and 3dmaxes performance.

Also serious limitations when it comes to fluids and liquids. and smoke and fire and stuff. I mean there are plugins out there now to handle this, but the tutorials for them are very sparce.

If you are doing motion graphics and need a photoshopy application Cinema4D is great. But it limits you waaay too much with the viewport speed and general lack of features.

I mean it has a very good base for building on, but it still needs a lot of building.

[Baptista]

The animation examples that i have in mind are like the Tekken 5/6 intros if someone of you have played or watched.I dont want to make kick ass animation movies as such the avatar cause the pc i will have will be no compare to the one that they used.I mean as much as i push my pc cant make movies as such.

[Vozzza]

if you want to make an entire movie yourself, probably go for 3dsmax it has heaps of resources available on the net that will make the process easier. So you won't have to be pro to produce something that looks good.

[Baptista]

Doesnt 3d max have problems with the lighting?I remember that when i did a movie about a subway as a promo,max crashed a lot of times and i had only 4/5 lights.However i was using a laptop which wasnt the best one at that time,but i had a very slow render time,and also when the camera was rendering a glass surface it was going slow.

I dont say that max is bad,i am using that since i started my journey through the 3d world and i am more covenient with it rather maya.

[Baptista]

This is a video of someones portfolio.I believe that the guy is awesome.Can someone tell me how he did that interface for the animation?Is that MEL for maya or something else?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2bn_9BIryE&feature=player_embedded#

[Specialboy]

for ur last question ... i think in the demo reel he use same method like creating set up for facial animation ... combination of morph targets and create expressions ...

p.s. for what u want to make the short movie / movies ? i read that u`ll visit course about 3d animation ... and ur looking in some modules but ... fro ur questions i understand that u want to do it ur own ... i can not clear understand ur point of making all of this

dont take me wrong , i only want to help ...

[Baptista]

i have a year and a half to learn japanese so i can do that course,meanwhile i want to learn how to create movies using max or maya.So far i was using these softwares to make static meshes and basic human animations for 3d game engines for my course's modules.I have no expierence in making movies.Thats why i was doing a research of how should i start and i needed help for people who have an expierence:haha:.

The masters course that i am planning to attend,gives the freedom to its students to do any kind of animation.

[Dann-O]

Another thing to keep on the radar is PMG Messiah it is geared towards character animation so if that is your primary focus then it will do well. It can be used as a front end animation program for Max Maya Mondo or C4D. It is used a lot in broadcast animations and in advertisement. So if you have a program you like already for modeling and then you can use this to render and rig and animate also you can export animations back to the host program.

[Baptista]

it looks nice as an application,i like its features.So is it possible to export/import all the animation types from messiah to maya/max?Cause i really liked the flexibility part, and the deformation that you can do with the face.One more thing,it says that it doesnt need to do the weighting because it does it by itself,when you will imort the mesh with the skeleton into max/maya and you might want to animate it there,the weighting will be stored from messiah or you have to the skinning from scratch?

[Dann-O]

Rigging is so straightforward in messiah No real skinng or weighing I actually never had to do those operations just work with what I have there. I think if you have more in depth questions here is a good place for answers. http://setuptab.com/index.php