Easy 3D animation apps?
Anybody know of any 3D animation apps similar to MediaStage that work on Mac?
http://www.immersiveeducation.com/mediastage/
I am making a short animated film but am using FrameForge3D (which is great for what it is intended to be) and creating each frame by hand and then making a stop-motion video that looks, well, like a stop-motion video. I want to make more videos in the future and don't want to spend that much time on them as my main focus is on something else; the video is just an element of the overall package.
Does anyone use Maya, Blender or any of the other 3D apps? If so, how easy would they be to use to create, for example, a training video for new staff members at a company? The contents would be simple scenes (office, stage, hall) and people; nothing fancy like Gollum or characters of that sort. I would need a group of about 10 characters and various props for them to use (one scenario is serving tea during a business meeting: this would need cups, a platter, etc). Also, how tough is it to create facial expressions? FF3D has this as a built-in, easy to use feature.
http://www.immersiveeducation.com/mediastage/
I am making a short animated film but am using FrameForge3D (which is great for what it is intended to be) and creating each frame by hand and then making a stop-motion video that looks, well, like a stop-motion video. I want to make more videos in the future and don't want to spend that much time on them as my main focus is on something else; the video is just an element of the overall package.
Does anyone use Maya, Blender or any of the other 3D apps? If so, how easy would they be to use to create, for example, a training video for new staff members at a company? The contents would be simple scenes (office, stage, hall) and people; nothing fancy like Gollum or characters of that sort. I would need a group of about 10 characters and various props for them to use (one scenario is serving tea during a business meeting: this would need cups, a platter, etc). Also, how tough is it to create facial expressions? FF3D has this as a built-in, easy to use feature.
Comments
Anybody know of any 3D animation apps similar to MediaStage that work on Mac?
http://www.immersiveeducation.com/mediastage/
I am making a short animated film but am using FrameForge3D (which is great for what it is intended to be) and creating each frame by hand and then making a stop-motion video that looks, well, like a stop-motion video. I want to make more videos in the future and don't want to spend that much time on them as my main focus is on something else; the video is just an element of the overall package.
Does anyone use Maya, Blender or any of the other 3D apps? If so, how easy would they be to use to create, for example, a training video for new staff members at a company? The contents would be simple scenes (office, stage, hall) and people; nothing fancy like Gollum or characters of that sort. I would need a group of about 10 characters and various props for them to use (one scenario is serving tea during a business meeting: this would need cups, a platter, etc). Also, how tough is it to create facial expressions? FF3D has this as a built-in, easy to use feature.
cinema 4d is pretty nifty.
Short answer: there is no quick, easy way to do 3D, IMHO. Your best bet is to get someone with some degree of familiarity to help out on the 3D.
The apps are also quite expensive... Hiring an artist is expensive, too, though, and not many live in my town.
Poser at least has lip-syncing, so I will give it a try this week during the evenings. If only I had started dabbling with one of these apps back a while...
As for the learning curve, if it were that steep, it wouldn't be so popular with amateur animators. There just happen to be pros who use it to. The bottom line is that it's primarily a subdivision modeler (and animator), and sub-d's are fairly intuitive. The more numerically-inclined mechanical modelers aren't sub-d focused and are much trickier to become efficient with, but it doesn't sound like you're trying to do that kind of thing.
After a bit of effort that didn't work out the way I wanted, I decided 3D is pretty tough and went to look at 2D. That's when I discovered Toon Boom Studio; I am never going back!
For 2D I was hoping that Anime Studio Pro would do the trick... it's unnecessarily complicated as hell. Really horrible.
Toon Boom is great and I have already created a couple of nice shorts in just a few days (building up my character library along the way). I'm pretty happy so far. Next week is lip syncing...
Cheers
Rich
Check under www.blender.org, there's also a lot of wiki tutorials and you'll find a lot of help in various forums, i really recommend anybody interested in 3D to check it out
http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/
But, like the other products mentioned, it is a full-blown 3D app, not a movie studio in a box like mediastage appears to be.
- Jasen.