The Animation Pipeline

Reading The Art of Maya has opened my eyes to the different stages of Maya and what it takes to animate. I now understand the Pipeline system of animating in 3D and when it came about, when computers were first used for 3D graphics, the stages were broken down and names Modelling, Animating, and rendering. These stages have been expanded on over time with the additions of character animation, effects, camera effects, camera movements and light tools, what I have learnt when doing general animation is that it is important to focus on all of these production stages so that the out come of your animation is positive. The animation pipeline can be summarised in seven different stages: modelling, characters, animation, materials, textures, lights, cameras, effects, rendering and composing as stated in the book The Art of Maya. When I first started using maya I realised that everything changed, there was more stages to think about and designing was more complex and harder to understand because the transition from 2D to 3D was a big difference to me way of animating with 2D all I had to focus on was designing a character, generating a idea developing a stage by stage animation for my character and scenery, then render when i was finish where as 3D focuses on modelling, characters, animation, materials, textures, lights, cameras, effects, rendering and composing. The rendering would also take long based on detail and amount of work involved in your 3D animation.