3D Production Pipeline

Story - The basic story is given. What it will be about.

Storyboard – The story is summarized. From the summarized story storyboards are made. The storyboard will tell the story in  picture form. It can show the basic plot and the emotions/movements of the characters.

Sound – Creating/finding/composing sound effects and background music. Temporary voices, (sometimes by the artists/modelers/writers etc.) are put in as guides. This is needed quite early on so that the models can be later animated around it. This tends not to be final and finalized sound is added later.

Reels – A reel, (the storyboard cleaned up and in a sequence) is made to help tell the story. It serves as the very first version of the final product. It can be used to get the timing right.

Concepts – Initial ideas, concept art, sketches and 3D sculptures/models. Researching for the right look and sound for the characters/environment/etc. Designs from multiple perspectives make the modeling an easier task.

Modeling – Making the environment and characters. Taking the sketches and concept art and building the model from it. A skeletal structure can be built from pencil drawings. There does not always have to be coresponding designs, (what the model looks like can be verbally described) which leaves the design more up to the modeler. How things look can also be researched on the internet. First basic surfaces are added that are flat and lack detail. Afterwards more detailed textures are applied.

Scripting – Animation. Rigging the characters and how they react. Making the animations and movements match up with sounds. They take a wire frame sculpture, (called an armature) that breaks down our design into workable geometry. From there you can “rig” the figure. That allows the 3D figure to be moved by the animator.

Lighting – Assembling the scene and creating lighting for the environment. Lighting is used to make shadows, as well as adding a natural look to models. Creating the textures for the models. Basic surfaces were added befire and now more detailed textures are applied. A texture is made by adding layers of different materials.

Render – Rendering is the act of translating all of the information in the files that make up the shots into a single frame of film. The more time spent rendering, the better\more realistic the model looks.

Final Touches – The final touches. This is adding sound effects to the finished model. Information taken from http://www.pixar.com/howwedoit/index.html

Comparing with other Studios

Pixar is not the only animation studio, which follows this pipeline. Dreamworks Animation Studios has a similar one.http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/dwa/opencms/inside/how_we_make_movies/intro/story.html 

Development
Script > Storyboards > Visual Development > Casting Pre-Production
Modeling > Rigging > Basic Surfaces > Layout

Production
Character Animation > Effects

Post Production
The finishing touches

Comparing the Two
The two are very similar, which isn’t surprising since they are rival companies in the same market. Dreamwork’s development is similar to Pixar’s developement except for the Casting (Sound) and Visual Development (Reeling) is reversed. This isn’t a big deal, as it wouldn’t have a dramatic affect on anything. The Pre-production is again a similar process, following the same structure as Pixar’s Modeling > Scripting (Rigging) > Lighting (Basic Surfaces & Layout). Dreamwork’s Production slighty differs from Pixar, by have Character Animation and Effects instead of Render. They both have the same Post Production.

So overall the two have very similar production process, which was something I pointed out earlier. I would think that most animation studios have similar process’ as they seem to cover the same things.