Types of 3D Animation Techniques

3D Animation:

A distinct alternative to the 2D animations techniques are called 3D Animation or Stop-Motion Animation.

The classical technique is to create 3D object models out of malleable modelling material, such as plasticine and manipulate those objects in 3D miniature sets between shots to produce natural movement, gesture and otherwise impossible changes. This form of animation is often called Clay Animation.

There are four types of 3D Animation Techniques:
strong>i. Full Explicit Control: It is the simplest type of control where the animator either specifies simple changes like scaling, translation, and rotation or provides keyframe information and interpolation methods interactively.

ii. Procedural Control: It is based on certain kinds of behaviour that can be applied to objects and the way they interact. In a physically based system, the position of one object may influence the motion of another object. In such systems, objects are modelled with physical attributes such as mass, moment of inertia, elasticity, velocity, etc.

iii. Kinematrics: It is the study of the motion of bodies without reference to mass or force. That is it is only concerned with how things can move rather than what makes them do so. Animations of linked objects or joined structures are controlled by imposing kinematic constraints obeyed by real objects or structures.

iv. Tracking Live Action: This technique produces exceptionally realistic motion. Trajectories of objects to be animated can be generated by tracking live-action. One such method is rotoscoping. A film is made in which people or animals act out the parts of the characters in animation. Then the animator draws over the film, changing the background and replacing the human or animal actors with their animation equivalents.

In an alternative method, some sort of indicator or motion sensors are attached to key points on an actor’s body or boy suit. By tracking the position of the indicators or sensors, the animator can get locations for corresponding key points in an animated model.