- So I've recently released
my third animated short film, Tasteful, and I thought I'll
make a video showing all the different steps behind
making 3D animated short film, from start to finish. And explain them as simply as I can. So that even if you're
not from the animation and visual effects industry,
you'll be able to get an idea of what it takes to
make an animated movie. Oh, and there's a very
cool surprise at the end, so make sure you watch
it all the way through. So the first, and probably
the most important part of making any film, is a good story. If you don't get your story
right, then no matter how great your film looks, people
will not enjoy watching it. Make sure your story is
good and that it works, before you move on. And trust me, even if
you think it works now, it's gonna change a ton as we
move on with the production. So the first thing we do
after we have our story, is write it in a script. It's important to transfer
your idea into words as soon as you can, so that
you can spot any issues with your story, before
you get into production. There are a few programs you can use for writing your scripts,
like Final Draft or Celtx. I personally like to use
Scrivener, which is probably the best all-purpose
writing program there is, but the program doesn't really matter. Then once I wrote my script,
I try to create as many concept art pieces as I
can, to start establishing the visual style for the film. And when I say I, I mean my
concept art team, made out of awesome artists, who are
the ones who created all the concept art for the film. That's a really fun step
and the first chance you get to see parts of your film
come to life on paper. It's all about exploring
and trying things out. Next, is creating a
storyboard, which is probably one of the most important steps
in figuring out your film. Storyboarding allows you to
look at your film as a whole, and spot story and piecing issues. Making one also provides you
with something you can show other people, for feedback. Most people react better to
a storyboard than a script. At this point I tweak my
story, and make changes until I'm pleased with the
boards, and ready to move onto making it animatic. An animatic is the movie
version of your storyboard. Storyboard is more like a
comic book, and an animatic is like a movie. You bring all the boards
into an editing program and edit them with the correct timing. Add some temporary
music and sound effects, just enough to convey the
different story beats. When you're done with that,
you have the first version of your film, ready to watch. As great as a storyboard is,
an an animatic really gives you the first glimpse of what
your film is going to be like. Show it to people again, get
some more feedback, tweak the boards, the timing, and
the pacing, until you are very happy with how the film works. Then, it's time to get into a 3D. We start with modeling. Basically creating all the
digital models for the film. The environments, the sets,
the props, and of course, the characters. We use the concept art and
model sheets we created earlier, and model based on them. The models when first
created, can't really do much. We can place them in our scenes,
but they can't really move until we rig them. And that's our next step, rigging. When we talk about rigging
a model, we mean creating some kind of a digital skeleton
with different controls, to move it around. Before we rigged our models,
they were like statues. But now, they are more like
action figures, only with much more nuanced motions. The rigger makes sure we have
different controls for each part of the body and face,
sow e can create every action and expression we need. Then we bring our rigged
models into the 3D program, and start creating our shots. You place all the assets
where they need to be, and create a 3D camera
to capture the shot. You position the cameras
and characters in place, just like we would have
if we were shooting a live action movie. And then it's time to
bring life into the shots, with animation. Before I start the final
actual animation though, there is one more important
step in making sure the story works. And that is creating a previz,
or a pre visualization. This is the next
incarnation of our animatic. This time using your 3D models. W set up all the shots in the
3D program, with all the final camera angles in motion. And create very basic
animation for the characters. Just enough to convey the action they're supposed to be doing. Then we bring all these
shots to the editing program, just like we did with the
animatic, and we now have a previz version of our film, with the correct 3D
models and camera motion. This is really the last step
you can still make changes in, because animation takes a
very long time and it will be a huge waste if we had to
make story changes after that. So again, I show it to more
people, get some more feedback, and make sure I'm completely
happy with the film. And now it's time for animation. Animation is my favorite part
of the film making process. And that's where we finally
bring life into the film. The characters start to
move, and we can see the soul of the film come to life in front of us. It's an amazing thing to see. But it also takes a lot of
time, and done incorrectly, can ruin your film. Bad animation is like bad acting. Even if the writing and
story are solid, people won't see it if the delivery is wrong. The way we animate the characters,
is by moving the controls we created when we rigged the models. We manipulate those controls,
to get our characters in the right pose, create
a key frame, which captures that pose in the computer,
and then we move the controls to the next pose, and repeat. There's of course a lot
more technicality to it, but this is the gist of it. Then before we can export
our shots, we need to texture our models. That means creating
different materials we assign to the different parts of the models. Some that simulate metal, some plastic, and even a few for skin. We give them the right
colors and light up our shots with virtual lights,
replicating as closely as we can how lights work in the real world. One major light for the whole
scene, acting as a sunlight. And a few spotlights on
our points of interest, just like a movie set. Then when our shots are textured and lit, we start rendering. Rendering is the process
of the computer calculating all of the data in our scenes,
and creating still images from it. We then take those images
to a compositing program like Nuke or After Effects,
extract the necessary data, and pictures, and combine them
to create the final images. This process of rendering and
compositing is very technical and unfortunately too
complicated for me to get into in this video. But if you're interested in
that, search these two terms on YouTube, and you can
find some in depth tutorials on how the process works. So, back tour images. Once we have them, we bring
them back to our editing program and replace our previous shots
with our new finished shots, just like we replaced the
animatic shots with the previous. We are now able to see our finished film on the editing timeline
for the first time. But it's not really finished yet. We need to do some color
correction and grading. Color correction is the
process of manipulating the colors of each individual
shot, so that it matches the one that comes before it, and after. We also make sure each shot
doesn't have parts that are too white, or too black. Basically working so
that we get a consistent and correct color all throughout the film. Then we grade our film,
which is the more fun and creative part, in which we
try to create a visual style for the colors of the whole film, to give it a distinct look. I tried to push the pinks
and purples in this film, and created some kind of a washed out look with pastel colors, that I really like. Then, before we are done,
there are two major things we have to take care of. And ones that we have
probably been working on all throughout the production,
and that is sound design and music. I've been working with my musician from day one of production. Making sure the music fits what we're trying to do with the film. And making sure that the film
works with the music, too. A lot of the timing is
dictated by the music. Music is not usually something
you can slap on at the end. I prefer to have it with me
throughout the production, so it becomes an integral
part of the story. And then the sound designer finalizes all the film's sound effects, like folly, ambience and voices, as
well as mastering and mixing the final audio for the film. So this was a very quick
overview of what it takes to make an animated short film,
but if you wanna learn more, I have a cool surprise for you. . I've created a complete
30 lessons video course, detailing each of these
steps with much more depth, as well as a lot of other
topics related to making a film, like making a
poster, or a trailer, creating a website for the film,
how to submit to festivals, and much, much more. And it's completely free. If you enjoyed this video, you're probably gonna like the course. It is the only course in
our library, that is free. But trust me, it doesn't
feel like a free course. Go sign up at bloopanimation.com/making
an animated movie. (upbeat music)