by Jordan Miller

Created on: October 09, 2008

The Beginner's Guide to 3D animation software.

1. Getting the Software

One word: Blender. (http://www.blender.org/)

It's an open-source 3D animation software, which is quite handy for beginners for several reasons:

- It's free. No strings attached. No loss of features one has to pay for to get. It's already a complete package.
- There is a vibrant community that is more than willing to help with any questions.

- Feel like messing with the source code? Go ahead! Though it's a bit over the head of most people, the opportunity is there.

If a more professional program is wanted, try a few demos of other programs. Maya, Softimage, and other such programs offer demos just to get a taste of what the program offers before spending hard earned cash on it. However, Blender is still a good first place to start.

2. Learning the Software

Once the software is obtained, just mess around with it a bit. Find out what button does what. Try and figure out as much as possible. Then, once boredom sets in, read the manual.

I kid you not. Read. The. Manual. If there's a nice shortcut page listed in the tabs, glance at everything else first.

Tutorials are a necessity when it comes to learning software. The internet is still a wonderful plethora of information, and a quick Google search will reveal many, many starting points in learning the software. Be patient and slowly work through the ones that are interesting, learning along the way. It will take a while, as 3D software is very complex. Perseverance is the key here, as it will pay off in the end.

3. Creating the animations

Here, one should be familiar enough with the program just enough to make some sense of all the panels and buttons. Now here is where the urge to make a two hour epic movie may set in. This urge must be ignored. There are several ways to start refining 3D skills:

-Take the audio from favorite movie scenes, then animate to it. Try making it slightly different form the movie. For instance, set it in a western setting if the movie belongs to the science fiction realm. Make the characters blocks with faces and invoke emotions through those faces. Be interesting with this.
- Tell a bedtime story or a poem. Most of them are short and doable, so long as it is not overdone.

- Don't upload this early stuff to the internet UNLESS you want it to be critiqued. People will point out mistakes and suggest corrections to these animations, so take this information in and work with it.

Once you know your way around 3D animation, taking the next wanted direction is entirely up to you.

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