Make a 3D Animated Short

In this Instructable, you'll learn to make an original 3D animated short.

Prerequisites

1. Understanding of 3D modeling (to modify the rigs and models you download as necessary, or to create your own)
2. Basic understanding of keyframe animation
3. Understanding of camera shot types (establishing shot, close-up, medium shot, wide shot, etc.)

Software and Assets

1. 3D animation software (Blender, Maya, etc.)
2. VFX/video editing software (iMovie, Adobe After Effects, etc.)
3. 3D character and background models as needed
4. Optional: Music

The first step is the "blue sky" phase of production, where you come up with an idea you'll make later. First, decide on the requirement(s) for your project. It could be as simple as mine, which was the open-ended topic of flight.

While brainstorming, write down every idea. Don't avoid writing one down just if you think it isn't good enough: it could turn in to something better later, and even if it doesn't, writing every idea encourages your brain to generate more ideas.

(I might have gone overboard with brainstorming: my document is three pages long! But more is better than less.)

Try to come up with a story or theme for your video. What impression do you want to leave on the viewer?

After you have many ideas down on paper, you can eliminate some (or combine some) according to your project's limitations (especially topic, time, and budget). Having your these limitations written down can help guide you later in the production pipeline, as you very likely will have to make tradeoffs.

Will purchasing 3D models or making them yourself better suit your project? If you are especially short on time, will modifying existing 3D models be a viable option? (Remember to use 3D models under proper royalty-free licenses to avoid plagiarism. If you are ever in doubt, check the licensing terms on the website. Also, only download from reputable websites–you don't want to give your computer a virus! My favorite places to get free 3D models are Fab, formerly known as the Unreal Engine Marketplace/Sketchfab, and Polyhaven.)

As I did, you may find it helpful to have a circular pipeline (workflow) that switches between storyboarding, animating, and post-production, going back to previous steps as needed.

Definitely one habit you want to build is called VERSION CONTROL!!! It means saving backups of your project in case you need to go backwards if a new method isn't working. Version control is pretty simple: every time you move onto a major new step, press Save As instead of the normal Save button. This creates a new file you can go back too if there's an error later down the line.

Starting with 01, name your files like this: 01, 02, 03, etc. Personally, I also like to include a little description (like "AddingTheWings" or "NewHair") after the numbers so I can easily go back to an old version if needed.

Understand that, during this project, you will probably run into challenges. It's okay if you don't know the solution to everything. It's okay to make a Google search, watch a tutorial about a topic, ask for help, or look up how other people solved similar problems. It's also okay to take breaks. Sometimes you get new ideas when you come back.

Once you have started to work on an idea for your video, make a storyboard to visually represent your thoughts.

A storyboards is a sequence of images used to plan a video. Since they're only used for pre-production planning, they don't have to be perfect. I recommend looking up images and videos of storyboards (or watching movie behind-the-scenes) to get an idea of how storyboards are used, and how they should look.

My storyboards are literal thumbnails–meaning each frame is actually the size of my thumb. Also, my storyboards are somewhat rough, but they communicate the point (the motion and camera angle in each shot). If further clarification is needed, you can include a short caption next to a frame. You can see final storyboard above.

Now that your storyboard is complete, animate to camera, don't animate to your eternally spinning viewport.

In other words, generally follow your storyboard, although you may find the need to update it.

As you animate, you will need to use reference to make your shots look believable.

Reference is not tracing or copying work exactly! That is called stealing and should never be done to other people's work.

In reality, reference for animation is research. In other words, it is noticing layers of detail in an action. For example, in this video of a lion above, I took note of a few things:

1. Several head shakes
2. Floppy ears
3. Flicks one ear after head shakes
4. Eyes close before and reopen after head shakes

You can see the main reference board for my video above. I use it during animation and storyboarding and keep it minimal as possible.

This is an example of real-life reference. It can be very eye-opening when you watch slow-motion videos, or go frame-by-frame in normal time videos. It can be very helpful for you to act out (and maybe record) what you want your character to do.

Another type of reference for animation is, well, animations. They can show you how animators stylize common themes (such as a cartoon character waking up). Sometimes you can find video breakdowns of a specific action, such as flying or jumping.

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During the animation process, you may realize that your 3D rig is insufficient for your project. From here, you have two options: update the rig, or change the storyboard.

Because of my project's requirements, I could not eliminate flight. Originally, the climax of the animation occurred when the wings snapped open and the lion recognized its power of flight. After several humorously annoying attempts involving re-re-parenting and completely re-rigging the wings from scratch, I realized that these wings were not designed to fold. With just one week before the deadline, I did not have time to make a new set of wings. I would have to change the storyboard. This inspired me to emphasize at the beginning how tired and unaware the lion was. Then, at the climax, I could contrast the beginning by making the lion alert and active as she came to her epiphany. For this to work, I added a simple "face rig" using shape keys in Blender to make the lion blink and scrunch up her eyes.

All this to say that technical challenges may make your animation better and force you to come up with new solutions. This happens on large productions as well: just watch their behind-the-scenes to see the struggle behind the final product.

A 3D modeling teacher of mine often said, "In 3D, you only make what you need." This is especially true of the backgrounds for our short films. Mine uses the VFX technique of set extension (matte painting) to create the space environment. Set extension reduces both render time and manual work.

In addition to visuals, the right music can enhance an animation. As you search for or compose music for your animation, keep in mind the emotional impression you decided to leave on the viewer in step 1.

My favorite way places to get stock music are the Splice mobile app (free), Epidemic Sound (subscription), and YouTube (sometimes free: always read the description throughly!) You can record the music on a smartphone by using its screen recording function. Alternatively, if you're into audio engineering, you can record the music by hooking up your phone to a mixer and outputting its signal to a DAW on a computer.

While editing your video, please do not get stuck in the viscious cycle of replaying your video without making any changes. It's addicting but unnecessary, and wastes valuable time. Anyways, the faster you finish this project, the sooner you can get to creating another one!

The last thing to add to your video is credits.

As always, consult the license for your 3D, 2D, and audio assets if you are unsure of how (or if) you need to credit.

Since licenses are quite long, I came up with a shortcut to find specifically what you're looking for. Use the keyboard shortcut CMD + F ("Find on Page") and search for words like license, attribution, or credit. If you cannot find anything using Find on Page, then you can skim the headings to find the section that you need from the licensing terms.

Great job sticking with the project this far! I hope you've learned a lot.

Here's my final result: https://youtu.be/X-I6rJqPfLM.