What’s the process followed for creating an animated video?

Photo by Afif Kusuma on Unsplash

Animation is a systematic activity with a step-by-step procedure. Just a ten-second animation clip could take a whole week to be created from scratch by a team of animators. Any basic course in animation would start by explaining the animation process. 

So, what are the various steps involved in the animation process?

1.    Research and Brainstorming

The creators, writers and animators come up with an idea for the story of the animation. Research is done to look into the specific aspects of the plot. The creators think about what will be the subject of the animation, who will be the primary & secondary characters and when & where the story will be set. They chalk out the basic outline as to where the story is going to begin and where it would end.

2.    Scriptwriting & Storyboarding

A sequential outline of the story is written with dialogues for each character and the happenings and occurrences that are going to take place in every scene. So, a script is essentially a textual form of how the animation is going to look like. 
 
Based on the script, a brief hand-made or computer-aided 2D sketch of every scene is created, known as the storyboard. The storyboard serves as the basis of all further animation steps.

3.    Dialogue Recording

To give life to the characters, voice-over artists record the dialogues of different characters, reading from the script. They add to the personality, expression and specific accent of the characters and this helps the animators to create exact mouth movements of the characters as they speak.

4.    Animation Production

At this stage, the actual job of animation begins. Firstly, a layout of the animation is created showcasing the characters’ size, shape and environment. For example, a 2D animatic is used as a layout for a 3D animation. 
 
After that, a geometric surface representation of each object is created in Modeling. Texturing is done to add surface properties to various objects. Rigging involves putting a bone structure into an object so that animators can move specific parts of that object. Lighting is done to set a certain mood for a scene or shadows of the objects & characters. Finally, all elements of the animation such as characters, objects, backgrounds etc. are separated into different layers in the process of Rendering.

5.    Animation Post Production

In this final stage, Composting is performed which puts together the different layers rendered previously. Visual Effects such as dust, raindrops, sparks, blasts etc. are added into the animation if required. Sound Effects are recorded for different objects and events of the animation sequence. 

In the end, the animation is combined with the sound and the VFX and final touches are given in Video Editing. Ultimately, the video is converted into the required video format, ready for use in different media.

These animation courses not only provide a detailed knowledge of the above animation process but also teach you to apply that knowledge to various kinds of practical projects! By joining a reputed animation training institute, you would get job-oriented training in the process of animation so that you can work on animated feature films with the topmost production houses and studios.