3D Animation
3D Animation & CGI
3D animation or CGI (Computer Generated imagery) allow for photo realistic imagery, whether stills or in video format. Ideal for when filming isn’t possible, or when you want to do something that physics wouldn’t allow.
The Rockadove animation team model, texture, and animate products, scenes and abstract objects with no limitations to what can be done. 3D animation is a great marketing tool by combining inspired art direction with unlimited animation flourish.
3D animation process
Working to your brief our creative team will use their ideas, knowledge and experience to develop suitable creative routes for your project. Once presented, you can feedback and we can narrow down until we find that magic idea that works perfectly for your requirements.
If you don’t already own a CAD model, we will fully sculpt your product, to create a digital 3D model replica. Depending on the video requirements, this might be a simple hollow model, or if needs be, we will model each and every tiny element inside also, from screws to microchips, allowing us to pull it apart in the animation.
A crucial stage in 3D modelling is texturing each individual element so if looks correct. Whether a texture is shiny or rough, fluffy or smooth, matching this level of detail will make or break the photo-realism of the model.
Similar to a film project, each scene then needs to be lit to illuminate the models in the correct way and provide a cinematic look and feel that is suitable for the project.
Our animation and creative teams will fully storyboard what happens throughout the animation, to allow for client feedback and approvals, but also to visualise how the scene will animate and transition.
Animating in 3D space opens up a lot of exciting opportunities, however it is a much more thorough process than 2D animation, which is why approval stages are so important, signing off the storyboard in advance.
Often overlooked is that 3D animation and CGI needs rendering; this is the process of the computer rendering out each pixel of that image, taking into account its textures, how the light interacts with that texture and it’s surrounding elements.
A CGI still can take anything from minutes to an hour to render. So imagine rendering 25 images per second of animation…it can take a while! This can be a time consuming process, which is where we use multiple rendering machines to speed it up, but typically we are looking at days of time per project.
Once animated and rendered, our post-production team would tighten up the edit, add music, sound design and colour grade, similar to the final stages of a filmed project.
View a selection of our animation projects:
How we work
After a kick-off meeting, where we will ensure we fully understand the brief, your requirements and gather key messaging for the content, our in-house team can get started. Full production will be managed by our project team at Rockadove, meaning your involvement can be as much as you are able to, or desire.
We love to work collaboratively with our clients, as this allows for fluid communication and input from everyone involved throughout a project, but we have a thorough animation process that we have developed over the last 14+ years that ensures you have visibility and opportunity to feedback and sign off throughout a project.
Rockadove demonstrated an excellent understanding of the brief and developed an inspiring suite of creative concepts. The 3D production quality was impressive and the campaign delivered excellent results.” – ROCKWOOL