Higher Standards of 3D Animation in Video Game Design
Gone are the days of Koopa Troopas and fabulously 2D video game adventures. Now, it’s all about “dust particles glinting in the moonlight of ‘Genji: Days of the Blade,’” a recent Fox News article describes, and how to make war as gaming as realistic as technologically possible.
Contemporary Video Game Animation
Contemporary video gaming is not just about video games. The new Sony PlayStation 3 is also a computer, telephone, DVD/CD/MP3 player, web browser, digital and photo album.
But behind the hype of the new PS3 and its rival, Nintendo’s Wii, is some amazing video game animation, based on the studied art of 3D animation. Building detail and lifelike features into characters and the settings in which they perform is the goal is 3D animation, when previously, 2D animation sought primarily to entertain. The gaming audience is more sophisticated, the technology more advanced, and the competition for video game design jobs more intense.
Learning the Basics of 3D Animation
In a world where video games have their own commercials, the 3D animation has to be good. Many animators start off doing simple backgrounds or foundations for characters. Some even start out doing CAD designs for engineering departments.
The essence of 3D animation is modeling, and the best place to learn modeling is at animation school. Modeling is building objects in abstract space, and it’s the basis for the 3D animation seen in video game design, TV advertising, and most movies that use animation. Once you learn modeling and graduate from animation school, your career as a video game designer can begin.
