Guide to Making a 3D Animated Character for Your Movie

Making a movie's 3D CGI character requires both artistic and technical skills in 3D modeling, character design, and animation. It is essential to note that unlike in 2D animation, which can be readily produced even with a computer with regular technical specifications, a 3D animation project, regardless of being showcased as a stereoscopic 3D release or as a standard 2D motion picture release, generally requires powerhouse computers and more artists working long hours. When making your own 3D animated character for a movie project, it is important to know how to build 3D models and how to combine them with other 3D elements to complete the movie's characters, props, sets, and backgrounds.

1. Create a concept of how you want your 3D animated character to look. This may be a hand-drawn image, a digitally-drawn image, or a combination of both. Ideally, this concept art must reflect how the character should look based on the script or story used for the project.

2. Collect your 3D-modeling data and import them into the computer, using your 3D modeling software of choice. These data may include those acquired from the motion-capture camera or those acquired from a 3D-scanned scale model. If the project didn't use any of these, your data may simply be concept artworks from the artists involved in the production and important notes during pre-production meetings. These are mostly inputs coming from the director and the other members of the creative team. These guide you when making the 3D character so that it looks the way the production envisions it to be.

3. Build your 3D model using your selected 3D-modeling program. Serving as the skeletal system of your character, this is essential in finalizing the character's look and also in allowing it to properly move through manual keyframing during the production's animation stage.

The 3D modeling process requires the creation of "avars" or hinges, which are small points that compose the character's skeletal system. These small, interconnected points are set in a 3D space and they work as bones and joints that can be moved during the character animation process. They form various geometric entities such as lines, triangles and curved surfaces, which are needed to finalize the animated character's look.

4. Shape the body into its final form. Incorporate the skin and all other body parts to cover the 3D model's avars. Put the clothes and other identifying elements and marks to establish both the character's physical attributes and personality.

5. Incorporate the animated character in the scene where there are already sets, props, and other visual elements meant to create a believable world for the project's story. Unless you are also working on the background design, props, sets, and other visual elements found in the scenes, all of these are created by other artists at about he same time you started working on your animated character.

Using the animation program's virtual camera, block your animated character in specific areas of the scene where it should appear.

6. Animate your character by using the 3D model's avars to control its movements and expressions. Using the process called "rigging," the model uses a number of controllers and handles to carry out the character's moves, expressions, and reactions.

7. Incorporate the final lighting, shading, color, and texture to all the visual elements in each scene, including all your 3D animated characters. By this stage, these characters should already show their final looks for the project.