Animation Software...

[Soraiku]

(Sorry for any mistakes...)

I'm a n00b, yet again, to this forum. Last time I was here----gah, well....u can hear my story in the New Members Thread.

Anyway, does anyone know what type of animation software they used to make Kingom Hearts, mainly their CGI movies, or their trailers....If that makes any sense. I'm guessing Renderman. Speaking of which...Renderman...thats the software they used to make some Final Fantasy Stuff but, does anyone know the software they used in FFX and any game above that also? A site/link wuld help. Thats it. (Thanks ahead of time for ppl who reply)--(and...sorry if this is in the wrong thread. I just went to Graphics and figured---u know what I mean.)

j
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[BlanK]

Maya is a popular 3D Animation program that was used. It was also used in the Spirits Within movie.

I'll have to ask a friend of mine just to be certain if there are any other software that they used since he is working on an RPG in Japan.

[Soraiku]

Yea, they used Maya, and I think Houdini, and some others. But please find out. And thanks for the reply. I guess.

j
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[Soraiku]

Sorry If I'm breaking a rule by sending another post after my own, if it does get the spot....on a friggin 56k conncection........!!! Ur friends working on an rpg in Japan?...thats pretty cool.

[Queen Kairi]

um, wat do you want to know for.

[Soraiku]

It's one of my fav. games. FFX. Of all time. And I was always curious, or just became curious of what software they used. So I can research it and see how it works. U kno try it. I do wanna pursue a career in Animation afterall. I hear RenderMan is really good...

[Koji]

For FFX, I think they used Maya 4.5
It's hard to use but you can eventually get used to it
You should get "The Art Of Maya" from Alias Wavefront if you're interested.
I dont know what they used for KH.

[BlanK]

Well here's my friend's input about rendering and 3D animation if you want to read it...

Technically, it can be done on most home computers these days. You think we 3D artists use supercomputers? Nope. Mega-renderfarms, maybe, but the computers themselves are off the shelf stuff. Surprised? Shouldn't be. But I get a good laugh everytime I hear someone brag about some franken-puter they built thinking they "need" it for high end graphics.

Then add a copy of Alias' Maya for modelling, Photoshop for the textures and shaders, and either render in Maya or a seperate renderer like Pixar's Renderman. Of course, anyone can just go buy the hardware and software. It takes an artist to get your stuff looking good.

Render time? Depends how complex and how big. A few minutes to over an hour a frame, again depending. And scenes are also rendered in layers, much like Photoshop's layers. The actual character, shadow layer, mask layer, background, it can go anywhere from 2 to over a 100 layers depending how complex your scene is. If you start throwing in motion blurs, render time goes up like crazy.

Our "old" render farm was made up of 960 Pentium III-933MHz workstations(hey, they were the fastest at the time). Took up a whole floor, had its own cooling system and we had to hire helicopters to bring in steel beams to support the floor(we were up in a 31 floor high building). Felt like computer powered gods.

If you ask me, there are too many different software out there - Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, and some companies just use their own software. The good thing is that most of the software you can buy at a student price.
G4's Attack of the Show did a show on Endorphin that you can download for free.

Anyway, like my friend told me before, in this day in age with a career in animation, its best if you just went to an art school for it. You can't just get by like you did before without a decent portfolio and some art skills.

[Soraiku]

Ok kool. Thanks Koji, and everyone who replied. I'd also apprec. If u guys continued this thread. Just incase someone else was wondering about software used, 2. I'll come back to add stuff eventually.

j
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[Soraiku]

Heh, so you were watchin the show too? AOTS! Thats why my curiosity arose, was because of today's AOTS. Yea, I tried downloading Endorphin, but i kept getting disconnected and it wasn't downloading at all. I'm on a friggin 56k Connection. We need some dam cable providers over here where I live. Semi-geeks like me need fast internet. (Sry If I broke another rule)

j
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[Dark Niwa]

Btw you can press edit sorai and blank your a pretty good sig maker

this stuff seems complicated IMO

i tried and failed to make a cube....

ps- you start off with one :( (in some free 3d program not the one you showed )

[Soraiku]

Dark Niwa....???Huh...oh the mistakes...Yea I go back and edit. I just say sry just in case I'm in a hurry and I forget to change something even after editing. And Blank, tite sigs. I need one. Think I shuld use photoshop? Wait, totally off topic.

j