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Back in the old days not too many people were familiar with the phrase "3D Computer Animation", only those few people who were involved in the movie industry or research and development institutes for science education, for instance, NASA, had the privilege to pioneer and explore the possibility of shaping the scenes that were considered infeasible years before, to generate any motion or movement of the objects or character animation close to realism. Who would have thought that computer graphics would play a major role in creating special effects for the movies. Well, it is a lot cheaper to build a spacecraft on a wireframe than to build a real model, cause you can always modify it later with the touch of a keyboard. The early animation software that was made available then could only be run on a high-end operating system, like UNIX which came with a high price tag and maintenance expenses.
As time went by, new animation programs emerged into the market from different companies who were being bought by other big companies and along with the continuous improvement of the PC processors which enabled performance of PCs that gradually upgrades to the point where it rapidly attracts artists to become more responsive to a new arena of animation that has enough power to run the software as efficient as those big expensive systems.
The only time we get to see a real 3D animation is when we go to the movie theatre or stay at home and watch a commercial on TV and people will get inspired and affected by the power of computer animation. Especially, when they integrate film with 3D objects and character animation plus special effects and sound, that really invites more young people to learn animation.
When it comes to choosing which 3D program to learn, it depends on each individual to decide based on their preference and the price of the program, the popularity of the software and how well you can absorb the whole concepts of the process. First, you need to do some research. If the program costs less than the others and can produce the same kind of results then why not. I find Lightwave very attractive, in many ways, it has personalities and capabilities of putting out more than what you would expect from the software that costs under 2,500 U.S. Dollars. The facial features of both modes, Modeler and Layout are displayed with simplicity of colors and a well defined arrangement of interface buttons, there is no hidden surprise behind those menu. There are plenty of plug-ins and tutorials out there where you can download from the internet for free to do certain tricks on your animation.
Whether you are the kind of people who prefer to learn the program by teaching yourself at your own pace, or people who enjoy being taught by others can also go to any school that offers this kind of training from the professionals, then Lightwave would definitely be a choice for you to consider. I find Lightwave's behavior amazingly makes sense, you build your models in a separate environment which supplies you the command buttons for modeling operation only. When you are ready to animate you can easily guide yourself into the layout environment, again all these buttons offer you sets of command and settings just for your animation scene, and you get to see how much it resembling to a real movie making.
It displays a camera, light, and actors which in this case you use 3D objects instead. With this user-friendly feature, it makes you feel as if you are a movie director and actually being present at the location.
Lightwave5.6 upgrade was released last spring by Newtek, introducing new features and a lot of functionality including enhanced rendering engine, stereoscopic rendering, support for Photoshop filters and much more. Lightwave5.6 runs smoothly and fast on WindowsNT5.0 which has not been released yet by Microsoft, but instead, the announcement was they are going to call in Windows 2000. I personally prefer using Lightwave over the other programs based on the fact that it is easy to learn. No matter what kind of professional you are, Lightwave can offer you many results of high resolution in 3D rendering for any architectural or conceptual design for prints. I have been satisfied with Lightwave and its performance since the first day I got my hand on and for the price of less than 2,500 US Dollars you can not go wrong with this program. LightWave 3D 5.6 is the "Best 3D software in Modeling, rendering and animation: LightWave excels at all three categories, which is why they rate it as the best all-round 3D package money can buy" "In most areas of computer art there is a recognized industry standard.." but do not take anybody's words for it, you must see it for yourself. For more information on Lightwave5.6, check out www.newtek.com.
Usually, most Lightwave3D animators before they start any new project they have to create some kind of storyboards to assist them in planning for the production which starts from building 3D objects, texture mapping, set up the scene including light and camera setting, to final editing of the animation. If your story involves any kind of special effects that require additional plugins that were not included by Lightwave program, you might have to purchase those particular ones from the-third party vendors, such as Impact, RealiTools, Fractalizer by Dynamic Realities and FX wave by Newave, etc., in order to achieve a realistic result. But if your just starting off as a beginner, it is a good idea to stick with a basic animation first which can deliver a competitive result of the industry standards.
Newtek did a pretty good job on designing the interface of Lightwave and how the program interacts with the users, that really makes this animation program easier to learn than the others. When you are in the modeler mode, you are supposed to be only working on the models looking at from 4 viewpoints. You can do a lot with basic primitive objects and a combination of sketch and pen tools to create astounding models by using the following operations such as positioning, flexing and deforming which are located under a modify tab, and extruding, sweeping, replicating are located under a multiply tab. But do not leave out this famous Boolean operation which is considered a prime tool for subtracting, adding, intersecting and unionizing objects together, this operation can only be done if the affected object is on active layer.
Lightwave lets you create and explore 3D modeling as far as your imagination can take you, whether or not you use a full capability such as character modeling with metaNURBS, Lightwave offers magnificent tools for all type of users whoever have a desire to learn. You don't have to be a professional, but if you decide to pick up a new hobby then Lightwave is probably one of the best software packages you have ever seen.
Some of us might prefer moving on to the action part, which is a layout mode in Lightwave. This is another good way of speeding up the process, in addition to what you already built and stored in your library, there are companies out there who have huge selection of 3D object in their libraries for sale, they are also available in many formats, and Lightwave object file (*.lwo) is one of them. You may even download them from the Internet for free, but first, make sure you read the agreement before start using it commercially without giving proper credits to the owners.
Poser3 was just released sometime earlier this year by MetaCreation; this program is excellent for any animator who needs to make a quick army of people. It has ability to sculptor and modifies basic character provided by the program so you can produce two totally different persons from the same original object from the library. Then you can export your character to lightwave as dxf, 3ds and obj. since Lightwave can import those files in its environment as long as you have the plugins (vsformat.p and trans3d.p) in your plugins\layout directory and you can always file the object as a Lightwave object later after you have already assigned and saved the texture areas.
Lightwave is extremely versatile 3D program available in the market since the very beginning, not only for 3D artists but if you are conceptual designers, architectures, CAD drafters, photographers, graphic designers, advertising agency, research and development, and so on, who have no need to animate anything will find this program very effective in whatever you do and it will bring out a good result for you and your work, especially Lightwave3D5.6 rendering engine to support ray-traced reflections, refraction and shadows can give anyone outstanding high resolution images which are the best second to your naked eyes.
I should also mention about the latest pride and joy from Newtek, which represents the state of the art that will make you think twice before you decide to buy any other graphic art softwares. Like what they said, A one-of-a-kind. Aura has many intelligent features that most light wave animators would want to get a hold of. You can adapt digital images to life in video and can be incorporated with Macromedia Director if you working on any multimedia. And if you are 2D animator using traditional cel animation, I think, you can blend these two features together and get a good result in 2D animation and character generation.
Stacking up layers of images is one of the finest features Aura has to offer, which is pretty close to Photoshop. You can save your layers separately or together for any modification you may have later. Once you get familiar with this program, you may not need to use other programs as much as you used to. There are more to it, the paint palette is so effective and the keyframe tools let you move images or elements through 3D space by using good old x, y and z coordinate.
Overall, Aura can replace or work as effectively as many softwares which already installed on your hard drive very easily.