Technical Animation

The first priority is the goals you have set for your technical animation project. Usually it is to explain something clearly, or to depict an upcoming project's final result in an accurate way for others to review. Sometimes you need "beauty shots" that can do double duty as marketing imagery along with its original use - explaining a product or process with a descriptive industrial animation. Trinity has experience with many options for the best way to show a complex process, including cutaway, x-ray, exploded view, 2D/3D techniques, camera travel or cutting/transitioning, movement via flow paths and many more.

Based on your goals and project plans (including your budget and deadline) our project coordinator can help develop a proposal that is perfect for your needs.

Often there is existing imagery or movies that have some elements that you wish to use as a starting point for your technical animation. Such reference imagery is very helpful in communicating to our artists the look and style they should be working toward. Often a client will have many references for the industrial animation, with each defining the appearance or movement of a single element (i.e., how a rusted panel should appear, how an electric signal in a wire should be depicted visually, etc.).

If you are unsure of this, it's no problem - our artists are excellent at considering options and developing a look that is appealing and that also serves your needs for the project.

The animators begin building the 3D virtual models that make up all the elements that will be seen in the technical animation. If you have provided CAD or similar 2D or 3D drawings for your project, these will be imported and the "hero" 3D model will be constructed over this to keep it perfectly accurate. If you need rather generic environmental elements such as a suburban neighborhood or a power substation, we already have a large library with detailed models that will likely suffice, reducing the cost of your descriptive technical animation significantly.

With the models built and accuracy confirmed, the next step is to light and color the scene. Our artists factor in accuracy, beauty and clarity for the viewer so that the process being explained is always optimal. For example, in underwater scenes we often include sunlight dappling on the seafloor, distance fog, light beams and floaters, but never in a way that distracts or diminishes from the actual process or product that is at the center of your industrial animation.

With everything built, lit and colored, the technical animation can be set up. The mindset of the animator is just like a director - where should we put the viewpoint (camera) to best explain it? How fast should it move? Should we travel to a new spot, or just dissolve or cut to that point? Much of this is approximated from an industrial animation script that starts the project off, but many fine points are tuned in by the artist as the industrial animation is built.

Often your project will require narration and we offer a dozen experienced voice talents as one option. You may choose to select a voice talent and have them send their audio files. We also frequently coordinates foreign translation and narration services (by native speakers) for virtually any language.

For evaluation of the near-final result, an evaluation package is provided to you containing full HD renders from sample points in your project (typically every 30 or 60 frames). We also create a full animatic (a kind of preview movie file) that allows you to fully judge the movement and timing.

Next you'll review and revise the work in progress. We always budget for a major and a minor review phase for our technical animation. Our project coordinator will note all the needed changes and confirm these in writing via email. Usually the final edits are fairly quick and then the full industrial animation is computed (rendered) on our computational "farm." The finished movie file is sent to you in the format you have selected.

In addition, many clients request large resolution printable images from various points within the technical animation. These can be used for all manner of additional marketing, including print, trade show banner, web, or even coffee cups and t-shirts.