storyboarding 3D

Planning is essential to keep both the production workload and the final filesize of the 3D movie to a minimum. At the beginning, we like to sketch out any wild idea that may pop into our heads. We're not too concerned with filesize or performance at this point, just a good idea. Once we have that, we can break down the animation into its essential parts and accurately predict whether it's realistic and worth trying. Here are some issues we address at this point in the storyboarding phase:

• Conceptualizing the 3D object. "Is it even necessary for the object to be in 3D?" This is a simple but important idea to keep in mind. 3D can add quite a bit to a Flash movie, but is often employed merely as a "wow" factor. Make sure the 3D element has grown out of the overall concept of the piece. Otherwise, it's just icing on the cake (and extra production time).

• Determining the keyframes. As in traditional animation, we need to sketch out a storyboard that most clearly describes the motion of an object ”in this case, a 3D element. We draw or record only the most extreme instances of the motion, which are referred to as keyframes. Practically speaking, this translates into "how the audience is going to view the object." If only the left side will be shown, then there is no need to output images of the opposite side ”in fact, there's no reason to build any part of the object that is hidden from view.

Ultimately, the time we save with good storyboarding proves its importance. The more accurate the keyframes, the more time we'll save in the modeling stage of the process.