Creating, Editing, and Rendering Animations

Back to Home Page

Taking Carrara To The Next Level
So you've gotten your toes wet creating a few dramatic stills/scenes, and you think you're ready to jump into the movie-making business!

Okay. So let's get started!

The Animation Creation Workflow
Creating an animation (movie or video) in Carrara involve all of the same activities described in Creating, Editing, and Rendering Scenes, and a whole lot more! This section builds on the how-to's provided in scene creation by describing features built into Carrara to help animate your scenes. If you can't find what you are looking for in this section of the wiki, be sure to go the section on rendering scenes.

And just as in creating scenes, while there are no specific rules about the order of doing these activities, in general, the following steps provide basic guidance in the animation creation process. Whether you are a beginner or expert, you will want to know how to do all these activities to produce quality animation results! This workflow is also highly iterative. In creating your movie, you will likely perform these activities many times, switching from working with the animation sequencer to adding objects, to adjusting shading effects, and then back to set-up, slowly refining and adjusting your animation to perfection.
 * Movie Set-Up, which involves setting the movie background and environment (just like in scene set-up), plus storyboarding, adding audio tracks, and using the sequencer to create your animation sequence.
 * Animating Objects in Your Video, which (just like in adding objects to a scene) involves modeling, importing, posing, and positioning "things" that appear in your movie. However, a number of features in Carrara allow you to animate your objects and even dynamically interact with their environment!
 * Animating Shaders, which (just like in scene set-up) defines how each object appears - its qualities such as color, texture, transparency, shininess, etc. But for animation sequences, there are a number of additional eye-bulging tricks and features you can add to your animation to create amazing effects.
 * Animating Lighting and Video Effects, to show off your objects properly (and to set the proper mood), including
 * Rendering Your Animation, which converts your animation sequence into a video file.
 * Post-Rendering Editing, which involves using video editing applications (like VirtualDub) to enhance and compress your video.
 * Publishing, so you can share your creative animation works with others!

Tips and Techniques for Creating Animations
