How is CGI created?
CGI or Computer Generated Imagery is how many movies and the framework of video games are made these days. This is the result of the power that computers have now, and it avoids the tedious methods that had to be used in the past: Stop Motion Animation, Puppet Animation, Clay Animation, and a host of other animation techniques that require a lot of work to achieve. With the advent of high-powered computers and animation software, most anyone can accomplish animation. This software includes: Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, E-on Vue, and Poser. These are some of the software titles that allow the creation of 3D models, including people, animals, creatures and objects, and natural and man-made scenes. Some of these software packages are expensive, but some are not. Good examples of less expensive 3D modeling software are Poser and DAZ Studio. Some are free (open-source) such as Blender, FreeCAD and TopMod.
Most of these packages can create animation. Autodesk's Maya is one of the more popular--and professional--computer animation software widely used for computer gaming and animated movies. Using this software, an animator can create the models and the backgrounds needed in typical computer games and then animate them into a complete movie.
The models (people, animals, creatures etc.) are built up from basic shapes like cubes, spheres, and other shaped objects. These shapes can be morphed, manipulated, and stuck together to create a solid 3D object. Texture mapping allows the designer to create skin, scales, cloth, and other textures. Cloth shaping functions allow the creation of clothing and accessories. 3D modeling software is capable of creating very realistic looking people.
Lighting functions allow adjusting the direction, intensity and the color of the lightening in a scene. This even provides the ability to change the lighting during animation.
Rendering is the operation that takes a designer's scene and converts it into imagery. The rendered scene than becomes a .jpg file. Animation is also rendered on a frame-by-frame basis to create an video file as a .mp4 or .vid file. Comic animation software includes Anime Studio and Toon Boom Studio.
How is animation done? This is interesting because animation hasn't changed all that much from back in the days when the individual scenes were drawn and then photographed with a movie camera one frame at a time. Basically, animation software allows the designer to move the 3D objects a tiny bit and then record the scene and then do this incrementally to create the entire animation sequence. During these individual frames, the designer can move or change the background, the lighting, the camera position and the characters. This frame-by-frame manipulation is the tedious part. Remember that modern video is played at between 25 and 48 frames per second. That's how many individual frames one has to make per second, but the software helps by smoothing motion in many skipped (in-between) frames.
Adding sound is a separate operation. The soundtrack is added in the background and voice is added as the character's mouth is moved. The software is capable of moving the character's mouth to match the vocal sounds, making it relatively easy to do.
Obviously, making CGI requires skill and artistic ability. It also requires a lot of patience. That's why most CGI rendered movies are made by a large group of people and then combined into the final product. The good news is that a budding moviemaker can get into the act of creating a totally synthetic motion picture, but be prepared for a steep learning curve. Believe me, I know because I've worked with some of the rendering and animation software, and it isn't easy.
Thanks for reading.