Why Animators Must Test Their Pipeline Early

Test Render from "Animal Lover"

Part of the process of making an animated film is to test your pipeline thoroughly, so that you can rely on it to render out all your shots on time.

Rendering, as our head of Games, Simon Fenton, memorably puts it: "...is when everything starts to go wrong".  At Escape Studios, just like on production, we have deadlines, and those deadlines must be adhered to.

CG Supervisor

Quarantine Chorus - rendered in Unreal Engine

For animators working in teams to make a short film, it's essential to assign the role of CG supervisor. This is usually (though not always) the person on the team with the best tech skills.  That individual then becomes responsible for delivery of final lighting and rendering of all the shots in the film, solving problems along the way and finding solutions.

Render Early and Often
The key to success is to render early and often. Lighting and render tests should be based on the look and feel of the project, as set out in the Mood Boards and later in the Colour Script that the Art Director has put together for the project, to determine the look and feel of the lighting. Working with the Art Director, the CG Supervisor determines what the render pipeline will look like, and what renderer to use.  As an executive I once worked for used to say: "the trouble with animation is that it's always too early to tell or too late to change." The key to solving this riddle is early render tests.

"Hat Shop", rendered in Unreal Engine

Which Renderer?
There are many renders to choose from. Here at Escape Studios we generally use the ray-tracer Arnold, which comes bundled with Maya,  or Unreal Engine, or occasionally Redshift.

Unreal Engine involves more time up front optimising the scene files, but saves a lot of production time at the end - which is when you need it most - because your renders take place in real time. The Arnold ray-tracing pipeline is simpler to use, but takes time, and is prone to error.

The important thing is to settle on a renderer and then test each shot repeatedly so that problems can be identified early enough for solutions to be found. If you leave your render tests until the end, you are taking a big risk.

Hat Shop

Film-making Resources
For more information on making animated short films, follow the links below:

• Why Animators Need Mood Boards
• Why Animators Need Colour Scripts
• Managing Group Projects
• Why Animators Must Wreck Their Rigs
• Why Animators Must Check Their Hookups
• How to Record Voice-Overs
• What are CBBs? (Could be Better)
• How to Create the Perfect One-Sheet Movie Poster (and why you need one)
• Getting Listed at IMDB

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.  To apply for our storyboarding evening class, visit this page here.  For the next 12 week animation course, click here.