Animation Guide

Sup all my good looking animators (and others) and welcome back to another animation post!
This post will be about animating programs.
Table Of Contents

- Overview of Major Animating Programs
- Most Common to least Common
- Prices
- Tutorials

Lets get ready, shall we begin?

-----=OVERVIEW OF MAJOR ANIMATING PROGRAMS=----

Cinema 4D Overview

The first time I used Cinema 4D was after taking on a project that required 3D – and spending the weekend before production learning as much as I could about the software. Surprisingly, I was able to mock out designs and concepts within a few days – and by the end of the following week, was working on rounds of animation towards a final delivery the following week.
Far from needing to learn everything about it before starting, it allowed me to figure out enough to get to where I needed within a specific area of design, and the ability to get results fairly quickly even with very little knowledge of how everything worked.
That led to more projects involving 3D elements, and with each one, my knowledge expanded as my requirements were pushed. New challenges in a particular spot meant having to find solutions and forced me to learn new tools or better ways of doing things in order to achieve faster (and better looking) results.
That's the beauty of Cinema 4D — you don't need to know everything about it to get interesting results quickly, and in some instances, there aren't that many steps from original concept to final output. Some of us have carved out entire careers just focusing on glossy, solid-coloured shapes with Fresnel reflections set in monochromatic environments, a lot of which looks amazing despite (or maybe thanks to) its visual simplicity.
Others are able to tap into the infinite possibilities of the MoGraph module and – paired with animation, global Illumination or ambient occlusion – create a wide array of jaw-dropping, inspiring artwork that is as alive, full of character, and visually captivating — all of this with just a few elements in a scene. And that's just scratching the surface, because Cinema 4D allows a user to do much more — including rigging and character animation, physical simulations, physical camera renderings, particle simulations, and dive into more complex animations using various scripting and expression setups. Plus it plays well with other software.
Autodesk Maya Overview

Maya is an application used to generate 3D assets for use in film, television, game development and architecture. The software was initially released for the IRIX operating system. However, this support was discontinued in August 2006 after the release of version 6.5. Maya was available in both "Complete" and "Unlimited" editions until August 2008, when it was turned into a single suite.
Users define a virtual workspace (scene) to implement and edit media of a particular project. Scenes can be saved in a variety of formats, the default being .mb (Maya Binary). Maya exposes a node graph architecture. Scene elements are node-based, each node having its own attributes and customization. As a result, the visual representation of a scene is based entirely on a network of interconnecting nodes, depending on each other's information. For the convenience of viewing these networks, there is adependency and a directed acyclic graph.
Users who are students, teachers (or veterans or unemployed in USA markets) can download a full educational version from the Autodesk Education community.The versions available at the community are only licensed for non commercial use (once activated with the product license) and some products create watermarks on output renders. The software comes with a full 36 month license. Once it expires, users can log in to the community to request a new 36 months license and download the latest Autodesk product.
Additionally, a perpetual student license can be purchased for Maya. This license does not expire and the student version can be upgraded to the commercial version at a significant discount. It can be used even after the student graduates, the only restriction being non commercial use. No watermarks are created during output, making the student version of Maya suitable for portfolio creation. However, files saved with this version are recognized by all versions of Maya as files created by a student version. The perpetual student license also permits the creation of non commercial assets for non commercial use in game engines such as the Unreal Development Kit. The free student license does not allow this.

Blender Overview

Blender has a relatively small installation size, of about 70 megabytes for builds and 115 megabytes for official releases. Official versions of the software are released for Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and FreeBSD in both 32 and 64 bits. Though it is often distributed without extensive example scenes found in some other programs, the software contains features that are characteristic of high-end 3D software. Among its capabilities are:

• Support for a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshes, fast subdivision surfacemodeling, Bezier curves, NURBS surfaces, metaballs, multi-res digital sculpting (including maps baking, remeshing, resymetrize, decimation..), outline font, and a new n-gon modeling system called B-mesh.
• Internal render engine with scanline ray tracing, indirect lighting, and ambient occlusion that can export in a wide variety of formats.
• A pathtracer render engine called Cycles, which can take advantage of the GPU for rendering. Cycles supports the Open Shading Language since blender 2.65.
• Integration with a number of external render engines through plugins.
• Keyframed animation tools including inverse kinematics, armature (skeletal), hook, curve and lattice-based deformations, shape keys (morphing), non-linear animation, constraints, and vertex weighting.
• Simulation tools for Soft body dynamics including mesh collision detection, LBM fluid dynamics, smoke simulation, Bullet rigid body dynamics, ocean generator with waves.
• A particle system that includes support for particle-based hair.
• Modifiers to apply non-destructive effects.
• Python scripting for tool creation and prototyping, game logic, importing and/or exporting from other formats, task automation and custom tools.
• Basic non-linear video/audio editing.
• The Blender Game Engine, a sub-project, offers interactivity features such as collision detection, dynamics engine, and programmable logic. It also allows the creation of stand-alone, real-time applications ranging from architectural visualization to video game construction.
• A fully integrated node-based compositor within the rendering pipeline accelerated with OpenCL.
• Procedural and node-based textures, as well as texture painting, projective painting, vertex painting, weight painting and dynamic painting.
• Realtime control during physics simulation and rendering.
• Camera and object tracking.
  
  
  3DSMax Overview
  
  MAXScript

MAXScript is a built-in scripting language that can be used to automate repetitive tasks, combine existing functionality in new ways, develop new tools and user interfaces, and much more. Plugin modules can be created entirely within MAXScript.
Character Studio
Character Studio was a plugin which since version 4 of Max is now integrated in 3D Studio Max, helping users to animate virtual characters. The system works using a character rig or "Biped" skeleton which has stock settings that can be modified and customized to the fit character meshes and animation needs. This tool also includes robust editing tools for IK/FK switching, Pose manipulation, Layers and Keyframing workflows, and sharing of animation data across different Biped skeletons. These "Biped" objects have other useful features that help accelerate the production of walk cycles and movement paths, as well as secondary motion.
Scene Explorer
Scene Explorer, a tool that provides a hierarchical view of scene data and analysis, facilitates working with more complex scenes. Scene Explorer has the ability to sort, filter, and search a scene by any object type or property (including metadata). Added in 3ds Max 2008, it was the first component to facilitate .NET managed code in 3ds Max outside of MAXScript.
DWG import
3ds Max supports both import and linking of DWG files. Improved memory management in 3ds Max 2008 enables larger scenes to be imported with multiple objects.
Texture assignment/editing
3ds Max offers operations for creative texture and planar mapping, including tiling, mirroring, decals, angle, rotate, blur, UV stretching, and relaxation; Remove Distortion; Preserve UV; and UV template image export. The texture workflow includes the ability to combine an unlimited number of textures, a material/map browser with support for drag-and-drop assignment, and hierarchies with thumbnails. UV workflow features include Pelt mapping, which defines custom seams and enables users to unfold UVs according to those seams; copy/paste materials, maps and colors; and access to quick mapping types (box, cylindrical, spherical).
General keyframing
Two keying modes — set key and auto key — offer support for different keyframing workflows.
Fast and intuitive controls for keyframing — including cut, copy, and paste — let the user create animations with ease. Animation trajectories may be viewed and edited directly in the viewport.
Constrained animation
Objects can be animated along curves with controls for alignment, banking, velocity, smoothness, and looping, and along surfaces with controls for alignment. Weight path-controlled animation between multiple curves, and animate the weight. Objects can be constrained to animate with other objects in many ways — including look at, orientation in different coordinate spaces, and linking at different points in time. These constraints also support animated weighting between more than one target.
All resulting constrained animation can be collapsed into standard keyframes for further editing.
Skinning
Either the Skin or Physique modifier may be used to achieve precise control of skeletal deformation, so the character deforms smoothly as joints are moved, even in the most challenging areas, such as shoulders. Skin deformation can be controlled using direct vertex weights, volumes of vertices defined by envelopes, or both.
Capabilities such as weight tables, paintable weights, and saving and loading of weights offer easy editing and proximity-based transfer between models, providing the accuracy and flexibility needed for complicated characters.
The rigid bind skinning option is useful for animating low-polygon models or as a diagnostic tool for regular skeleton animation.
Additional modifiers, such as Skin Wrap and Skin Morph, can be used to drive meshes with other meshes and make targeted weighting adjustments in tricky areas.
Skeletons and inverse kinematics (IK)
Characters can be rigged with custom skeletons using 3ds Max bones, IK solvers, and rigging tools powered by Motion Capture Data.
All animation tools — including expressions, scripts, list controllers, and wiring — can be used along with a set of utilities specific to bones to build rigs of any structure and with custom controls, so animators see only the UI necessary to get their characters animated.
Four plug-in IK solvers ship with 3ds Max: history-independent solver, history-dependent solver, limb solver, and spline IK solver. These powerful solvers reduce the time it takes to create high-quality character animation. The history-independent solver delivers smooth blending between IK and FK animation and uses preferred angles to give animators more control over the positioning of affected bones.
The history-dependent solver can solve within joint limits and is used for machine-like animation. IK limb is a lightweight two-bone solver, optimized for real-time interactivity, ideal for working with a character arm or leg. Spline IK solver provides a flexible animation system with nodes that can be moved anywhere in 3D space. It allows for efficient animation of skeletal chains, such as a character’s spine or tail, and includes easy-to-use twist and roll controls.
Integrated Cloth solver
In addition to reactor’s cloth modifier, 3ds Max software has an integrated cloth-simulation engine that enables the user to turn almost any 3D object into clothing, or build garments from scratch. Collision solving is fast and accurate even in complex simulations.
Local simulation lets artists drape cloth in real time to set up an initial clothing state before setting animation keys.
Cloth simulations can be used in conjunction with other 3ds Max dynamic forces, such as Space Warps. Multiple independent cloth systems can be animated with their own objects and forces. Cloth deformation data can be cached to the hard drive to allow for nondestructive iterations and to improve playback performance.
Integration with Autodesk Vault
Autodesk Vault plug-in, which ships with 3ds Max, consolidates users’ 3ds Max assets in a single location, enabling them to automatically track files and manage work in progress. Users can easily and safely share, find, and reuse 3ds Max (and design) assets in a large-scale production or visualization environment.

-----------=MOST COMMON TO LEAST COMMON=----------

Cinema 4D (5,000 - 18,000 users)

Autodesk Maya (2,000-13,000 users)

Autodesk 3DSMax (1,000 - 10,000 users)

Blender (500 - 900 users)


-----------------------------=$PRICES$=------------------------------
Just saying not all of these programs are a quick buck.
Some of these programs cost money, and I mean alot of money but you can always get a student version for them.

Cinema 4D
Prime - $2000
Student Edition - $500

Autodesk Maya
Prime - $3000
Student Edition - Free

Autodesk 3DsMax
Prime - $3000
Student Edition - Free

Blender
Prime - Free

----------------------------=TUTORIALS=------------------------------

There are tons of tutorials out there to help you with animation.

Tutorials For Cinema 4D

TheRealLifeMC/Weedlion Rigging Tutorial



TheRealLifeMC/Weedlion Basics Tutorial


Tutorials For Maya

panzertank15 Maya 2013 Basics


CasanisPlays Maya Rigging Tutorial


Autodesk 3DsMax Tutorials

The3DSMaxChannel's Max Everything Tutorialshttp://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D3A5A9E3EB0EF0E

Tutorials For Blender

TheFilmMakingBros

Well thats all for now, hope this guide helps you guys out