Animation has gone through many changes over time from simple entertainment. Nowadays, you also see the deployment of animation in advertising, education, technology, and more besides film & gaming. You may thank advanced technology for the improvement in the quality of animation you see today. However, creating animation with advanced software that a video animation company deploys still requires advanced skills, plus it takes ample time to produce animation, too. Thankfully, Virtual Reality (VR) addresses this problem that animators face.
The advent of extended reality technologies provides animators with the opportunity to create realistic animations through VR. Virtual reality is changing the way animators, such as video animation services, work in 2024. We shall also give you the reasons in this post to justify the aforementioned statement. Further, it is believed VR will take animation to new heights soon.
How Is VR Bringing a Change for Animators
VR is bringing a change for animators in different ways. Here is how it is changing the way for animators to work in 2024:
- VR Improves Spatial Understanding: VR exceeds the limits that 2D animation has with functionalities that ameliorate spatial understanding. It allows animators to come up with more intricate imagery once they immerse in virtual environments. VR with improved spatial understanding allows animators to rig and skin characters, in addition to posing them with complex details. Virtual reality allows for mimicking real life, which also aids in lighting and staging for enhanced impact.
Furthermore, VR provides animators with the convenience to deploy different animation methods. It helps animation experts create cartoons, photoreal graphics, and more with different themes. Improving spatial understanding for animators is one of the ways how VR is changing how animators work.
- VR Interfaces Enrich Productivity and Promote Better Collaboration: It takes a few hours to create just one scene with the aid of traditional interfaces contingent on the mouse and keyboard input. Contrarily, a VR-based interface allows animators to considerably cut production time. Plus, it allows animators to come up with animation while maintaining the quality of work. Nowadays, animators have access to VR tools, which allows them to animate keyframes in three dimension. In addition, animators can rig characters via VR tools.
Furthermore, VR tools allow animators to easily integrate 360 videos with animation data. What’s more? They allow animators to record the audio on the same platform, which also saves them ample time. Besides improving productivity, virtual reality also promotes improved collaboration among animators. VR lets animators effortlessly connect frames and make the whole production process more effective.
- Animators Know VR Apps Takes Viewing Experience to a Whole New Level: When animators see VR apps from the consumer side, they realize it transforms the viewing experience for consumers. VR apps provide a multi-sensorial experience to viewers while positively evoking their emotions. Not to mention, VR makes users completely immersed in stories by allowing them to interact with characters.
Put differently, VR surpasses linear narratives when it comes to getting better control of the story for viewers. Animators realize this fact and deploy VR apps to come up with specialized user experiences with VR stories. Besides, creativity is surely a key to attracting animation clients to promote your animation business. Fortunately, VR allows animators to use creativity to their advantage and attract more clients to their animation studios or video animation services.
Guide to Use Virtual Reality for Animation.
Today, the industry is familiar with various uses of virtual 3D animation. For example, you can use animation in VR ads, VR apps, and more. Further, it depends on your budget and project how you use VR in animation. In any case, the following are the uses of virtual reality in animation we want you to know about:
- VR Videos: Animation in virtual reality movies is the basis of everything you see on screen. 360-degree VR is also getting very popular, which allows viewers to get a more immersive experience. Moreover, it looks like animated videos deploying VR cartoons that target children are equally good to entertain adults.
- VR Games: VR has a dominant position when it comes to animation in VR games. Multiple animation trends exist today; however, motion capture and CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) are widely popular. Besides, all animations in VR are CGI, which entails a manual process, unlike motion capture.
- VR Apps: Animators deploy a variety of software while making VR apps. Facebook’s Quill, Blender, Unity, etc, are all VR apps or tools with limitations.
Virtual Reality Animation Ideas
When it comes to animation ideas for virtual reality, there are different ideas that are unique with distinct benefits. The following are different types of virtual reality animation ideas that a video animation company follows for accomplishing distinct VR animation projects for their clients:
- CGI VR Animation: CGI VR animation is a visual style, which looks similar to 3D animated video games and films. More often than not, animators use CGI VR animation to create fantastical worlds.
- Stylized VR Animation: Stylized VR animation has many uses, which proves useful to market a brand to the target audience with engagement. You can engage the audience and make them take your message seriously with the aid of stylized VR animation.
- Mixing VR Animation with Live Action: It is probably the simplest and the most useful way when it comes to deploying VR animation. It is an excellent idea to use VR animation with live-action if your animation greatly relies on realistic and live-action visuals together.
- Whiteboard Virtual Reality Animation: You can use whiteboard animation in VR, too, to tell a story or explain a complex idea. Moreover, whiteboard videos in a VR environment make whiteboard videos even more exciting to watch.
- Short Films and Interactive Virtual Reality Animation: Typically, VR animations fall into types, including short films and interactive animations. Further, short film VR animations adhere to a more traditional viewing approach with viewers in a virtual world. Contrarily, interactive VR animations actively encourage the viewers to get involved in the animation.
Virtual Reality Best Animation Software or Tools
You can find a surfeit of VR developer tools today, and you may thank their creators for it. Moreover, the following are the nine most handy VR animation software or tools that a video animation company deploys besides individual animators. Further, they are also available in 2024:
- Unity: Unity is a foremost VR development tool that people use to create games like Pokémon Go and others.
- Blender: It is a free and open-source 3D software suite that people confidently use for VR development.
- Maya: Maya is a professional software program for 3D animation & modeling. Further, it is also capable of creating VR environments. Besides, it is also a popular software for coming up with high-quality 3D logo animation.
- Unreal Engine: Unreal Engine is also a complete suite of developer tools with VR compatibility.
- A-Frame: It is an open-source web framework for generating 3D VR experiences.
- VRTK: It is a virtual reality toolkit with many “Unity,” scripts that provides solutions to problems that may arise during the VR animation development phase.
- OpenVR: It is a VR SDK (Software Development Kit) and application programming interface which serves the function of acting as a layer between VR devices and applications.
- Amazon Sumerian: Amazon Sumerian is a platform for creating top-notch VR experiences, such as 3D animation, very interactive environments, and more.
- echoAR: echoAR is a cloud platform for both Augmented Reality (AR) and VR. It aids in quickly building marketing-ready 3D apps.
Exploring the Benefits of Virtual Reality in Animation
We have already mentioned how VR is changing the way animators, such as video animation services, work. Let us recap those ways or benefits of VR in animation:
- VR Ameliorates Spatial Understanding
- VR Enhances Productivity and Promotes Collaborations
- VR Transforms the User Experience
In addition to the above benefits, VR opens doors for animators with many creative possibilities.
Summing Up
With the advancement in VR, we can expect to experience more intuitive user interfaces in the future that follows. Animators in the future will have more advanced VR tools with diverse applications, such as 3D animation in VR, logo animation, and much more. To finish, animators and users will benefit more from VR animation soon with more advanced VR tools.
