3D cartoon animation is a blend of the old and new. Whereas traditional animation was done with individual hand-drawn frames, modern animation renders transitions between frame states automatically using software.
Today’s cartoon animation software enhances artists’ productivity by making animation much faster to create than hand-drawing dozens of pictures per second of viewing time. Software allows for faster character creation and experimentation, including rigging that programs a character’s movements and rendering features that simulate complex lighting effects and camera movements.
Traditional 2D animation depicts movement in a two-dimensional space by sequencing many frames in rapid succession. Each frame includes all characters, backgrounds, and any special effects in a flat, 2D space. By contrast, 3D animation adds depth to a scene or frame. The characters, backgrounds, landscapes, and special effects are positioned in scenes of 3D spaces, and viewers perceive them as they perceive the dimensions of the real world.
Whether for 2D or 3D work, cartoon animation software like Autodesk Maya lets animators work smarter by automatically rendering transitions between frame states, simulating complex motions like the movement of water and smoke, and simplifying the movement of characters, camera positions, and light sources. With software, cartoon animators can iterate scenes until they’re perfect, re-render scenes with changes to characters or objects, and basically create anything they can imagine.
While making truly great cartoon animations can take years of training and a lifetime of craft, anyone can create their own animations in a handful of steps, made easier by advanced cartoon animation software.
The process often begins with character design, including sketches of characters from multiple angles, fleshing out their distinguishing traits like facial expressions, physical features, and clothing style. With both 2D or 3D modeling for characters, a vital next step is rigging—the process of laying out a skeletal framework of “bones” and “joints” within a character model, which is used to dictate the connected movements of a character’s body. Rigging includes skinning, which binds the character’s mesh model to the rig.
Next comes the animation process, which may involve a first step of storyboarding to roughly outline the sequence of events in an animation. Scenes, or the environments characters will inhabit, also need to be made. Animating events includes establishing keyframes, or the main poses for characters and objects at key points in the action, followed by “tweening” or filling in the frames between keyframes, and secondary animation movements for the motion of things like clothes and hair.
Finishing the animation includes the crucial step of rendering, which exports the animation as a video file. Rendering software allows important effects that enhance the realism of the cartoon, such as lighting effects, camera angles, and camera motion. Finally, the rendered animated video is subject to postproduction like adding sound effects, music, and voices, as well as video and audio editing.
Learn more about the different types of cartoon animation software from Autodesk.
With animation tools like Autodesk Maya, cartoon animators get advanced capabilities that make character animation more efficient and collaborative for iterative development. Its full toolset includes 3D modeling, sculpting, rigging, texturing, shading, and the animation itself. Together, these features help artists create their most imaginative characters with lifelike expressions and physics-based movements, while workflow optimization makes character modifications quick and easy.
Image courtesy of Anushka Tina Nair and Lauryn Anthony
Animation software that specializes in building expansive, immersive worlds, such as Autodesk 3ds Max, empowers artists to create breathtaking environments and landscapes. It also has powerful tools for visualizing intricate architecture and character prop designs, such as retopology and material variants tools. 3ds Max also helps save time by automating certain repetitive tasks for environment design.
Image courtesy of Rashed Abdullah
Maya includes the Bifrost visual programming environment that provides cartoon animators with a method for producing spellbinding special effects based on complex physical simulations. With these visual effects (VFX), artists can convincingly animate movements like flowing water, billowing smoke and explosions, the dynamic movement of hair and clothing, and other environmental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) effects.
Image courtesy of Ludovico Totire
Discover top software tools and features for cartoon animation available with Autodesk products.
Whether using keyframe animation or motion capture animation, Autodesk’s feature-rich software makes cartoon animation more efficient, so that animators can iterate fast, without halting their creative flow. For example, the powerful character rigging function known as weight painting makes character movements more realistic, while forward and inverse kinematics (IK) make animating a rigged character more efficient and true-to-life. Taking advantage of all the animation tools available in software makes it less tedious to animate complex movements like emotive facial expressions, gestures, and other body mechanics.
Media and entertainment industry professionals at the highest level rely on Autodesk animation software, but the programs offer user-friendly interfaces that allow cartoon animators of all levels to realize their artistic visions. The modern workspaces and artist-friendly workflows of Autodesk animation software feature customizable interfaces that let each person optimize their creative environment.
Both Maya and 3ds Max integrate the advanced Monte Carlo ray tracing rendering software, Autodesk Arnold, the professional solution for exercising full artistic control over cartoon animation renders. Arnold’s simple and intuitive controls help animators manage complex projects and achieve their artistic vision, whether it’s stunning photorealism or uniquely stylized cartoons. Arnold’s full complement of features includes advanced shading and illumination support to realize lifelike lighting and shadow effects, as well as textures. Volumetric rendering makes gaseous effects like fog, smoke, and clouds look their best. And ray-traced curves enhance the most minute details like hair and fur.
Autodesk cartoon animation software integrates into nearly any digital content creation pipeline, thanks to its support for many interoperable file formats that allow easy data and asset sharing between programs. Both Maya and 3ds Max support importing and exporting many standard 3D modeling and animation file formats, such as the popular FBX, glTF, CAD formats, and Universal Scene Description (USD), also known as OpenUSD. The open-source USD is a growing industry standard for streamlining collaborative work amongst teams on complex 3D scenes with huge amounts of data.
Scale your studio’s rendering and simulation capabilities, while equipping artists with powerful modeling and animation tools
Learn how artists use Autodesk cartoon animation software to bring characters and worlds to life.
SILHOUETTE
A team of student filmmakers used Autodesk Maya to combine 2D and 3D animation to create a haunting effect in their 2024 Visual Effects Society Student Award-winning animated short, Silhouette.
Image courtesy of the Silhouette team
LOCUS ANIMATION
Learn how LOCUS Animation Studio, a leading Korean 3D animation studio, uses Autodesk Maya to create engaging animated content for a range of audiences within a flexible, customizable pipeline.
Image courtesy of LOCUS Animation
MIKROS ANIMATION
Mikros Animation shares how they push the boundaries of storytelling in animation and seamlessly balance technology and art with the help of Autodesk Maya animation software.
Image courtesy of Mikros Animation
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Learn more about cartoon animation software with these top questions frequently asked by users.
Like traditional handmade animation, CGI cartoon animation works by designing your world and the characters that inhabit it—all with a style of their own.
Rather than hand-sketching or sequentially painting every frame, cartoon animation is the process of using motion, lighting, and camera position parameters and rules in software. The computer then automatically renders each frame, breaking motion down into changes between frame states.
There are many advantages of using cartoon animation software. Here are just a few of the ways you can work smarter:
In 2D animation, artists create the illusion of movement in a flat, two-dimensional space by sequencing dozens of drawings per second over time. Traditional 2D animation originated in the 1800s and features hand-drawn scenes for every frame, including characters, backgrounds, and any special effects.
Today, most 2D animation is digital animation produced with cartoon animation software, which allows artists to create two-dimensional environments and animations on a computer, drawing directly onto a mobile tablet device or a drawing hardware peripheral like a Wacom tablet.
In basic terms, 3D adds depth to a scene or frame. Traditional animation comprised flat, two-dimensional drawings, with drawn-in background elements providing the illusion of depth.
3D cartoon animation software builds a 3D space to situate characters, landscapes, backgrounds, and other elements necessary to build the story of a scene. Those elements are positioned in the space, and viewers’ eyes respond to those 3D spaces the same way as real-world environments.
Yes, you can import and export files between different animation software programs, as long as the different software products have in common at least one of the various file formats available, such as FBX, OBJ, or Alembic. The industry-trusted cartoon animation software Autodesk Maya supports those formats, as well as others such as Universal Scene Description (USD), also known as OpenUSD, the growing open-source industry standard for importing and exporting complex 3D animation scenes.
Aside from compatible file formats, importing and exporting files requires that each software program supports any plug-ins or add-ons used for the file and settings such as frame rate, resolution, and compression.
There are many good cartoon animation software options for beginners. What will work best depends on individual needs such as ease of use, skill level, budget, and so on. For absolute beginners, Pencil2D offers the basics of animation. Synfig Studio is good for those wanting to make 2D animation.
Beginners who aspire to work in professional environments could start out with tools with professional capabilities. The open-source software Blender and OpenToonz are both options but are also known to have steep learning curves. Dedicated beginners who want to start on pro software programs used in creating blockbuster animation films can look into Autodesk Indie software. These programs, Maya Indie and 3ds Max Indie, are the most affordable way to access industry-trusted cartoon animation software.
The system requirements for running cartoon animation software vary according to the program. However, in general, your computer’s operating system should be up to date to support the latest versions of software. There’s also a difference between the lower minimum system requirements and the higher recommended system requirements.
Yes, there are free versions of cartoon animation software available, such as the open-source programs OpenToonz, Synfig Studio, Pencil2D, TupiTube, Krita, and Blender. Autodesk Maya Creative, Maya Indie, and 3ds Max Indie offer low-cost versions of professional-level software programs.
