Production Stages In A 3D
Animated Film By Neil Blevins Created On: July 19th 2026 Updated On: Aug 20th 2026 Software: None
When producing a 3d animated film, feature length or short, big company
or independent film, there's a set of common stages that the film goes
through to arrive at the final product. Every film will have variation,
but this strives to be a pretty standard workflow that you can then
customize depending on the needs of the production. This is a short
summary, I intend to keep working on this in the future to add more
detail on each stage.
1) Idea / Script
The idea is agreed upon and the script is written for the film.
2) Schedule
A schedule is setup to organize all the other stages, and includes
things like what needs to be made, who will make it, and by when.
3) Concept / Visual Development
Concept artists design all the assets for the film: environments, props
and characters, based on the script. A few key frames receive detailed
paintings to visualize what the final film could look like.
4) 2D Storyboards
Storyboards are drawn, showing all the shots the film will need. A film
is broken up into sequences (a set of shots), sometimes sub-sequences,
and individual shots. The average number of sequences and shots vary
depending on the length of the film.
5) 2D Story Reel Editorial / Sound
The storyboards are timed and assembled together into a simple 2d film.
The idea is you can watch a rough 2d version of how the final film will
look, and make changes as needed before going into 3d. Scratch sound
effects, dialog and music are added.
6) 3D Animatic Asset Creation
All of the assets for the animatic (rough version of the film) need to
be made. This includes...
The 2D Story Reel is recreated and improved upon by creating a rough
version of the film in 3D. The Layout team add Cameras, Simple
Lighting, and uses the 3D Animatic Assets to create shots.
8) 3D Animatic Editorial / Sound
The shots from Layout are assembled into a 3D Animatic, which is like a
3D Story Reel. The scratch sound effects, dialog and music are refined.
9) 3D Final Asset Creation
The final 3d assets for created for the film. This includes...
For each shot created by 3D Layout, the final assets (environment,
props, characters) are added. This stage is frequently done by the
Layout team.
11) Character Animation
The animators add to the assembled shots the final animation using the
final character assets. Animation can be hand keyed or motion capture,
if motion capture, you need to do mocap sessions as part of the
animation process.
12) Character FX / Sim
A team takes each shot from animation and adds character fx such as
cloth simulation, hair simulation and muscles.
13) Crowds Animation
If you have huge crowds, these tends to be done by a specialized team
who uses simulation software instead of hand animating each character
in the crowd.
14) FX Animation
Artists add effects such as Smoke, Dust, Fire, and Water to the final
shots.
15) Lighting
Each shot receive final lighting. Many times the lighting design is
done by the concept art team, sometimes more of that process is done by
the lighting team.
16) Matte Painting / Set Extension
Sometimes it's faster to 2d paint a background than to build a full 3d
environment. Matte Paintings / Digimatte / Set Extensions are added to
all the shots that need it. This also frequently includes skies.
17) Rendering
All the final shots that have final assets, final animation, fx and
lighting need to be rendered.
18) Compositing
Multiple render passes are assembled in 2d, and then the shots receive
final tweaks, fx, color correction, glows and other filters.
19) Music
The final music is written and performed.
20) Final Editorial / Sound
The final edit happens. Final sound effects, dialog and music are added.
21) Color Timing
The colors are tweaked on a per sequence / shot basis to look their
best in the final film.
22) Final Result
And your film is now done! Wasn't that easy? :D
Notes
While it would be awesome if production was linear, and you
went from stage 1 complete to stage 2 and so on, the reality is that
all films have many of these stages occurring simultaneously,
especially when say you have to rewrite parts of the script later in
production and have to go back to earlier stages to compensate. So
these are stages, not steps, it's far messier than everyone would like
it to be.