Nowadays, it seems as if CGI technology has taken over the world. From movies to video games to anime and even in business marketing and advertisement, the use of CGI continues to expand.
The time it takes to learn CGI depends on your level of expertise, the amount of practice you put in, the resources you use, and the exact nature of what you’re trying to learn. Some aspects, like rigging and rendering, take more time than the rest. CGI is a vast term that encompasses many different areas of 3D animation development. You can download any app like blender and learn how to make 3D shapes even within the time frame of a single day.
Getting the basics can take a few days or weeks but learning CGI is a continuous process because there is always more to learn.
Keep reading ahead to know more about this.
How To Learn CGI The Right Way
Let’s talk about the technical aspect of it first. To be good at producing CGI animations, there are a few tricks you need to have up your sleeve.
Getting The Hang Of The Basics
A CGI animator’s job is to create realistic-looking still or animated characters using computer-generated imagery and 3D software. For this, you need to sharpen your computer skills and get your hands on efficient beginner 3D software such as Maya.
Software is meant to make your work easy, but you still need to learn how to use that software.
Using The Right Resources
Learning will take less time and be more efficient if you find better learning guides. You can always take a course on CGI that will teach you the basics within a few months, but to develop your skills further or to self-learn, you need to know where to go when looking for answers to learn something new.
Starting with tutorials like beginners’ guide to CGI or reading books on 3D animation will always speed up the process.
This video is a good example.
Practicing The Difficult Bits
Learning concepts like rigging and rendering allows you to create more realistic-looking CGI, but that aspect of CGI can take years to perfect, and the more you practice, the more you learn. This work takes hours to create single shots and requires a lot of patience.
You need to get the details of the body parts and their movements right, and for that, you need first to learn the process and then put in practice to perfect it. Practicing 3-4 hours daily can help you sharpen this skill.
The Conclusion
There is no fixed time frame to learn any art; it all boils down to the animator’s skills, motivation, and practice.
Learning the basics can take you up to a couple of months, but once you get the hang of that, the learning process isn’t over; there’s always more and more to learn, and reaching expert levels can take a few years.
