The Blog

Our Animation Process

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With over 10 years of medical 3D animation experience, Meditech Communications has a proven process that allows for smooth communication and leads to project success. Often our clients are new to animation production, so we wanted to provide an overview of how a typical project moves from pre-production to the final product.

Initial Meeting
We begin by meeting to explore your project needs, and discussing the target audience and primary use (i.e. tradeshow, product launch, patient education etc.). We then ask about the devices, processes and mechanisms of action that you want to highlight in the animation.

Detail Gathering & Proposal
After the initial meeting, we gather additional information that will help us move forward with the project. We ask our clients to provide device engineering files, a detailed list of animation steps, and references that may help with our understanding of these steps. We use this information to draft a rough outline, which allows us to create an accurate proposal.

Final Outline
Upon proposal approval, we work with the client to refine the outline. The final, approved outline will consist of a detailed description of every scene, a voiceover script (if requested), and on-screen text.

Storyboard
Next, we create a storyboard, which shows a sketched representation of each scene in the outline. Storyboards allow our clients to provide feedback on framing, device and object placement and camera angles.

3D Stills
When the storyboard is approved, we bring key storyboard panels to life through fully-rendered 3D stills. Since these 3D stills depict the look of the final animation, we ask our clients to provide consolidated team feedback on the colors, textures and appearance of the devices, anatomy and animation scene. We complete up-to two rounds of revision in order to get the stills just right, and then we move onto animating the video.

Animatic
After 3D stills are finalized, we create the first version of your animation, which we refer to as an “animatic.” The animatic is an unrendered, gray scale version of the animation, which allows you to provide feedback on timing, transitions, and movement.

Final Animation
After two rounds of animatic review, we render out the animation so that it’s as impactful and beautiful as the approved 3D stills. We can provide the final animation in a variety of formats for use across multiple platforms.

This process generally takes between 8-10 weeks, depending on the scope of the animation. If you have any questions about this process, or want to talk to us about an upcoming animation need, please reach out to accounts@gomeditech.com.