Application of Digital Media Technology in 3D Animation Design and

Production

Pin Gao

, Hongming Bian

and Ying Bao

Department of Artistic Design, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China

Keywords: Digital Media Technology, 3D Animation Design, Animation System, Scene Modeling.

Abstract: With the continuous improvement of technology, all industries are advancing under the influence of the

Internet. Nowadays, the development of digital media technology has become more and more mature, and

its application in 3D animation design is also more extensive, which can realize the combination of digital

technology and art while improving the effect of animation display and dissemination. This paper elaborates

on the application of digital media technology in 3D animation design and production, and designs a new

3D animation system to enhance its realistic effect.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1170-2959

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0563-9455

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6410-8198

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, digital media technology is widely used

in various fields, and it has a great influence on

animation design, which not only can realize

resource sharing, but also can break the traditional

production mode and integrate science and art,

which has a great impact on the development of

society.

Nowadays, people have higher and higher

requirements for quality, and so does animation

design. People are no longer satisfied with the

traditional two-dimensional animation, but pursue

the high definition and realistic three-dimensional

animation. The diversification of scenes and cross-

visual interaction of 3D animation can bring better

experience to the viewers and greatly improve the

efficiency of designers, both in terms of animation

scenes and lighting effects, which will be further

enhanced. In this paper, the application of digital

media technology in 3D animation design and

production is studied and analyzed, and through

digital media technology as the basis, some virtual

reality technology is used to design a simple 3D

animation system, and through experimental

performance the application effect of virtual reality

technology in 3D animation system is significantly

improved, and the vivid restoration of the real scene

is realized.

2 THE MAIN CONTENT AND

REQUIREMENTS OF DIGITAL

MEDIA TECHNOLOGY

Digital media technology is a kind of application

technology based on information multimedia

technology, which is the process of processing

digital media information, not only rich in

expression, but also high in efficiency.

Digital media technology also includes a variety

of related science and technology and information,

such as information processing, graphic design and

animation design. There are many courses that need

to be learned, such as Photoshop, 3DSMAX, Maya

and post-editing art courses, as well as JAVA

design, C language and animation technology and

other computer courses. Nowadays, digital media

technology has been widely used in various fields,

and in the field of animation design is also very

prominent, it can not only break the traditional

production mode, but also can bring a different

audiovisual feast to the audience.

Gao, P., Bian, H. and Bao, Y.

Application of Digital Media Technology in 3D Animation Design and Production.

DOI: 10.5220/0011911200003613

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education (NMDME 2022), pages 315-320

ISBN: 978-989-758-630-9

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

315

3 THE DEVELOPMENT OF

THREE-DIMENSIONAL

ANIMATION DESIGN AND

MANUFACTURING

With the support of science and technology,

animation has been transformed from two-

dimensional to three-dimensional, three-dimensional

animation is produced by using special technology,

compared with traditional animation, the

manufacturing process of three-dimensional

animation is relatively demanding, the essential

thing is to ensure the light effect, so as to ensure the

realistic visual effect. In addition, professional

software must be used to achieve the realism of the

plot and improve the texture and effect.

Most of the 2D animation is designed in the form

of a single line, compared to 3D animation, which is

much more complicated, including lighting design,

model construction and animation generation. This

digital media technology breaks some of the

traditional limitations and makes the story better

narrated through special effects, which makes the

story more layered and infectious.

4 THE APPLICATION OF

DIGITAL MEDIA

TECHNOLOGY IN THE

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL

ANIMATION

Digital media technologies are well established as a

way to improve quality and detail, and to shorten

production time and increase efficiency. Although

there are many factors to consider, there are no

particularly difficult procedures, so it is easy to use

and further improves the overall quality and

efficiency of the production. In the face of the

continuous development of animation design,

people's demand for it is also showing an increasing

trend, so it seems that the development of digital

media technology has an important influence on the

production of animation design.

4.1 Special Effects of Light and

Shadow Art

Light and shadow effects are generally achieved

through 3D technology to form a double effect of

shadow and light, and to achieve the art of light and

shadow, it will be superimposed frame by frame.

The continuous change of light and shadow can fully

show the atmosphere of 3D animation and make the

audience have emotional resonance. This effect is

also a kind of real feeling, which can reflect the

inner world and activities of the characters, and is

more suitable for the psychology and emotion of 3D

animation, so it has been recognized and widely

used in its field.

4.2 Special Effects for Conversion

Shots

The conversion lens effect is the so-called lens

effect, which can enhance the effect of the picture

when the picture is changed, and adopt a more vivid

and rich language form to express the animation

content. In the process of its use, the most important

thing is the lens effect, analyze the position of 3D

animation in the scene, find a reasonable and

prominent position, so as to improve the overall

level of the picture and the ability to express. In the

picture, the transition between the character and the

environment is very crucial, and the transition lens

effect can make the 3D animation distinctive,

realistic and high quality through its quality.

4.3 Special Effects in Spatial Dynamics

The spatial dynamic effect has a close relationship

with the establishment of 3D animation, both in the

general embodiment of animation and in the

objective expression of space play an important role.

The characters shaped by 3D animation technology

can move from different positions and directions,

fully showing the dynamic spatial effects, enhancing

the story's infectiousness and realism. This will also

be closer to real life, so that the quality of three-

dimensional animation to a whole new level.

4.4 Special Effects in Interaction

Interactive effects in 3D animation allow characters

to blend with the environment to create unique

scenes and increase their realism. Although it is

developed from the basic design, it can make the

characters move in a clear and realistic way by

shaping the characters in all directions. This

approach will allow the audience to be more

engaged. Good animation cannot avoid the support

of digital media technology, and combining art and

technology is both an advantage and a breakthrough.

When the designers integrate their own ideas into

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their works, how they present them is particularly

important. The emergence of digital media

technology is undoubtedly a good assistant, so that

more good animation works are presented in front of

the audience.

5 DESIGN OF THREE-

DIMENSIONAL ANIMATION

SYSTEM BASED ON DIGITAL

MEDIA TECHNOLOGY

5.1 System Hardware Design

The hardware design of 3D animation system is

improved on the basis of the original one. In the

process of running the system, it is necessary to

choose a suitable server and a matching server

skeleton according to the node rule, so as to ensure

the high efficiency of the animation in the

production. Regarding the node problem, it is

necessary to extract the material on the server before

the next step of production, and finally store the

obtained results to the file server.

In order to avoid lagging due to large internal

nodes, RAID technology is added to the file server

to improve memory performance and efficiency. A

stable network channel can be achieved by using a

multi-port server network card. At the same time,

VR equipment is combined with 3D animation

design to provide an interactive environment for the

production of animation. (Cao 2020)

Table 1: 3D animation design system hardware configuration.

Hardware Configuration Features

Embedded Server

Quad-core 2.56 GHz CPU, 8 GB RAM,

500 GB hard drive

Content Management

System operating

processor

Intel Core Duo, Intel Core Duo Windows

8.1 system

Digital Media Technology

Applications

Database Server

Quad-core 2.75 GHz CPU, 4 GB RAM,

500 GB hard drive

Storage Data

Monitor Resolution Resolution 1,280 x 1,024. 64-bit video card Show production content

Sound Cards ASIO compatible sound card, 24 bit Sound Playback

The hardware equipment also contains some

hardware facilities, which are necessary to handle

the program data and graphics files of 3D animation.

These include the management server, 3D animation

server and processor, etc. (Xie 2018) The

specification of the management server is Shine

Server R1080×d 2×pay strong B6⁃651Q, and the

specification of the 3D animation server is Shine

Server R7202×l NTEL X EoN, DDR3 memory, E5

⁃ 7180 V2, 1 × 600 GB SATA hard disk. Shine

Server MBoX 6000 ⁃ B 3D animation system

supports direct or indirect submission from

3DMAX, Maya and other software, and can

automatically adjust the material. The structure of

the processor is shown in the figure 1. (Wang 2020)

In terms of VR equipment, the brand chosen is

LEGO.

Figure 1: Processor architecture.

5.2 System Software Design

With the continuous development of network

technology, software tools with powerful functions

have emerged. The principle of 3D animation design

system is to input the design created by the designer

into the system, and then process the base image

through digital media technology, and finally carry

Application of Digital Media Technology in 3D Animation Design and Production

317

out various modeling work according to the base,

and then complete the design of 3D animation.

5.2.1 3D Animation Base Image

The anime sketch is a rough design of an anime

character that the designer draws by hand and

presents it in lines. After the base drawing is

completed, it is scanned and imported, and then

processed using digital media technology. First of

all, to distinguish between the character and the

environment, the background is stretched with a

histogram. Then, the details of the image are

recovered using the wiener filter recovery method.

After processing, the feature parts of the image need

to be extracted and then the color features are

classified according to the statistical retrieval

method. Finally, the texture features are extracted

using the symbiotic matrix method, so as to make

the modeled image and scene more realistic.

Let I ( x,y ) be the processed negative image with

a gray level of N. Take two points of the image ( x, y

) and ( x + x

, y + y

), and the gray values of the

two points are ( g

, g

), then there are N

combinations of gray values ( g

, g

) in the negative.

(Li 2018; Hou 2017) After normalizing these

grayscale values into an N × N matrix, the

grayscale co-occurrence matrix is generated from

the probability P ( g

, g

) of selecting each grayscale

combination as shown in the following equation:

( g

, g

) =

( 0, 0 ) P

( 0, 1 ) ⋯ P

( 0,N -

1 )

( 1, 0 ) Pd ( 1, 1 ) ⋯ P

( 1,N -

1 )

⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮

( N-1, 0 ) P

( N-1, 1 ) ⋯ P

( N-1,N-

1 )

(1)

The corresponding matrix can be generated from

the base according to the gray co-generation matrix,

and the corresponding feature vector can be obtained

by scanning the degree co-generation matrix in one

direction. Using the mean and variance of the feature

vectors, texture feature extraction can be completed.

Finally, according to the results, the reasonable

modeling is then performed.

5.2.2 3D Animation Character Modeling

In animation, character and scene are the two most

important parts. The character is the soul of the

work, and the population model generation method

is used in character modeling. The initial character

model is created by modeling software, and then the

structural lines of the model are scaled by genetic

algorithm. As shown in Figure 2. (Sun 2020) After

obtaining the character prototype and action library,

the user can choose the character according to his

needs and make simple parameter changes to obtain

a unique anime character.

Figure 2: Genetic algorithm tuning model process.

5.2.3 3D Animation Character Simulation

The character's movements are captured and stored

in a motion library based on motion capture

technology, and then displayed through virtual

synthesis software, where the user can change the

movements according to the storyline. The user can

change the movements according to the storyline.

The new movements are verified according to the

Newtonian Eulerian motion model to see if they are

reasonable.

The 3D animation system sets the character

action as motion(t), and the new character posture(t

)

can be obtained by changing the original character

posture(t

). The size of the user window is F × G,

and the character model can be moved with the

mouse. When moving, the change in the f-direction

is Δf, and the change in the g-direction is Δ g.

Through Euler's theorem, it can be deduced that the

Euler angles <α,β,γ> represent the rotation in the

d,f,g directions:

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318

sin α= aΔf F (1- a )Δg G

(2)

sin β= bΔf F (1- b )Δg G

sin γ= cΔf F (1- c )Δg G

Where: a, b, c are the influence factors, which

represent the influence of Δf and Δg on the Euler

angles <α,β,γ> in the three directions of d, f, and

g, respectively. The latest pose posture of the

character model is obtained by calculation, and the

simulation of 3D animation character modeling can

be carried out.

5.2.4 3D Animation Scene Modeling

3D animation scene modeling is to use computer

graphics to build a 3D geometric model of the

virtual scene in the form of polygons so that the real

scene can be abstracted. The content includes scene

lighting and material, with the terrain and

architecture for processing. This geometric modeling

method to build a relatively realistic scene, the

operation is simple, only need architectural drawings

to build a virtual three-dimensional scene in

proportion.

5.3 Experimental Analysis

According to the interactivity, immersion and image

presentation of animation, 3D animation is

compared with traditional animation, and the effect

of 3D animation system based on digital media

technology is significantly improved.

5.3.1 Experimental Parameters

The parameters of interactivity, immersion, and

image presentation in the experiment were obtained

by voting based on a population sampling

experience.

Table 2: Experimental test parameters.

Projects Parameters

Interactivity/ People 100/0

Immersion/ People 100/0

Ima

resentation/ Peo

le 100/0

Sound / Peo

le 50/44

Production time

com

arison/h

8/15

5.3.2 Experimental Procedure and

Conclusion

After the experiment, the users will vote for the form

they think is effective and preferable, and the voting

result will determine the comparison result of the

experiment.

According to the experimental results, as shown

Table 3. The 3D animation is more popular among

the experienced users, satisfying their aesthetic

preferences, and the system is also smooth and has

improved efficiency and stability in the production

process.

Table 3: Experimental test parameters.

The system designed in this paper can contribute

to the development and production of animation. It

also shows the application of digital media

technology in the design and production of 3D

animation, but the system needs further

improvement in some aspects.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Along with the continuous development of

computers and software, the development of 3D

animation is also intensifying. Although it is a

virtual world created, but the excellent animation

works are very influential. The integration of digital

media technology and art can not only bring new

impetus to the development of 3D animation, but

also make the means of communication more

diversified. The animation design system under the

application of digital media technology proposed in

this paper is only a small beginning. In the face of

the future development of three-dimensional

animation, designers need to make full use of their

own advantages and characteristics, improve the

quality of creation, enhance market competition, so

that it has a broad application prospects.

12345

User satisfaction

Number of tests

This paper systematically

Traditional System

Application of Digital Media Technology in 3D Animation Design and Production

319

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During this time I have been swimming in the ocean

of knowledge and listening to the teachings of a

hundred schools of education, during which I have

also encountered many hardships. What I have

gained is not only a richer knowledge but also a way

of thinking, the ability to express myself, and the

broad vision that I have developed through reading

and practice. My thesis was completed under the

careful guidance of my supervisor from topic

selection, conception, writing to revision and

finalization. My teacher's diligent and rigorous style

of study is unforgettable to me and has profoundly

influenced my future work and life.

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