The Production Pipeline

The production pipeline is a chart used to plan out the stages of the creation of any media whether it is a video game, movie or TV show.

The production pipeline is generally a linear map that shows the beginning to the end, usually consisting of pre-production, production and post production. Let's focus though on something like a 3D animated feature film


Pre-production consists of the ideas and build up to creation, generally dealing with story, storyboarding, writing, designs and management of the lead-in to production.Budgets and what people will be working on will be laid out.

Then comes production, the meat of the product itself. This will be modelling, rigging and animation as well as texturing, there may be need for some rendering to test things out.

Finally to put it all together comes post production: Compositing, editing, lighting and rendering. All of these tie the animation together and give it a final pass of quality and ensuring the product comes together as a whole.

Pose to pose vs straight ahead animation

When it comes to animation, there are generally 2 main types of blocking that are used : Pose to pose and straight ahead.

Pose to pose is when the animator selects key moments in the animation to get an idea of where the animation will transition to.

A general pose-to-pose animation

Straight ahead is when the animation is done linear and from frame to frame in order. So 1-2-3-4-5 etc.

Pose to pose offers many benefits over straight ahead, including getting timing right, being able to show the director/animation lead where the animation is going before the in-betweens, gives a better overall direction the animation is going and will save time in the long run. Pose-to-pose is the preferred animation type for 3D animation.

Straight ahead is still useful, but the animator has to have a good idea of what he is leading his animation into. A straight ahead animation may also taper and change shape/size if the animator is not careful about each frame. The method can sometimes be quicker, but will be more work if the animation does not turn out correctly.