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Talk about 3D printing and animation design. 3D printing uses advanced 3D digital modeling technology to design and produce animation hand-operated 3D models. Combined with 3D printing technology, it studies and practices new digital methods of animation hand-operated design and production. Compared with traditional hand-operated prototype production methods, it summarizes some advantages of digital design, and promotes the innovation of domestic animation hand-operated production methods and the improvement of design level. In the past few decades, Japanese and American animation hand-made products have occupied 1359 shares of the global market. However, today, the popularity of digital 3D modeling technology and 3D printing technology has created new ways and possibilities for the design and manufacturing of traditional animation peripheral products, which has given China's handicraft industry a chance to develop. How to apply new technology and new technology to the design and development of hand animation and other peripheral products, and establish a set of advanced and efficient new ways, may be the key to let China's animation hand industry move to the world stage.

1、 Huge animation manual market

According to the data released by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the annual output value of the global animation industry is about 40 billion US dollars, while the related derivative products have reached 7400 billion US dollars, of which hand handling accounts for a large proportion. Of China's 1.3 billion people, 400 million teenagers constitute a huge consumer market for animation and its derivatives. The annual sales volume of children's food is 35 billion yuan, toys 20 billion yuan, children's clothing 90 billion yuan, and children's audio-visual products and various children's publications 10 billion yuan. At the same time, it is worth noting that not only children under the age of 14 have a demand for animation and derivatives, but also the generations who have grown up watching cartoons from middle school students to the post-80s have become a powerful consumer group around animation.

The main profit model of animation production and sales in foreign countries is "animation production - animation broadcast - derivative product development - derivative product sales - revenue - reproduction". But in China, we will find that the industrial chain is not complete. The domestic animation industry mainly focuses on animation production and hair style broadcasting channels, and pays insufficient attention to the development and publicity of derivatives. From the perspective of fund allocation ratio, most of the funds are used in the early and middle stages, and the later stage funds are invested very little, especially in product development, brand authorization and other links. Even some companies hardly plan and arrange the market operation funds needed in the later period, so they often have to rely on a single channel and product. The product influence is very limited, and it is difficult to form a valuable animation IP. Therefore, how to work hard on the industrial chain and regard the design and production of derivatives around animation as equally important, as well as a part of early planning, is an important path to improve the development of animation industry. As an important part of animation derivatives, hand-operated animation has practical significance in the research of its creation and production mode, as well as the optimization of production mode using digital modeling and 3D printing technology. Talk about 3D printing and animation design.

2、 Pain Points in Traditional Handmade Prototyping

The production of traditional handmade prototypes is limited by the characteristics of materials and production tools, and it is difficult to meet the increasingly stringent industrial needs in terms of talent needs and design and production methods, which is the pain point of traditional handmade prototypes.

（1） High requirements for technical talents

The design and production of traditional handmade prototypes require too much talent. The work of a hand-made archetypal artist is equivalent to that of a traditional sculptor, who uses the materials and techniques of sculpture to create the characters in animation. The nature of his work determines that the archetype artist has the professional skills of a sculptor, and at the same time, he is very clear about the charm of the animation image. Traditional manual production mainly uses some oil mud or clay as the material. Although Japanese archeologists have invented the clay material they think will be used in decades of production, compared with the "virtual clay" in the digital modeling software, it still has many disadvantages. For example, it is almost impossible to make large modifications after the clay material has dried and hardened. The traditional clay material requires the prototype engineer to be extremely experienced, and there should be no obvious mistakes in the production.

The high demand for technical personnel is also reflected in the meticulous production. When traditional clay materials are used to make more than 10 cm high character handbooks, the face of the character is often only the size of the fingernail of the thumb, and its tiny size will also bring great challenges to the production. All these are caused by the difficulty of traditional materials.

Therefore, for quite a long time, it is difficult for Chinese college students to enter the hand-operated industry. However, the use of digital modeling technology in computer design does not have such a problem. Because it is easy to modify, it will relatively reduce the requirements for talents.

（2） Difficult to modularize design and production

There are a lot of different costumes and dynamic models of the same character in the manual. If modular design and production can be realized, the efficiency and production quality will be greatly improved. Modular design and production refers to a design and production method in which different model parts can be reused, such as body parts, hats, clothes, accessories, etc. can be directly used in the next design. Obviously, the handmade prototype made of clay cannot be directly made into another handmade model, that is, each handmade prototype almost needs to be remade from beginning to end, which undoubtedly increases the production difficulty, especially the production cost.

Advantages of 3D digital modeling technology in manual prototyping

Japan and the United States have advanced technical experience in handmade products, and their products occupy large market shares. In recent years, some hand prototypes in Japan and the United States have gradually abandoned the traditional clay manual approach and turned to the 3D digital modeling method to design and produce hand prototypes. They have achieved great success both in terms of product effect and market response, opening up a new way to make hand prototypes. Talk about 3D printing and animation design.

3D digital modeling technology is a technology that uses 3D modeling software such as 3dsmax, Zbrush, etc. to design and make 3D models, and then uses SLA3D printer to print them into handmade objects of resin materials. As the model material in 3D digital modeling is a digital virtual material (we call it virtual clay), this material has some features and advantages that are not specific to real clay materials. Making good use of these features can make manual prototype creation more efficient. In the research and practice of the author's team, the following characteristics and advantages of digital modeling technology are explored and summarized.

（1） No longer limited by size

Manual fabrication has strict requirements on the proportion and size of the body. The local proportion is often inaccurate or the overall size is deviated when using real clay materials. Even experienced producers often make mistakes. For example, after finishing the head, I found it was a little bigger. Or the waist size of the figure is a little longer. When such a situation occurs, it is very troublesome to modify it. Basically, it can be said that "major surgery" is required. However, if the 3D digital modeling technology is used, it is very simple to modify these dimensions. You only need to select and reduce the oversized head and flatten the oversized waist with a zoom tool, which is only a few minutes of work.

In addition, when a handmade product needs to be resized, such as the original 1:7 work, it needs to be resized to 1:10, which is much smaller overall. At this time, the advantages of digital modeling will be very obvious.

As mentioned in the previous article, another limitation of the size of handmade products is that handmade products are often very small, which makes it very difficult to depict some details. If the 3D digital modeling technology is used, the model can be partially displayed very large in the software, and the size of the carving tool can be adjusted very small, so that very small details can be successfully produced.

（2） Not limited to physical properties of real materials

Traditional clay materials are affected and limited by a series of physical properties such as temperature, humidity and weight. For example, in winter when the temperature is very low, the clay will become very hard and difficult to shape, and in summer when the temperature is too high, the clay will become very soft, which will bring inconvenience to shaping. The gravity of clay also has a significant impact on manual production. For example, hard wire should be used to build a skeleton before production, and then clay should be made on it. Only in this way can the collapse and deformation of clay caused by gravity be avoided. For another example, after using American soil to make a handmade prototype, it is necessary to bake it at a specific temperature to harden it. If the temperature is not well controlled, the model may be cracked, causing losses.

When we compare the use of 3D digital modeling technology to make handmade models, we will find that the problems of these real materials have all disappeared here. There is no need to worry about collapse and cracking, or even no need to make wire skeleton. All of these enable the prototype designer to put more effort into the design of the shape.. Talk about 3D printing and animation design.

（3） Nonlinear production process

The production of traditional handmade prototypes is a "linear" process: first put up a shelf, then put on a big clay, and then deeply shape the body. This process goes in a straight line and is irreversible. We can recall the process of our own creation. We often encounter problems caused by "linearity". For example, in the process of erecting the scaffold, we must be very careful and consider it over and over again. We must do a good job of the scaffold, make it accurate dynamically, and fully consider the weight that the skeleton can bear. Because once it is not done well, it is difficult to modify the shelf if it is found that there is a problem after the big mud or some details are done.

Sometimes, the problem we encounter is that our creative inspiration suddenly develops rapidly, and our production speed cannot keep up with the speed of inspiration. For example, after making more than half of a figure, I suddenly felt strongly that it would be better if I changed to a dynamic work. Or want to try more forms. But at this time, the iron wire skeleton is dead, and it is difficult to adjust the dynamics.

All the above problems are attributed to the limitations of traditional handcrafted sculpture techniques and materials, which are all caused by the limitations of the "linear" creation method. The process of 3D digital modeling is very different. It is a "non-linear" process. When you find that the dynamics are bad, you can make changes at any time, usually within a few minutes. That is to say, you can go back to different stages of production at any time during production. This not only improves the production efficiency, but also improves the quality of works. Talk about 3D printing and animation design.

（4） Modular Creation

As mentioned above, it is difficult to achieve modular design and production by traditional manual production, and modular production is exactly the advantage of 3D digital modeling. For example, for a character of the same body type, it is only necessary to make a human body model, which can be copied and easily made into different posture dynamics in the software, so as to realize the reuse of body parts. (As shown in Figure 3), GrizzryPanda, a Japanese archetypal artist, uses the modularity of digital modeling technology to create different series of first tones.

（5） Obvious advantages in making hard surfaces

When there are mechanical, armor and other models with hard surfaces in the manual, it is often difficult to make perfect edges and corners with clay, but it will be twice the result with half the effort to make them with 3D digital modeling. (As shown in Figure 4), it is a handmade prototype of the Great Sage of Heaven designed and produced by project member Yuan Jun and Li Xian. It is mainly modeled and produced using Zbrush and Maya software. The 3D printed armor has rich details and a good edge and corner feeling.

The main advantages of the above points are that they break the limitations of traditional production technology, make the design and production of hand-made prototypes more efficient, enrich the production effect, reduce the design and production costs, and improve the competitiveness of products in the market.

epilogue

Based on 3D digital modeling technology and 3D printing technology as the background, this project has studied, combed and practiced a new way of digital handmade design and production. The project team members have made a large number of handmade digital models and accumulated experience by giving full play to their advantages in 3D digital modeling technology. China started late in hand-made design and production, and is currently lack of competitiveness in the international market. However, with the continuous improvement of domestic animation quality, a number of high-quality animation IP will emerge, which can be transformed into hand-made products with market competitiveness. Today's hand-operated design and production can be said to usher in the digital era. The creation method of 3D digital modeling will become the new blood of hand-operated art and inject new vitality into hand-operated art. Talk about 3D printing and animation design.