Articles #3 | 3D animation software? Short explanation about which software we use for preparing 3D industrial animations

Which software to use for preparing impresive 3D animation? Which program we use for the 3D industrial animations we offer? These are one of the questions we are being asked most often. Although the questions are simple, answering them is not so straight forward. We will try to do that in this short article.

Before we provide you the answer we have to understand, that designing 3D animation is not a simple task. It becomes even more complex we speak about 3D industrial animation. Presenting machinery movements, animation of assembly lines or industrial devices is more demanding and introduces even more complexity to the project. However, no matter we speak about regular or industrial animation we always have to refer to the process of preparing 3D animation.

It consists of three basic steps listed at the diagram below:

That being said, we have to unravel the this top secret piece of information for you: there is no one, single, magic software for doing these incredibly stunning animations you can see online (eg. animation of pneumatic gripper for ABB robot) All these great animations and also all animations we prepare are being designed using many different programs. Usually we use another piece of software for each of the steps listed above.

Modeling & animating

The very first step of preparing 3D animation is modeling. While preparing 3D industrial animations any of the 3D graphic design programs maybe used: Blender, 3DS Max, Maya or Cinema 4D. Of course, for mechanical design, if we need to be precise we can also use some of the engineering programs like Autodesk Inventor, CATIA, PTC Creo or SolidWorks. However, this programs are usually very costly and base on different approach for designing.

When the models are done, then comes time for the most exciting part of preparing the project, which is animating. This part is usually done in the same software we used for modeling. What is very important, this step of the project is much better to carry out using 3D graphic design programs. Engineering software also offers animation features (eg. Inventor Studio) but using that is very complex and time-consuming. While modeling and animating we also define virtual camera movements.

Below you can see first step of 3D industrial animation, done in one of the 3D graphic design programs.


Next step is the one which introduces life and emotions to the project: rendering. There is plenty of rendering engines available nowadays. Most of them are quite expensive but there are also some budget options on the market. They also differ with the way they calculate the images: either by GPU or CPU power. Unfortunately, in this both options this is time-consuming process and needs powerful workstations to be done efficiently. Most popular render engines are: V-Ray, Octane, Maxwell, Eevee and Keyshot.

Below you can see the same animation imported to rendering software, firstly without and secondly with materials and lighting applied.


The last step of 3D animation design is postproduction. At this stage we add voice over and background music. At the same time here we can edit rendered animation by doing color correction or cutting some unnecessary parts. The most imprtant task to do while doing postprocessing is to add animated tittles, captions and others like animated dimensioning. This part is usually done in programs like Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro or Davinci Resolve.

3D animation software: summary

As it was already mentioned before: there is no simple way for preparing impressive, complete 3D animation. The final result always comes from at least 3 different types of software and bases on combination of skills from various areas. Basically, for the question what software we use for our projects, the answer is: many different ones.

If you like the animations we make and the names of programs listed above do not sound familiar, do not hesitate to contact us directly. We will discuss your project carefully and provide price quotation for entire, complete, 3D animation you are looking for.