30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

We use cookies to improve your experience using this site. More information Accept

The Efficient Engineer

APR 18, 2020 AT 1:23 PM Unlocked

How I Create 3D Animations
I often get asked how I create the animations for the Efficient Engineer channel, so I thought it
would be a good idea to put together a post for Patrons describing some of the tools and
techniques I use to create the videos.

The main software packages I use are:

Blender
Da Vinci Resolve

But there are a few other tools I use as well. I’ll try and give you an overview in this post. All of the
software and resources I use are completely free.

Blender

Blender is a free, open source 3D creation package. It is the tool I use to create all of the animations
in the videos. At the time of writing this I am using v2.82, but updates are released quite often, and
so I usually update to the latest version in between video releases.

Although Blender has a steep learning curve, recent updates to the software have made it much
more intuitive to use. It has an awesome community, and there is a load of great learning resources

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 1/7
30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

and tutorials on Youtube (see for example BlenderGuru, CreativeShrimp, IanHubert, CG Cookie
etc…).

I use the Eevee render engine, which has only been available since v2.8. It is a real-time engine, and
so it renders extremely fast, even in 4K resolution. It also allows you to preview all of your lighting
and materials directly in the viewport, which is very powerful.

I add audio to the video sequence editor (Video Sequence Editor -> Add -> Sound) so that I can
easily sync the animation with the audio.

There are a few add-ons I use quite regularly:

The Animation Nodes is essential for animating text, and for animating a lot of objects in a
more systematic way than just keyframing everything.
The Node Wrangler add-on is great for working with nodes (e.g. for materials, compositing
etc…)
The BoltFactory add-on is good for quickly generating models of nuts and bolts.
The ExtraObjects add-on lets you easily create additional objects like gears and pipe joints.

The compositing I use in Blender is very simple. I render everything to a transparent background
(making sure the Transparent option is checked in Render Properties -> Film), and overlay it in the
Compositor on my standard blue and orange background image - see node set up in the image
below.

Quick tip - always use Blender to render each frame as an image, and then use a video editing tool
(mentioned below) to assemble all of the rendered frames into a video, rather than rendering the
animation straight to a video file format in Blender. This gives you much more control in the editing
process, means you don't have to render everything at once, and makes it much easier to fix
mistakes.

Textures

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 2/7
30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

Textures are a key part of creating realistic looking materials. The CC0 textures website is an
amazing resource of free-to-use high quality textures, and it includes all of the texture maps you will
need (color, roughness, normal, metal, displacement etc…).

Equations

Equations are obviously a key part of the videos. I use the following approach to get equations into
Blender and to animate them:

I generate equations in the .svg vector format using a Latex equation generator like the
CodeCogs one.
I then import the equations directly into Blender (File -> Import -> Scalable Vector Graphics)
It imports all of the different parts of the equation as separate objects, so I join them together
(using Ctrl-J)
I convert the resulting object from a curve object to a mesh (Object -> Convert to -> Mesh
from Curve)
I then animate the mesh of the equation using the Blender shape key functionality (Object
Data Properties -> Shape Keys).

December 2020 update - I recently discovered a great add-on called Latex2Blender that can be
used to write Latex expressions directly in Blender. It basically automates all of the steps I
mentioned above. You can download it here: https://github.com/ghseeli/latex2blender

Da Vinci Resolve

Da Vinci Resolve is a powerful video editing tool. It is commercial software, but it has an excellent
free version, which only has very limited restrictions. I use the free version.

 I mainly use Da Vinci Resolve for the following purposes:

Editing together sequences of animations generated in Blender

Applying color correction
Adding sound effects and background music

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 3/7
30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

Adjusting timing

Quick tip - For color correction, it is a good idea to save the corrections you make as custom LUTs
so that you can apply consistent color correction to all of your videos.

Audio

The main resources I use for audio are:

The Youtube Audio Library - it is a good resource for background music and the odd sound
effect.
Freesound.org - this is a free library with thousands upon thousands of different sounds
effects.

Quick tip - to avoid the possibility of copyright claims, I always make sure all of the audio I use has a
CC0 licence.

I use Audacity, an open source audio editor, when I need to make adjustments to audio files.

Thumbnails

I use the free, open-source GIMP image editor to create Youtube thumbnails for each of the videos.

---

If you’re interested in creating your own animated videos, I hope this post has given you some
insight into some of the tools and techniques you can use.

Happy as always to answer any questions!

animation blender da vinci resolve tips and tricks

20 Likes

Mauser 4mo

Great work you're doing. I would love to see how you model/animate graphs seen on
some of the videos!
Keep up the good work, you gained a new supporter.
2

The Efficient Engineer 4mo

Thanks! I don't really use anything fancy for graphs. I usually model graph axes and
gridlines using simple meshes in Blender that I re-use, and if the graph is simple I'll
just model is using a spline curve, and then animate it appearing by keyframing the
start and end mapping parameters. If it's easier to model and animate the graph
programatically I usually use the Animation Nodes plug-in. If you've got specific
questions about that feel free to drop me a message! Always happy to answer and
provide more detail!
1

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 4/7
30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

sathya balasundaram 2mo

Great effort!!! Could you please show one video how to create animated videos (Ex:
Bending moment and Shear Force diagram). This would help us a lot!!!
1

Yeshwant 1mo

Yes, I agree with Mauser & Sathya. #MeToo :)

Msquare Analysis Projects 2w

How do you record Audio for videos. ?

Join the conversation...

RECENT POSTS

[Bonus Video] Understanding Dimensional Analysis

Aa
November 30 at 9:08 AM

[Video Preview] Understanding Thermal Radiation

November 25 at 8:30 PM

How to Animate Graphs in Blender

Aa
October 16 at 8:14 AM

[Video Preview] Understanding Vibration and Resonance

October 7 at 6:55 PM

[Video Preview] Understanding Buckling

August 14 at 6:42 AM

[Video Preview] Understanding Metals

June 4 at 9:55 PM

CURRENT TIER

Level 2
$3 per month

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 5/7
30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

All of the Level 1 rewards

Access to behind the scenes information and tips about the video creation process
Access to one-page video summary sheets

OTHER TIERS

Level 1
$2 per month

Previews of videos

Show more tiers

Language: English (United States)

Currency: USD

About Help Center & FAQs

Careers Developers

Create on Patreon App Directory

Brand Blog

Press Patreon U | Creator Coaching

Partners Community Guidelines

Sitemap Terms of Use

Privacy Policy

Privacy Preferences

Accessibility

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 6/7
30/12/2021 20:08 How I Create 3D Animations | The Efficient Engineer on Patreon

© Patreon

600 Townsend Street, Suite 500

San Francisco, CA 94103
USA
Phone: +1 (833) 972-8766

https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-i-create-3d-36136936 7/7