Week 1 Theory videos
All of our week 1 theory videos are completely free; you can watch them at no charge – just click here.
Software
Autodesk license their software for free for student use. You can’t use it for commercial purposes, but you can use it to learn and train. You can download a free copy here.
Rigs
Here is a list of some of the rigs that we recommend our students use, and which we think are the best for animation training. They are all free to use, though their creators should always be credited. Industry professionals always give credit where it is due.
- Bouncing Ball. The best place for beginners to start learning animation. You will have to register with Creative Crash first, but it’s free and they don’t send spam.
- Ultimate Rigs. A great collection of free rigs.
- Monty. Our favourite simple biped rig – perfect for learning animation.
- Norman. An excellent biped rig, very stable and thoroughly tested. Norman can be adapted and customised.
- Heavy. Based on the character from the video game Team Fortress. An excellent, stable rig.
- Morpheus. Arguably the best free rig for character performance. Very adaptable. Not for beginners though.
Sets
- Turbosquid. A vast selection of props and sets, many free, many more not free. A massive resource.
- theFree3DModels.com Lots of free models – as the name suggests. Very useful source of free models and sets.
Our Blog
- Check out our animation blog at http://animationapprentice.blogspot.com, which has a vast amount of free information on learning animation.