How to Animate a House MTV Cribs Style

In 5 easy steps, you'll learn how to 3d model and animate a house! This is for my Digital Design and Animation class.

Tools:

-box

-sphere

-cylinder

-bevel tool

-extrude tool

-soft selection

-falloff

-lights

-intensity

-camera

-keys

-set keys

-render

First, you want to place what rooms you want where. We can put in windows and doors later, but for now, we're just setting up the walls to have an idea where each room will be. In a way, this could be our rough sketch or blueprint. I also put down the flooring, to differentiate them more.

I used the extrude tool mostly.

Next, you're going to add windows and doors. I made some of the openings to the rooms without doors, so it would look more modern and open, but you can add doors/openings however you'd like.

Add all the furniture you would like for each room.

I used tools like the extrude tool, bevel tool, and the soft selection tool.

A good tip is to turn on Edged Faces so you can see your physical segments, under where it says "Default Shading" in the viewport.

For most of my furniture like the chairs, sofa, table, etc., I made them from boxes and extruded them to proportion. I did the same technique to make handles.

With soft selection, I mostly used it for my silverware and such like plates and bowls.

Next, add the lighting and shadows to make it more realistic.

I turned down the intensity to 150 instead of 1,500, that way the lights aren't so bright.

Finally, you animate. This part is pretty easy, though it's tedious moving the camera and the target. You first hit Set Keys, then place a key wherever you want the movement to register. Then, I moved the target first to get a good idea of where I want it to go then the camera.

Once you complete that, you slide the top bar and go to the tea kettle with the orange cog and hit files, put down .avi, hit the active time segment box, and hit render! It'll maybe take a while, so don't be shy to do something else.

I messed up the first time animating and rendering so remember to be patient as well if you mess up!