Research on the Creative Structure of 3D Animation Art Design Based on VR Technology
Published Online: Mar 24, 2025
Received: Oct 27, 2024
Accepted: Feb 05, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0739
Keywords
© 2025 Jiujun Yang, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
VR technology is a technology that can simulate real or fictional environments, which puts the user in a new virtual environment through devices such as helmets, gloves, and headsets. And 3D animation design is a process of using computer graphics technology to create a 3D virtual scene through the process of modeling and rendering [1-4]. Although they are two independent technologies, their combination and integration can produce a more realistic and immersive virtual reality experience and expand their application areas [5-7].
The integration of VR technology and 3D animation design will revolutionize the entertainment industry. By integrating 3D animation design into VR scenes, a more vivid and rich virtual world can be created. Users can personally experience the plot of movies and games, and feel more realistic touch, visual and sound effects [8-11]. Users can interact with animated characters in the virtual reality world, participate in the movie plot, and obtain an immersive entertainment experience. This combination can also be applied to theme parks, amusement facilities and other fields, creating a more unique and exciting entertainment experience for tourists [12-15]. The integration of VR technology and 3D animation design plays a great role in the field of education. By utilizing virtual reality technology and 3D animation design, realistic virtual scenes can be created to allow students to learn immersively, especially in art design, where students can personally experience a virtual scene [16-19]. Such an experience can increase students’ interest and motivation in learning, improve their learning effect, and make traditional classroom teaching more vivid and interesting [20-21].
The rapid development of VR technology provides new ideas in the process of three-dimensional animation art design creation, in order to study the integration of VR technology and three-dimensional animation art design creation, this paper studies the development trend of VR technology in the field of three-dimensional animation. Then, the structure of VR technology for creating 3D animation art is analyzed, and the application path of VR technology for creating 3D animation art is discussed in detail. Based on this, this paper studies the advantages of VR technology application from the perspective of the viewer’s experience by comparing the effects of creation. Finally, the creation structure model of 3D animation art design is constructed based on VR technology.
VR is virtual reality, that is, the use of VR equipment, combined with the production of VR images, resulting in a virtual environment of the picture, sound, as if the presence of the real environment as immersive feeling. Can also be interpreted as digital technology as a means of using special auxiliary equipment to achieve a form of hologram interaction with people, so as to experience the virtual, non-existent environment. The three-dimensional animation is mainly produced using three-dimensional animation software. The animation form is developed by the three-dimensional software update speed and the degree of computer development. the combination of VR and three-dimensional animation is in the people of three-dimensional animation technology can be realized and fully mastered on the platform and the development of the three-dimensional animation technology, which three-dimensional animation is valued for the art of film and television animation and the pursuit of the pursuit of VR is the pursuit of the reality of the virtual reproduction, through the VR technology to achieve a form of interaction with people, so as to experience the virtual, non-existent environment. Virtual reproduction, through the VR technology can be three-dimensional animation hologram, can make three-dimensional animation in the expression of the animation storyline at the same time, so that the viewer through the VR equipment to experience the interactive feeling of the virtual environment. Therefore, in recent years, VR technology has been widely used in the field of 3D animation.
After searching the data in China Knowledge Network (CNKI) with “VR technology” as the subject term, a total of 5015 dissertations about VR technology were found, and the number of papers issued in the field of 3D animation from 2018 to 2023 was 171.The distribution of research topics of VR technology in the field of 3D animation is shown in Figure 1. From the previous research results of VR technology in the field of 3D animation, it can be seen that the proportion of studies on the integration of applications is the largest, totaling 31 articles, followed by studies on 3D animation modeling (13 articles), software development (13 articles), 3D animation creation (12 articles) and other aspects. In terms of research trends, research on system design or software development for 3D animation projects is widely used for fusion applications.
The research topic distribution of VR technology in 3D animation
This paper investigates and counts the relevant literature published from 2007 to 2023, and the general trend of the research of VR technology in the field of 3D animation is shown in Figure 2. From the trend of publications in recent years, it can be seen that VR technology has been applied in the field of three-dimensional animation since 2009, and the number of literatures using VR technology to conduct research in the field of three-dimensional animation in recent years has shown a rapidly rising trend, and the annual number of publications of related literatures reached 48 in 2023. Especially in 2019 and 2023, VR technology for three-dimensional animation field has received greater attention, with an annual growth of 14 and 15 articles respectively, which also shows that the research of VR technology in the field of three-dimensional animation has been widely recognized, and the integration of the two is gradually researching and developing the main trend.
General trend
The world carries countless individuals, each of which constitutes a different painting, and each scene of which is specific and vivid because we can observe the world from multiple perspectives. “Animation is the use of human visual residual physiological phenomena and the psychological phenomenon of kinetic optical illusion, orderly in the same window of the rapid replacement of the picture, so that people feel that the object in the picture in the movement of the audiovisual art form”. Three-dimensional animation art design and production process shown in Figure 3, three-dimensional animation, from the connotation of the computer using the drawing program will be expressed in the model screen production, through the designer needs the script m set the model that the trajectory of the movement, in the animation after the production of the scene to add the camera and lighting, and give the appropriate mapping and material to achieve the final effect. Regardless of the type of 3D animation, the production process is similar. From the creation of character models, to the material mapping, animation, and final rendering, are the necessary processes of animation production. The objective of 3D animation is to arrange the scattered processes in an orderly manner, with a primary focus on producing model animation and rendering synthesis of two major parts.
3D animation production process
VR 3D animation is essentially another kind of VR image, which is not actually a hologram captured by a VR camera, but rather a completely virtual world realized through 3D modeling. Therefore, it also has some new features, specifically immersion and sense of presence. Immersion and sense of presence are the central features of VR. From the specific logical thinking, in the virtual environment, the viewer’s perspective is always in the first person to experience, the scope of the view is a 360-degree panoramic picture, under this premise, will naturally produce a sense of immersion like being there. However, the sense of immersion is not the only core of this premise, but also through the animation of the storyline design to strengthen and construct the audience’s feelings for the virtual environment. Another is the sense of interaction, the sense of interaction refers to the audience in the virtual environment, through the interaction of the screen can get some kind of feedback, but the need is to realize the sense of interaction also need other technical equipment, such as camera tracking, motion capture device. Second is the sense of perception, the sense of perception refers to the human physiological response, in the VR environment perception is diversified, the experience of the process of watching, can see, hear, touch the virtual environment in the picture, although these are illusory, unreal, but the feeling is real, as if immersed in it. There is also the sense of conceptualization, the sense of conceptualization refers to the viewer’s thinking can be triggered by the conceptual activities, in the experience of VR, you can indirectly get a certain cognitive ability and innovative thinking, and look forward to VR animation can be experienced or access to more interesting things, which is the sense of conceptualization.
Two-dimensional animation technology and VR technology are complementary, VR technology is based on the three-dimensional model of the virtual world, through the computer’s three-dimensional software to achieve three-dimensional imaging, so that the realization of VR technology needs to be completed with the help of three-dimensional animation, three-dimensional animation of the production process also needs the support of three-dimensional software, three-dimensional animation and VR technology are relying on the production of three-dimensional software, which has a certain degree of similarity. But the connection between the two is not a juxtaposition, but a reorganization relationship. Three-dimensional animation is the basis for the realization of VR technology, indicating the importance of three-dimensional animation to VR technology. The two are more inseparable.
There is a connection between three-dimensional animation technology and VR technology, but there is also a certain difference between the two. Three-dimensional animation technology is based on the computer pre-calculated path displayed on the continuous playback of the screen and the formation of the main is based on the designer’s personal ideas and produced, there is no interactivity, the lack of emotional resonance, so the audience watched the screen is passive to accept the content displayed by the designer, which is the main difference between three-dimensional animation technology and VR technology. The interactivity of VR technology is due to the fact that it is based on the dynamic information provided by the experiencer, and through the rapid calculation of the computer, the sensory information such as touch, hearing and vision is calculated for the experiencer, and it can fully respond according to the experiencer’s ideas.
The application path of VR technology in 3D animation design is shown in Fig. 4. The appearance of VR technology provides new ideas for the development of animation business, and presents new results in the updating of technology and the final effect of animation, which is a scientific and technological breakthrough in the history of animation development. The design of 3D animation is based on the producer’s ideas, and the fundamental purpose changes when VR technology is applied to animation. The user’s experience is the main focus. At this point, the use of VR technology will change the audience from the previous passive way of watching animation to an active experience, the choice of viewing perspective is more autonomous, enhancing the interactivity and expressiveness of animation. Three-dimensional animation can only provide visual and auditory perception, VR technology increases a variety of perceptual, can simulate visual, auditory, tactile, etc. A series of sensory experiences, to the maximum extent possible, to make the user’s senses follow the changes in the plot, so that the user is truly immersed in the story.
The application path of VR technology in 3D animation design
At present, three-dimensional animation technology and VR technology are based on the development of computer technology, intelligent technology as a branch of computer science, the field of application is also more and more extensive, so in the development of the two, it should be consciously related to the intelligent technology used in the development of the two to the VR technology for the animation industry to provide strong technical support for the progress of the animation industry, not only improves the production technology and efficiency, and to a greater extent to broaden the scope of the animation industry, the VR technology is a powerful technical support. The use of VR technology provides powerful technical support for the progress of animation industry, which not only improves the production technology and efficiency, but also broadens the feeling of watching animation to a greater extent, and its perception, immersion, interactivity and autonomy make the audience have a more real and wonderful sensory experience, so the combination of three-dimensional animation and VR technology is an inevitable trend.
The combination of VR technology and 3D animation can strengthen and construct the audience’s feelings about the virtual environment, in order to further analyze the advantages of VR technology in the creation of 3D animation art design, this paper uses the Oculus Quest 2 for the experiments, including the virtual reality head-mounted display device and two control handles. Among them, the head-mounted display uses an LCD screen, equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor with 6GB of operating memory. It adopts binocular 3664*1920 display resolution and supports 72 Hz and 90 Hz refresh rates. This paper is oriented to 3D animation art design separately created two groups of animation short films with the same content. The experimental subjects in this study were recruited randomly by asking them to participate in the experiment and fill out the experimental questionnaire. The number of subjects was 30, of which, 15 were male and 15 were female. The dimensions of effect assessment were engagement, spatiality, realism, presence, and interactive experience.
The 3D animation art design creation comparison is shown in Table 1, the average scores of 3D animation art design creation based on VR technology in the five dimensions are 1.05, 0.75, 0.53, 1.23 and 6.31, which are higher than that of traditional 3D animation. Traditional three-dimensional animation is mainly transmitted through the screen, and the viewer’s participation, spatial sense, sense of reality, sense of presence, and interactive experience are relatively low. The P-values of the two 3D animation art design creations in all dimensions are less than 0.05, with significant differences. This verifies the advantages of VR technology in the application of 3D animation art design creation.
3D animation design and creation comparison
| Dimension participation | VR | Traditional 3D animation | T | P | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | SD | M | SD | |||
| Sense of space | 1.05 | 0.71 | 0.42 | 1.02 | 2.387 | 0.012 |
| Real sense | 0.75 | 0.31 | 0.09 | 0.54 | 3.059 | 0.008 |
| Field feeling | 0.53 | 0.82 | 0.08 | 0.95 | 2.622 | 0.010 |
| Interactive experience | 1.23 | 0.45 | 0.05 | 1.12 | 2.122 | 0.022 |
| Dimension | 6.31 | 7.04 | 2.42 | 8.58 | 2.129 | 0.021 |
The differences between male and female students based on the assessment of VR 3D animation art design creation were analyzed as shown in Table 2. Overall, the average scores of females in the five dimensions of engagement: spatial sense, realism, sense of presence, and interactive experience are generally higher than those of males. However, further tests found that the difference in the distribution of values between males and females only on each index was not significant (p > 0.05).
Differential analysis
| Dimension participation | Women | Men | T | P | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | SD | M | SD | |||
| Sense of space | 0.71 | 0.60 | 0.55 | 0.71 | 1.383 | 0.175 |
| Real sense | 0.53 | 0.73 | 0.21 | 0.83 | 1.654 | 0.104 |
| Field feeling | 0.54 | 0.84 | 0.13 | 0.95 | 1.623 | 0.538 |
| Interactive experience | 1.20 | 1.41 | 1.01 | 1.51 | 0.623 | 0.535 |
| Dimension | 6.03 | 7.82 | 2.42 | 9.52 | 1.832 | 0.074 |
In order to realize VR technology and three-dimensional animation art design and creation in the control, view and sound effects and other modules of the complete function, combined with the application of VR technology, can be divided into head-up display driver, specific scene, scene locator, scene controller and audio manager class five categories. Head-up display driver that is used to synchronize the virtual reality headset with the spatial displacement of the camera in the three-dimensional scene of the main class, but also the main bearing object of the interactive behavior, through the driver and the relevant components of the binding, the unreal engine can be tracked through the tracking sensors, the virtual reality headset in the tracking range of the spatial displacement of the information passed to the three-dimensional scene for the view of the display of the camera components, and then through the camera The camera component acquires the corresponding geometry array in 3D space, performs complex graphic rendering, and finally delivers the rendered video sequence frame by frame to the head-mounted display. The scene locator is a tool class used to mark the location of scene generation, and its initial design intention is to be used to refer to the generation position of specific scene instances, so that the scene operation in 3D space becomes more intuitive, so in the development stage, it is necessary to generate an equal number of locator instances with the same scene in 3D space, and modify its spatial position, rotation angle, scene serial number and other basic attributes respectively. The design significance of the audio manager is to solve the problem of audio interruption when voice-over is played across scenes, while strengthening the auditory experience.
The creation structure of 3D animation art design based on VR technology is constructed as shown in Figure 5, and the optimization of the relationship between VR technology and the creation structure of 3D animation art design is to further improve the user’s experience and immersion. Among them, the head-up display driver will be the first object to be instantiated after the program is run, and the instance of the head-up display driver will be managed in a single instance model, and through the function call to the specific scene instances, it will complete a variety of interactive behaviors to achieve the role of promoting the program process.
Construction of creative structure
The scene controller will be constructed after the instantiation of the head-up display driver is completed, and after the initialization of the program is completed, it will call the constructor function of the first scene to complete the instantiation of the first scene. In addition, at the end of each scene, when the next scene is prepared, the scene constructor will play the role of a factory class during the process, and complete the sequential instantiation of the subsequent scenes. Before instantiating a specific scene, the scene controller class will compare the scene object to be created with the serial number attributes of all scene locators, and obtain the world coordinates and rotation angle corresponding to the serial number of the scene to be created, which will be used for the construction and initialization of the next scene.
After completing the initialization of attributes, the specific scene will judge its own order in the whole process, if it is the first specific scene or some scenes containing visual interaction, it will wait for the headset driver to call its playback function, otherwise, it will automatically call the function sequentially according to the order of its internal process, in the scene with a background sound effect or next to the audio markers, the specific scene instances will create an instance of the Audio Manager In scenes with background sound effects or audio markers next to them, the specific scene instance will create an instance of the audio manager, and through function calls, complete the operation and control of the relevant audio resources.
Three-dimensional animation has developed for nearly half a century since its birth, and has become an important part of the visual culture of modern society due to the advantages of digital media and digital technology. Nowadays, with the rapid development of VR technology, the research on its application in the field of 3D animation has received high attention.The number of articles published in the field of 3D animation in 2018~2023 is 171, and the research mainly focuses on the aspects of 3D animation modeling (13 articles), software development (13 articles), 3D animation creation (12 articles), and so on. From the trend of publications from 2009 to 2023, it can be seen that the number of publications in the field of 3D animation research by VR technology shows a rapidly rising trend, and the annual number of publications in the relevant literature reaches 48 in 2023. This means that the application and research of VR technology in the field of 3D animation is gradually recognized by the industry, and the integration of the two applications has gradually become the main trend of development. From the perspective of creation effect, the average score of 3D animation art design creation based on VR technology in five dimensions is between 0.53 and 6.31, which is higher than that of traditional 3D animation, and the P is less than 0.05. It means that the viewers can actually feel the enhancement of participation, spatial sensation, sense of reality, sense of presence, and interactive experience in the animation design creation based on VR technology, which proves that the VR technology is applied in the creation of 3D animation with the effect and advantage. Proof of the application effect and advantages of VR technology in three-dimensional animation creation. In view of this, this paper combines the multifaceted analysis of VR technology in the field of three-dimensional animation, oriented to the viewer’s interactive experience, and constructs a creative structure model of three-dimensional animation art design based on VR technology, with a view to providing new guidance for the integration of the two development.