I have no doubt there are projects that could be scaled up without doing almost any preliminary work, but when you say things like "I've done all I need in advance to know what I'm facing -- now how do I add props and motions to the scene?" you remind me of my grandson who told me he wanted to be a paramedic and knew all it entailed and then asked "But the sight of blood bothers me, do you think that will be an issue?"

I think you have ZERO understanding of what you are getting into, but I could be wrong.  Good luck.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Your statement "I do have no experience in animating" is somewhat of a concern. I wish you the best of luck, of course, but I also think doing smaller projects first as Kelley suggests might not be a bad idea.

Do you have experience in film-making? If you do that would be of great help. An animation film is a film, after all, and the cinematographic component is important. I find that every time I do new project it gets a bit better (to me at least). I also try to concentrate on things that I feel I have to learn more about, and doing that in a project is a great learning experience.

And, as already pointed out, we are all here to help.

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+1

How to help by sharing real-life experience and battle scars, but without demoralizing the recipient...  it can be a challenge

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

@Epluribusunum56,

Epluribusunum56 if you don't cut your project up into many sequences you computer will bog down to barely a crawl, no matter how fast it is. Plus some errors will be introduced into the animation along the way ( it's inevitable ) and you'll end up screwing up a lot of your hard work.

Come on guys,

Look, I learned to cook Hamburger-Helper reasonably well, though my cat won't eat any of it; with his attitude, I really should have named him Morris instead of Mr. Bob.  I found in the preparation of Hamburger-Helper, that hamburger is optional, and you don't have to use milk and water; it's crunchier that way.  I just put the box in the microwave for three-minutes then eat.

I am taking your advice and making short clips that I will combine in a video editor.  I look at the clips like pages of a book, with each page/clip a part of the ongoing story.  If I don't like a page, I can redo it until it's what I want.  I will be embedding a lot of PowerPoint animations into my movie.  My last PowerPoint project had 1017 slides, with more than half having complex animations.  (Yes, I know, PowerPoint animations are child's play, and don't count in the real world of animations.)  I only need two stages/sets, two avatars, and six props to make my movie.  The primary prop is a monitor that will play my PowerPoint animations.  The remaining props are for cinematic effects to keep the movie interesting.

My primary avatar is going to be an amazing character; I am hoping that she will be spell binding, but that all depends on how I present her demeanor.  She won't be doing any acrobatics, just passive teaching.  Though the subject matter I will be presenting is very complex, the presentation itself will be fairly simple.

I do have some challenges ahead.  First, I need to learn how to embed PowerPoint animations into iClone.  If anyone knows how to do that, please can you tell me how.  Secondly, I need to learn to use dummy props better in animating interactive hand and arm movements with the PowerPoint animations.  I have only found two videos on that subject.  And thirdly, I need to learn lighting and camera effects.  Well, there is more like learning to use vector paths, but these are first and foremost in my needs list.  I do listen to and think about what you guys say, and you have changed my strategy many times already.

Hey, do you guys have a pool betting on when I will crash and burn and give up; I'll put a dollar on the never date...

The little old man learning to animate,
Mark

I'll PM you with PPT-->iClone notes.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Haha, I like you.   Good luck with your project.

Mark,

The problem with your analogy is that you then assume anyone would want to actually EAT what you cooked with hamburger helper (anyone but yourself, that is).  If you really do want folks to watch what you make, you're going about it all wrong.

But that's all I'll say on the point -- again, I do wish you the best of luck, but my own bet is not so much you won't finish (although you won't) as a few months down the road you'll realize the advice many of us have given you is right and you'll start all over again.  Nothing wrong with that, either.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley