Comparing 3D Animation

The term ‘rendering’ in 3D modelling is given to the process in which a 3D model or environment is displayed in 2D space. Video games have to render in real-time, so they are constantly processing what’s there and displaying it afterwards. This is why 3D modelling for TV and movies can be of better quality as it doesn’t need to be rendering every frame in as short a time as possible. When a 3D animation is pre-rendered it means that they have rendered the image ahead of time so that they don’t have to do it ‘on the fly’ as they have to in games. This gives pre-rendered frames an advantage in quality because they don’t have to waste processing power on continuously rendering. 
Real-time rendering has to react immediately to the players input and is vital in games design so the player can feel the immediate result of their actions.

In the film industry they will use pre-rendered images to make some movies. Because of movies moving forward on a predetermined path, they don’t have to render what is happening when the movie is playing, as it will not change from displaying the same thing each play through of the movie.
Like a lot of video games, movies have quite large budgets for the production of big titles as well as long or far away deadlines, which should, in theory,allow them to be of a higher quality.

In Advertising a lot of the time they will use 3D animation for adverts on TV or pictures for magazines, billboards etc. Adverts use pre-rendered 3D animation to make whatever they are advertising more appealing to their target audience. Advert animations can differ considerably in quality according to how much money the company has put into the budget for the animators, meaning that they may come out with quite a complex, high quality animation or something that just gets the point across. These animations will usually have quite a short production period because of how short they are, but also because they need to stay topical and up to date with whatever they are advertising.