Evaluating a Stylized 3D Animation Pipeline for Educational Multimedia Applications

In this paper we report the approach of a stylized 3D animation pipeline implemented through computational optimization and educational design, using Blender's Eevee render engine. The objective of this project was to create a culturally based animated short film that showcases Lucena City's local heritage and showcases the potential of real-time rendering in a multimedia context for academic film production. The suggested workflow utilized non-photorealistic rendering, like Toon Shader node configurations and inverted hull outlining respectively, along with incremental improvements in lighting and composition. Performance evaluations comparing Eevee with Cycles showed that over 10x faster Eevee rendering times and little loss in visual fidelity was reported overall, confirming efficacy of Eevee for classroom work. A quantitative user assessment conducted on 116 people evaluated the animation across seven multimedia items such as Knowledge of Content, Storytelling, Sound Design, and Historical Accuracy. Results showed a high cognitive and cultural effectiveness of the tool (M=4.62−4.74) and strong inter item reliability (Cronbach's α=0.89). This supports Mayer's multimedia learning theory where stylized visuals can aid in comprehension through minimizing extraneous cognitive load. By doing so, the pipeline showcases how artistic abstraction grounded as it is in historical fidelity - can benefit rendering performance as well as educational engagement. The study finds that open-source platforms, such as Blender, will be able to support cost-effective, pedagogically appropriate multimedia production that remains aligned with a given institutional resource. Later work will build upon the framework through AIbased denoising, cross-engine comparison, and eye-tracking analytics to better investigate the nature of learner attention and retention.