Week 4 3D

 Historical highlights of 3D Graphics.

There are a lot of important highlights in the field of 3D graphics along with advances in 3D graphics. A man by the name of William Fetter, an art director at the Boeing Company created the Boeing man in 1964. The reason why this is important is because he was the first to create three-dimensional (3D) images of the human body using a computer. The second highlight of 3D graphics was by Frederic Parke who created 3D human face in 1972 and Edwin Catmull created a 3D hand for the animated film A Computer Animated Hand (1972), made by both Frederic Parke and Edwin Catmull. The next highlight actually ties back to the short animation A Computer Animated Hand (1972), this highlight is the film Futureworld (1976) the first major feature film to use generated images (CGI), which featured the 3D human face and hand by Edwin Catmull & Frederic Parke, fun little fact is that the director of Futureworld (1976) actually saw the short animation by Edwin Catmull & Frederic Parke and wanted to incorporate it into his film. The fourth highlight is the usage of many different uses of 3D for the film Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), the two most renowned highlights of 3D graphics of Star Wars, was the usage of an animated wire frame graphic for the trench run briefing scene, the second highlight of 3D graphics is the usage of vector graphics to make the targeting display inside the fighters as seen in the image below.  

Rebel Alliance X/Y-Wing Targeting Computer (N.A.)

The fifth highlight of 3D graphics is the combination of live action and computer animation in the film Tron (1982). The 3D graphics used in Tron (1982), was the first extensive use of 15 minutes of 3D CGI, including the famous Light Cycle sequence (refer to the 1^st image below), and also very early facial animation for the Master Control Program (refer to the 2^nd image below).

Light Cycle Scene (1982).

Master Control Program (1982).

The sixth highlight once again coming from a film is the ground breaking computer graphics, visual images and special effects used in Terminator 2 (1991). The reason why Terminator 2 (1991) is used a 3D graphic highlight is because it has the first realistic human movements on a CGI character, the T-1000 Terminator (as seen in the image below). 

T-1000 Terminator (1991).

The seventh highlight of 3D graphics usage in history is from one of the most iconic films and probably still the best one around even now, Jurassic Park (1993). The film Jurassic Park (1993) used realistic 3D dinosaurs, most of the time you can’t even tell they are fake because of how well the film itself is put together. The eight most iconic highlight of 3D graphics used in industries is the 3D animated film Toy Story (1995), this is important for it is considered to be the first animated feature generated completely on computers, and has paved the way for animation studios. The ninth highlight for 3D graphics and most conically known as the worst film made is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), which featured the attempt at photo realistic CGI humans. The reason why Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) failed and became known as a negative due to many reasons, but one of them is because it causes the human mind to look at the characters as if they are re-animated corpses. The last historical highlight of 3D graphics usage is an iconic film; Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (2002), the reason why is because of the creation of the character Gollum. The character Gollum was created by using photo realistic motion capture, and this was also the first time photo realistic motion capture was used for film. Due to the success of motion capture and how realistic one can make 3D characters look through the combination of motion capture and 3D animators it is still used heavily in the film and video game industry.

3D Modeller/ Concept artist that inspire me.

One particular artist whom I didn’t pay much attention to in 2011 on deviant art turned out to be actually the only 3D modeller/ concept artist that I know out of my head that inspires me, that artist’s name is Alexey Pyatov, whom goes by the artist name of KaranaK. The piece of work that inspired me was the video game Star Conflict published by Gaijin Entertainment (2014), a futuristic sci-fi spaceship battle game. Alexey’s role in this was that he was hired as a concept artist to create the concept art for several various ships, such as the “Maelstrom” aircraft carrier dreadnought, the strike fighter “Maned wolf”, medium fighter “Cougar”, heavy assault fighter/ gunship “Stegosaurus” and medium fighter “Lion MK2”, along with various other spacecraft/ spaceship concept work for Star Conflict. Some examples of his work that I’ve mentioned are shown in the images below.

 Maelstrom (2012).

Maned Wolf (2013).

Cougar (2013).

Stegosaurus (2012).

Lion MK2 (2012)

I’ve always been very impressed by his design of the ships as well as the technicality that is incorporated in all of his mechanical artworks. Alexey is currently still working on making vehicles and weaponry as a concept artist and 3D modeller, and recently I have discovered another piece of concept art that I absolutely love, as it incorporates a massive amount of more detail compared to his older works, showing that over the years he has been improving quite heavily. Again one of his older work, but heavily impressive is the piece of concept art that I absolutely love, the butcher class heavy gunship CS-35M, as seen in the image below.

Butcher Class Heavy Gun-ship (2014).

References:

Arnold, B. (Producer) & Lasseter, J. (Director/ Writer). (1995) Toy Story [Motion picture]. Burbank: CA. Walt Disney Pictures.

Arkoff, S. (Producer) & Heffron, R. (Director). (1976). Futureworld [Motion picture]. Los Angeles, CA: American International Pictures.

Catmull, E. (Producer/ Director) & Parke, F. (Producer/ Director). (1972). A computer animated hand [DVD]. University of Utah, UT: Author.

Cameron, J. (Producer/ Director) & Wisher, W. (Writer). (1991). Terminator 2: Judgement Day [Motion picture]. Culver City: CA. TriStar Pictures.

Fetter, W. (1964). Boeing man [Image]. Retrieved from http://courses.washington.edu/eatreun/html/history/h_nw.html

Pyatov, A. (2012). Lion MK2 [Image]. Retrieved from http://karanak.deviantart.com/art/Lion-MK2-279522713

Pyatov, A. (2012). Maelstrom [Image]. Retrieved from http://karanak.deviantart.com/art/Maelstrom-290609062

Pyatov, A. (2012). Stegosaurus [Image]. Retrieved from http://karanak.deviantart.com/art/Stegosaurus-277734014

Pyatov, A. (2013). Cougar [Image]. Retrieved from http://karanak.deviantart.com/art/Cougar-389146781

Pyatov, A. (2013). Maned wolf [Image]. Retrieved from http://karanak.deviantart.com/art/Maned-wolf-389409256

Pyatov, A. (2014). Butcher Class Heavy Gun-ship [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8wdqw

Pyxurz. (N.A.). T-1000 Terminator [Image]. Retrieved from http://pyxurz.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/terminator-2-judgment-day-page-6-of-14.html

Sakaguchi, H. (Director) & Reinert, A. (Writer). (2001). Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within [Motion picture]. Honolulu: Hawaii. Square Pictures.

Spielberg, S. (Producer) & Crichton, M. (Writer) (1993). Jurassic Park [Motion picture]. Universal City: CA. Universal Studios.

StarGem Inc. (2014). Star Conflict [PC]. Moscow: Gaijin Entertainment.

Suide, C. (2015). Master Control Program [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.scifimoviepage.com/sci-fi-nerd-freaky-friday-tron-the-quiet-revolution/

Varyag, J. (N.A.). Rebel Alliance X/Y-Wing Targeting System [Image]. Retrieved from https://au.pinterest.com/pin/248612841904957196/

Week 3

Lighting;

Lighting can be a fun stage for animating and creating still 3D images. Essentially lighting is the stage where the animator controls most of the light elements of the scenes and shots. These light elements can range from many sources, the positioning of the sun, how much glow a light might have in the scene, cast reflected light, the list can go on, however there are also many different lighting types to choose from and depending on what you want lighting can add the exact or extra feeling you want a shot to portray. Sometimes though, you might want to touch lighting in rendering or even using 2D program such as Photoshop after the rendering. The image below shows several different lighting types and the effects they have on a glass ball, in Maya.

 Maya 3D Lighting Examples (2011).

Rendering;

Nearing the final stage of 3D animation there is rendering. As stated by Birn (2002) “3D rendering is a creative process that is similar to photography or cinematography, because you are lighting and staging scenes and producing images.” The usage of rendering are as followed; the final shot you wanted, your animation or a beautiful final asset for your portfolio. Rendering can take anywhere from a few seconds, to hours or even days depending on the quality of the rendering, the complexity of it and even the hardware (CPU) of the computer it is being rendered on. For example if you were to use just one lone computer to animate let’s say for example Cars 2 (2011) it would essentially take you roughly as an estimate 179 years, just to give you a feeling as to how long it would take to animate a 3D film, luckily however Pixar and various other film studios and video game studios (the big ones) have dedicated render farms (which is essentially rooms full of CPU's rendering it all), thus cutting down heavily on those 179 years it might take to make it on one computer.

Compositing;

Wiesen (2016) states that “3D compositing is a process by which various elements, often including both live action film footage or photographs and virtual computer-generated images, are layered and composited together into a single image or scene.” An example that I can give for compositing is creating a boat in a 3D imaging program first and then being able to generate a shadow in that program to be cast on the water, which can then be composited into the scene. Another example is having an object in one layer affect the lighting in another, almost like what cast lighting does when it comes to 2D illustrations, to continue the example, let’s say we have a green bottle and the lighting (sun light) going through it, the light before the bottle is yellow but after going through the bottle it is green. 

References;

Boudon, G. (N.A.). Understanding a 3D Production Pipeline – Learning The Basics. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-a-3d-production-pipeline-learning-the-basics/

Birn, J. (2002). 3dRender. Retrieved from http://www.3drender.com/glossary/3drendering.htm

Crowley, C. (2011). Maya 3D Lighting Examples [Image]. Retrieved from http://vash-crowley.deviantart.com/art/Maya-3D-Lighting-Examples-205402049

Lasseter, J. (Director/ Writer) & Lewis, B. (Director/ Writer). (2011). Cars 2 [Motion picture].  Hollywood, CA: Pixar Animation Studios.

Wiesen, G. (2016). Wisegeek. Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-3d-compositing.htm

Week 2

UV Mapping;

Probably the one stage I dislike the most so far in animating would the UV mapping stage. Essentially UV mapping is the process in 3D modelling of projecting a 2D image onto a 3D model’s surface which leads to texture mapping. The way that UV mapping works is that it creates a texture map around your 3D model, best shown with a cube, as seen in the image below.

A representation of the UV mapping of a cube 2008.

However it is still quite a tedious process to get through and can make or break the texture’s positioning on the model.

Texturing and Shaders;

Texturing and the usage of shaders is the next step in 3D animation after the UV mapping. What this stage consists of is the boring bland default grey looking model, known as the default shader, and adding a new shading material to the 3D model, as stated by Boudon (N.A.) it “gives the artists the ability to control things like colour, reflectivity, shininess, and much more.” Thus what was once a 3D model with a solid grey colour can be transformed into a 3D model that looks very realistic or might end up looking cartoon like with the colours and materials applied to it, as seen in the images below.

Toy Race Car Textured (N.A.).

Female Model (2014).

Rigging;

Rigging is either one of the most frustrating or enjoyable parts of animating, it really depends if you like it or not. Essentially rigging is the phase where you create a skeleton, the joints and the control nodes for your 3D model. You definitely do not want to animate your 3D model whilst not having a skeleton for it, otherwise you’ll end up animating the mesh, and that is one thing you want to absolutely avoid with animating. So what exactly does the skeleton, the joints and these control nodes allow you to do? Simple, it allows you to move body parts and create facial expressions so that your 3D model can actually move and thus come to life, however you must still think about whether or not the body parts should bend like real body parts, for example the arm bending at the elbow joint, or if it’s going to be like one of those wacky cartoon character’s arms where it can extend beyond that of a normal human being. An example of a rig and skeleton is seen in the image below.

Rig & Nurb (2010).

Animation;

Animation, the phase where your rigged assets are animated using controls to match the desired shot and where you can see all the previous steps come together. Essentially animating can mean anything from complex character movements that you see in the latest films and video games to the movements of something mechanical, let’s say for example an engine. To be able to make an animation an animator will use a timeline and then set movement in the frames that then play back as an animation, the difference essentially between that of a 3D animation and that of a 2D animation is not a lot since they use the same concept of flip book animations. However as Boudon (N.A.) states; “except instead of creating a new pose on each sheet of paper, 3D animators create poses on a series of still images that are referred to as frames”. It is an animators job to make the 3D characters and objects come to life.

References:

Boice, C. (2014). Female Model [Image]. Retrieved from http://calvinboice.tumblr.com/post/85655594777/this-character-was-modeled-in-zbrush-and

Boudon, G. (N.A.). Understanding a 3D Production Pipeline - Learning The Basics. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-a-3d-production-pipeline-learning-the-basics/

Boudon, G. (N.A.). Toy Race Car Textured [Image]. Retrieved from http://i2.wp.com/blog.digitaltutors.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1151-620x350.jpg

Jenson, D. (2010). Rig & Nurb Model [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.derekjenson.com/3d-blog/archives/02-2010

Zephyris (2008). A representation of the UV mapping of a cube [Image]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_mapping#/media/File:Cube_Representative_UV_Unwrapping.png