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