Essay About Dimensional Objects And First Step

Film and Animation Graphics
Essay Preview: Film and Animation Graphics
Report this essay
INTRODUCTION
Hollywood has gone digital, and the old ways of doing things are dying.
Animation and special effects created with computers have been embraced by
television networks, advertisers, and movie studios alike. Film editors, who for
decades worked trying to make scenes look real are now sitting in front of
computers screens.
They edit entire features while adding sound that is not only stored digitally, but
that is also created and manipulated with computers. Viewers are witnessing the
results of all this in the form of stories and experiences that they never dreamed of
before. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of all this, however, is that the entire
digital effects and animation industry is still growing pretty strong and, the future
looks bright.
In the beginning, computer graphics were really hard to manipulate but with time
the software companies started to improve their programs, adding more tools and
key features, which helped the way computers generated pictures, simulating real
world scenes.
Creating computer graphics is essentially about three things:
Modeling, Animation, and Rendering. Modeling is the process by which 3-
dimensional objects are built inside the computer; animation is about
making those objects come to life with movement, and rendering is about
giving them their ultimate appearance and looks.
Hardware is the brains and brawn of computer graphics, but it is powerless
without the right software. It is the software that allows the modeler to
build a computer graphic object that helps the animator bring this object to
life, and that, in the end, gives the image its final look. Sophisticated
computer graphics software for commercial studios is either purchased for
$30,000 to $50,000, or developed in-house by computer programmers.
Most studios use a combination of both, developing new software to meet
new project needs.
MODELING
Modeling is the first step in creating any 3D computer graphics. Modeling
in computer graphics is a little like sculpting, a little like building models
with wood, plastic and glue, and a lot like CAD. Its flexibility and potential
are unmatched in any other art form. With computer graphics it is possible
to build entire worlds and entire realities. Each can have its own laws, its
own looks, and its own scale of time and space. Access to these 3-
dimensional computer realities is almost always through the 2-dimensional
window of a computer monitor. This can lead to the misunderstanding that
3-D modeling is merely the production perspective drawings. This is very
far from the truth. All elements created during any modeling session
possess three full dimensions and at any time can be rotated, turned upside
down, and viewed from any angle or perspective. In addition, they may be
re-scaled, reshaped, or resized whenever the modeler chooses. Modeling is
the first step in creating any 3-dimensional computer animation. It requires
the artists ability to visualize mentally the objects being built, and the
craftspersons painstaking attention to detail to bring it to completion. To
create an object, a modeler starts with a blank screen an sets the scale of the
computers coordinate system for that element. The scale can be anything
from microns to light years across in size. It is important that scale stays
consistent with all elements in a project. A chair built in inches will be lost
in a living room built in miles. The model is then created by building up
layers of lines and patches that define the shape of the object. Animation
While it is the modeler that contains the power of creation, it is the
animator who provides the illusion of life. The animator uses the tools at
his disposal to make objects move.
Every animation process begins essentially the same way, with a storyboard. A
storyboard is a series of still images that shows how the elements will move and
interact with each other. This process is essential so that the animator knows what
movements need to be assigned to objects in the animation.