CGI History

CGI Development

The first believed use of graphics and animation was the thaumatrope . It was invented in the mid 1820’s by John Paris. The device is a disc with images on both sides of the disc.

Following this, the zoetrope, often known as the “Wheel of Life.” The zoetrope was invented in 1834 by William G Horner. Many people.

In the CGI (computer generated imagery) industry believe that the classic thesis by Sutherland in the early 1960’s was the official beginning of computer graphics and animation, in the form that it is known today.The classic thesis by the pioneer Ivan Sutherland was the beginning of computer graphics which was an interactive computer graphics interface, called Sketchpad, demonstrated for the first time the power of computer graphics as a method for controlling and interacting with computers.Simple computer graphics had earlier been created during the fifties to generate simple output displays. However, it was not until Ivan Sutherland developed his original software, that people became aware of the skills and potential of computer graphics.

The potential of the computer to create graphically enhanced productions, was, at first slow to develop. During this era there were three main barriers which often stopped people fully utilizing the powerful development which computers had to offer.The first was the high cost of computing during this time. This appeared in a number of different formats. Firstly the computer graphics which were created, especially if they were interactive, would become large in memory. The cost of this was very high and was hard to catch on and the cost demands couldn’t be met.

The only occasions when these could be justified was when universities and large industrial research laboratories used the computer to aid them with research.The second was the lack of understanding for the intricate controls of generating graphics, due to the then complicated picture generating software, which would be needed for an effective computer graphics system.  

The complex beginning of both systems of software and application was much underestimated. Many of the early graphics achievements were in fact impressive in them selves but rather inadequate when in comparison to the demands of professionally economically sound interactive graphic design applications.Due to many technological innovations, time favoured CGI. Computer equipment continued to drop in price year after year.

Also, during this era, operating systems were improved, and people ability to cope with complex was appearing less and less as the software became more sophisticated. Progress was made in the development of algorithms.

“Algorithms are a definite list of well-defined instructions for completing a task; that given an initial state will proceed through a well-defined series of successive states, eventually terminating in an end-state.The concept of an algorithm originated as a means of recording procedures for solving mathematical problems such as finding the common divisor of two numbers or multiplying two numbers”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm.

Algorithms were successful in generating pictures, especially those which represented the views of 3D objects.Computer graphics entails both hardware and software technology. As with conventional numerical computing, we may have both batch and interactive modes.

In the early days of computer graphics, the main attention of the artists was given to the hardware side of CGI. Due to high performance hardware of the new age of computers, the attention to the hardware is a lot less and has shifted to the software side being a lot more appealing.

 

Rendering Hardware

One key stage during the 3D development of a particular object, has to rendered at the end of the process for the object to be complete. In this post i am going to be stating simple facts about rendering hardware and its capabilities.

API

Firstly an API in rendering terms, is  named Application Programming Interface. An API is the initial interface which is between a 3D Application and the hardware which is being used to render the object. The main function, this usually happens after all the steps in the animation process have been completed.

GPU 

The next point in relation to rendering hardware is a GPU. A GPU stands for graphics processing unit. A GPU is a dedicated graphics rendering tool for a number of media consoles, such as PC and Games console.

“A GPU implements a number of graphics primitive operations in a way that makes running them much faster than drawing directly to the screen with the host CPU.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPU

Throughout the history, GPU’s have developed mainly from the moonlithic graphic chip’s of the early 1980’s and 90’s. The first gaming console to use a style of  a GPU was the commadore amiga in the early 1980’s.

Shader’s

 A shader is a something is something which has the ability to define final surface properties, such as Colour, lighting and reflectivity, and transluscency of a surface.

Both the DirectX and OpenGL graphic libraries use three types of shaders. These are Vertex shader which only effect certain series of vertices and can therefore only effect vertex properties like position, color, and texture coordinate.

Rendering Engine

A rendering engine is a process which generates an image from a model.  The main model is a description of 3D objects from a data structure. The image contans information from points such as geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading.

Rendering is used in many forms of media entertainment to render final productions.

Some of these include;

video games,

simulators,

movie or TV special effects, and design visualization.

Each of these forms of entertainment use differing amounts of balance and technique.

Why SGI graphics are considered to be important in the development of hardware renderers?

Silicon graphics are considered to play such a key role in the development of hardware renderers as silicon graphics were the founders of Open GL graphics.

James Clarke

James Clarke is a very well know entrepeneur who  formally specialised in in comouter scientists. In the more recent times he hs founded several notiable companies under the silicon Valley technology.

The reason why James Clarke is one of the most notable founders in computer graphics is because his research into computer graphics led to the development of systems for fast rendering of computer images.

Pro’s  and cons of Open GL and Direct X shaders

Open GL

The Open GL Shader is cross Platform,

Open GL is very portable and is able to be used in a variety of situations and is very straight forward to use.

Open GL is unlikely to evolve at a fast rate.

Direct X

DirectX supports a greater set of features.

DirectX gives programmers a great deal of control over the rendering pipeline if they want it.  DirectX 9.0 features programmable pixel and vertex shaders

Direct X has better support for modern chipset features.

Direct X also is very straightforward however, this is not cross platform like the open GL, where as the direct X can in many cases only work on the Windows Platform.

However it has some driver issues.

DirectX is not portable and probably never will be.

Limitations of 3D

In terms of  3D software there is one main limitation. in many cases the limitation is the prices of some particular 3D Software suites.

For example, 3ds max, perhaps one of the most renowned 3d modelling pieces of software is a very effective piece of software to create 3d models, however as this is a very thorough program, the overall price of the software is very large in price.

The latest edition of 3ds max is available for almost $3500.

The high cost of 3d software is one of the very few limitations and is recognised in relation too most of the more professional and higher standard pieces of software,

 One further limitation in relation to the actual production of 3D models and whilst creating proffesional standard 3D models it becomes very easy to create files which have large file sizes, espescially after the model has been rendered.

The final limitation is the use of polygons and how these can cause limitations to an image and its quality.

 The higher the poly count the more detailed the image will be and the animation will run more smoothly. Each image is made up of a number of polygons and the number used is called the poly count. A high poly count in a scene will create large files

Radiosity and Raytracing

Ray tracing is an image-space algorithm

·        If the camera is moved, we have to start over

Radiosity is computed in object-space

·        View-independent (just don’t move the light)

·        Can pre-computer complex lighting to allow interactive walkthroughs

A shader is a algorithm and is a mathematical function 

Cartesian co-ordinate system

RENÉ DESCARTES (1596-1650)
“Cogito Ergo Sum” (“I think, therefore I am.”)

French mathematician Rene Descartes first developed the Cartesian coordinate system in 1637. He is famous for having made an important connection between geometry and algebra

 

 

3D Production Pipeline

   

DreamWorks studio production pipeline.

Example of a script.

 Films begin with concepts. Some of the ideas are completely original, while some are inspired by a wide variety of sources, including children’s books and comic strips.  Once settled on an idea, the first step is to write a script. The page you see here is a scene from the script of Shrek 2. Once a script page is ready, it is given to the storyboard artists. Imagining how the words will translate into actions and pictures, they make a series of sketches — a kind of comic book — to tell the story and bring it to life. Once the directors and producer approve, the drawings are digitally photographed and strung together to create a story reel  

 

Once the story reel is underway, the visual development department begins to plan the look of the film, developing the style, tone, color and overall artistic approach to each and every sequence.Thousands of drawings, paintings, blueprints, sculptures and models later, our development artists have designed a fantasy world and characters to tell the story.

Voice castings 

Once the storyboards are drawn and the character and sets are designed they need to start looking for voices for the characters and start recording their lines.

  Stages of character production 

 The initial character design starts with modellers constructing the digital 3-D model that they will use for planning and animation.Then the modellers start with the wire frame sculpture that is called an armature, that breaks down the design into workable geometry and allows the animators to “rig” the character, which will give the animator the ability to move the 3-D figure in whatever way is.Once they have set up the armature, they can begin to add basic surfaces. It is this simplified “puppet in a box” or digital marionette that they use in next step.   

   

The layout artists use rough “stand-in” shapes to block out the movement of the character in the scene. This layout is used to determine camera movement, character placement, spacing, lighting, geography and scene timing. This gives us a digital picture of each scene before they begin the character animation.

Once the animators have found a well working sequence in layout, they start bringing the characters to life in the computer. They articulate the thousands of controls that were created during the character-rigging phase to bring each character to life and to synchronize them to the voice performances. 

Stage One                                                                 

This stage is just supposed to show what is happening and with which character                            

      

Stage Two 

In the stage they start to build wave and give it a trananslucent appearance                                                                              

    

Stage Three                                                             

 Next the animators visualise how the surrounding environment is reflected in the wave like a mirror                                  

 Stage Four

 

They add foam to the surface, bubbles underneath and spray and splashes to the almost finished wave.

When all these are combined they are then sent to the lightning department where they add the complete textures.

 

 

Throughout this entire process the images have evolved from words on a page to moving images to realistic animation. Finally, they are ready to add sound effects, add the final score into the film, mix our soundtracks, correct the color, make the film or digital prints and release to theatres nationally and worldwide.

 

Robert Abel

Why is robert abel significant in the development of 3d computer graphics

Robert Abel was considered one of the founding fathers of computer-based animation and special effects. He also pioneered the commercial use of digitally-controlled motion-control photography and the use of computers for pre-visualization and animation, but he left a legacy greater than a portfolio of groundbreaking television commercials and filmwork. He also mentored a generation of talented directors and digital artists, essentially jump-starting a new industry.

He became a successful documentary filmmaker, and directed titles such as The Making of The President: 1968 and Sophia: A Self-Portrait.

Their first assignments were animated logos for ABC Television and the Whirlpool Corporation

Adapted the computerised camera system for the film “A Space Odyssey” to create special effects for broadcast graphics and television commercials

Robert Abel and Associates

In 1984 Robert Abel and Associates produced the first computer generated a 30-second advertisement, which aired in 1985. The advertisement was called ‘Brilliance’ but became widely known as sexy robot. This digital character remains a landmark for the industry.

Robert Abel and Associates were one of the main adapters

http://www.commarts.com/CA/feapion_d/abel/

http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history