What is 3D!

What is 3D

3D graphics are a growing in demand in society and todays industries, such as Games, Television, advertising as well as Engineering, Science, Architecture and Art. Now what is 3D graphics? 3D graphics are computed generated models that we can change and modify even greater than what we could with hand made things. This offers us lots of opportunities for creation and with technology improving we can use these for more and more things.

Application of 3D

Product design

When designing something its an artists job to produce images on what the finished product will look like as well as improve the design to make it efficient and perhaps attractive. With 3D graphics Prototypes can be made that are better portrayals than drawings and can be modified in different ways that are time efficient. 3D graphics are also essential for some machinery to mass produce something because it is the input used for the machine to understand.

Here we can see a to-scale prototype for an engine, the 3d modeler can check if the design looks effective more accurately than a 2d drawing and less accurately than calculations, however for something important it is necessary to check the designs like this

A similar principle for 3D graphics is Architecture where the designer will produce a simulation or model of what they want the building to look like, making it very easier for the funders or builder to understand what the artist is thinking, 3D Models are a very practical way for concept art because of the accuracy in scale and design. Products can also be put through physic simulations for tests of things such as aerodynamics

Films/Movies

As technology advanced computers were able to render and understand 3d images by using layers of vertices that create a 3d mesh, not only did the technology have to be able to understand this process (rendering time) but also generate perspective on the monitor while still working at a speed animators can work at. The actual geometric theory is the use of edges, faces and 3d coordinate system where the computer simply generates certain locations and planes connecting them, by increasing vertices objects become more detailed, much like how pixels in an image improves the quality. However once a 3D scene has been created the movie player simply has to portray a 2D animation, meaning production companies do all the rendering with a large computer, this means that increased quality in models does not slow down videos.

A standard film has a frame rate of 24 framers per second (fps) as technology improves we are starting to see 60fps and movements look much smoother and realistic. We can see the difference in frames per second and model polygon counts  in comparing high budget to low budget films, the film “Avatar” is seen as a milestone in 3D animation and film production, each frame would take several hours to render even on the advanced computers in the studio, quality like this seems near impossible to do on a home computer.

Games

Games are considerably different than films/movies as for the most part they do not have pre-renders that mean high quality models can be used and on top of that the player will interact and explore the environment, meaning everything explore able must be polished and ‘glitch free’. In games the player is running the software of the game on their own hardware (console/pc) so therefore there are more restraints on technology.

Here we can see the improvement of the character Lara Croft over the years, for a realistic game this means the game becomes more immersive and better to look at when playing the game, one of the selling factors of a game.

Online

For online games computers also have to receive movements and actions from multiple players, so for games like Minecraft as players build and destroy blocks they may experience lag because of the speed that the connection is sending the files containing information about vertices and textures. There is also a mother server that calculates the bulk of this information ( the host) this can either be one of the players or a company server that is owned by the producer, large servers that are dedicated to the running of online games require quite a lot of money to maintain because of things such as; electricity, cooling, quality checks and maintenance.

Graphics pipeline

The concept of graphics pipeline refers to the 3d polygon rendering of anything within the field of view of the player rather than the field of view of the camera, this would appear when comparing an animation to a game, it does not reduce quality of the game, but increases speed and space that the computer can then focus on what is in the field of view. Most games also only render the models that are in the field of view and Games such as doom would only render certain models that were already decided, the developers would calculate and test what the player could see while in a certain room, so when the player lost sight of one room it would no longer be rendered and take of physical memory

Geometric theory

A line is one of the most basic shapes and in the world of modelling it is the basic information to creates a shape, the vertices connect to make an edge and with a minimum of 3 vertices a shape can be formed, therefore creating a face, and could be the start of creating a whole new model by creating something with a spline. Vertices can be added to a line that has already been created, so then they can be moved around and put into specific positions to create base models that could be extruded.

Edge
An edge is the connection between two vertices, the 2nd most basic information behind the vertices, computers will calculate the dimensions of a face by looking at the shape that is a minimum of three sides/edges.A model or a primitive is converted to an editable poly, it is possible to move these edges around to create something different while still working with the basic design.

Element

An element is also known as the body, and it is generally the whole model or primitive that you are working with.

Mesh

A Mesh is the whole model that involves all the edges, faces and vertices, this is different to an element because it contains more information. This is significant because when transferring models between programs they may not be editable because the program doesn’t have the right information, similar to comparing JPEG to PNG, this also comes under file management.  Mesh’s are also checked to find unnecessary information such as two vertices representing one corner or four triangles representing one square.

Constraints of 3D

To make it easier to rend meshes, faces consist of triangles or quadrilaterals in most cases because it is easier to calculate two triangles compared to one hexagon. A smaller mesh is easier to render a but a mesh with more vertices is not necessarily easier. Developers can reduce edges on flat surfaces to make simpler models and it is seen as “tidy” to do this.

Ever since the first game engine, constraints of computers have been considered when adding any assets. Almost all games use a system called “Clipping” this practice is where the computer does not render any vertices unless the model or face is within the players view port ( field of view), meaning that since the player isn’t interacting with the models in another room then they are not rendered until they are needed, reducing load times and lag. Doing this also means that people with lower end computers can play these games and anybody playing the game doesn’t have unnecessary physical ram waste.

3D development software

3DS Max is the 3d computer graphics program that we have focused on, it is developed and produced by Autodesk media and entertainment. Within 3DS Max you can create models, texture them and after this render either an image or animation of the scene. The rendering options let you add more information within either the material editor or rendering scene, things such as reflection make for more detailed products. In comparison to 3DS Max, Zbrush creates models using a different methods such as elevating or lowering surfaces, substantially increasing the vertices in the model, however this technique is significantly better at making models of characters or detailed scenery. The use of different software is important in the industry because it shows your flexibility in the different styles of modelling depending on what the situation requires.