Unit 66 & 67 - 3D Modelling and Animation
Theory and Application of 3D models:
The application of 3D models in present day can range from Entertainment industry to the Engineering industry. It can be used in many ways for 3D modelling but main purpose is usually, if not always building or structuring models for real life 3D printing, planning, animating or gaming. The programme that is useful for creating real life plans or structure is 3D Max and SketchUp 3D. For gaming it would be MudBox and Maya, they a lot more dense with information and tools that can up the quality of work.
The theory will use Maya as an example to make it simple to follow and understand when am explaining. As Maya is one of the most popular modelling and animation tools that are used by the Gaming industry and Entertainment companies, because its has well made animations engine to it as well it easily used by anyone experience modeller for their work.
Tool Box Interface, Basic Tools:
This is the Tool bar interface of Maya that is always on the left side of the programme. It can be used for animation and modelling. The Select tool is a basic mouse that is able to select section or part depending on the Mode it's in. The Lasso tool is similar but it can select part or groups of part by making a shape, anything within its shape. The paint selection tool again works like Select but being able to select multiple part(s) by holding the left mouse button (LMB) down until release.
The application of 3D models in present day can range from Entertainment industry to the Engineering industry. It can be used in many ways for 3D modelling but main purpose is usually, if not always building or structuring models for real life 3D printing, planning, animating or gaming. The programme that is useful for creating real life plans or structure is 3D Max and SketchUp 3D. For gaming it would be MudBox and Maya, they a lot more dense with information and tools that can up the quality of work.
The theory will use Maya as an example to make it simple to follow and understand when am explaining. As Maya is one of the most popular modelling and animation tools that are used by the Gaming industry and Entertainment companies, because its has well made animations engine to it as well it easily used by anyone experience modeller for their work.
Tool Box Interface, Basic Tools:
This is the Tool bar interface of Maya that is always on the left side of the programme. It can be used for animation and modelling. The Select tool is a basic mouse that is able to select section or part depending on the Mode it's in. The Lasso tool is similar but it can select part or groups of part by making a shape, anything within its shape. The paint selection tool again works like Select but being able to select multiple part(s) by holding the left mouse button (LMB) down until release.
The Move tool allows an selected object to be moved any location on the screen. Or when selecting a face (for example) it can drag it out or in any direction. The Rotate tool is capable of rotating any object or face in any 360 degree in any directions. The Scale tool can increase or decrease the size of the object or stretching/shortening anyway face/object in anyway. The "last used" is what tool that was used last, allowing Designer to quickly go back onto the last tool. This is the most common used feature on Maya, as it used the most to alter, change or reposition an object or face.
Modelling Terminology:
Any modeller from any industry will always use the same terminology. These terminology will stay the same in use and definition from a Movie market to Gaming Industry. "Polygons" are most used in tool in Maya and other programmes like it. It has a very smooth surface allowing geometry to add it and altering to fit the need the modeller wants. The "NURBS" is tool meaning "Non-uniform Rotational B-spline" NURBS is commonly used for smoothing points and four points that control major control points allow the Polygon to be manipulated. "Subdivisions" is algorithm that algorithm that takes the Polygon and automatically smooths. For example, imagine a cube was turned into a sphere. More divisions it had when changed, more smoother the sphere will be. The "Faces", "Vertex" and "Edge" are simple part. For example, imagine a square, there's the face, edge and vertex. That's it.
"Topology", this is important when creating the character model, especially if the character is important. Topology is made up of Polygons stuck together that makes a body part but its usually said about the face that made up of Polygons. Then there is "Bevelling" which allows the modeller to make face, edge or vertex more smoother or edgier. Finally, "Digital Sculpting" is entirely its programme within Maya for example. It quite difficult to easy as a beginner but in experienced hand, the person can alter, add details, hairs and etc. To make it look more realistic and/or well detailed.
Texture and Shading Terminology:
The essential terminology for texture and shading. There is "Texture mapping", "Shaders", "Normal maps", "UV Mapping", "Specularity", "Bump heads", "Transparency map", "Normal maps" and "Baking".
Texture maps that allows Model to be wrapped with texture. Making so, allowing to add detail and flair to it easily. A bit like how cross can be turned into 3D cube. The Shaders describe the entire object, how it should react to lighting, how dark it should be, transparency, diffusion and etc. UV map scans the 3D model, creating a 2D map flat. It allows the modellers to add detail to the 2D map, then covering the 3D, easily matching it if done right. Normal maps are used as an illusion. A way to give the appearance as if the object has a lot of detail. It's useful if there isn't much Polygon to use anymore.
Graphics Pipeline:
Graphics pipeline is the process that CPU and GPU do when visualising the objects on the screen. For example, Microsoft used Direct3D, which support eleven stages of real-time process. During all stages the Pipeline will consume some resources of the RAM.
Stages in order:
Animation:
Animation is a lot in Entertain industry, mostly in the game Game market. The animation can vary largely from many degrees depending on the model and realism of the animation style. For example, a humanoid rabbit using a cartoon-ish animation style. Or if it is a normal human body they can animate normally, walking like a average person.
There usually two types of animations. One being handmade animation, second being CGI; Computer Generated Images. Fourth, is Inverse kinematics. The fifth type being a mix of the first and fourth one, usually used in games to save a lot of time for the animator(s). Handmade animations tend to be time consuming depending the complexity of the model movement. The Inverse kinematics allows the game to alter the animation depending on the object model is standing during the animation playout. This can also be used in movies and TV shows, where the developer can just let the walk animation go in cycle. So walk cycle will change automatically depending on the terrine.
Rendering Process:
Rendering is the process that changes a 2D image into a 3D by following the rendering algorithm by following process. A scene will contain language called Data structure; it would contain information of the geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting and shading information. The data contained file of the source of 3D render calling it a digital image or raster graphics.
The term "rendering" may be said as "artist rendering". Through rendering process of the technical and artist challenge can vary depending on what Rendering Engine is being used and what it's offering. The process follows the same format of the "Graphics Pipeline", in processing and creating the 3D and the other effects.
When Rendering, the Computer will use the RAM (Random Access Memory), CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). Having large powerful CPU is useful, but having GPU as well, will the GPU to handle the graphic process, while CPU handles the complex calculations.
Rendering has many uses in the Gaming Industry for games, TV/Movie Entertainment used for visual effects (CGI), Simulations and architecture. As a product technique, efficiency and effectiveness can vary from which industry and Rendering application they are using.
Refernces:
Any modeller from any industry will always use the same terminology. These terminology will stay the same in use and definition from a Movie market to Gaming Industry. "Polygons" are most used in tool in Maya and other programmes like it. It has a very smooth surface allowing geometry to add it and altering to fit the need the modeller wants. The "NURBS" is tool meaning "Non-uniform Rotational B-spline" NURBS is commonly used for smoothing points and four points that control major control points allow the Polygon to be manipulated. "Subdivisions" is algorithm that algorithm that takes the Polygon and automatically smooths. For example, imagine a cube was turned into a sphere. More divisions it had when changed, more smoother the sphere will be. The "Faces", "Vertex" and "Edge" are simple part. For example, imagine a square, there's the face, edge and vertex. That's it.
"Topology", this is important when creating the character model, especially if the character is important. Topology is made up of Polygons stuck together that makes a body part but its usually said about the face that made up of Polygons. Then there is "Bevelling" which allows the modeller to make face, edge or vertex more smoother or edgier. Finally, "Digital Sculpting" is entirely its programme within Maya for example. It quite difficult to easy as a beginner but in experienced hand, the person can alter, add details, hairs and etc. To make it look more realistic and/or well detailed.
Texture and Shading Terminology:
The essential terminology for texture and shading. There is "Texture mapping", "Shaders", "Normal maps", "UV Mapping", "Specularity", "Bump heads", "Transparency map", "Normal maps" and "Baking".
Texture maps that allows Model to be wrapped with texture. Making so, allowing to add detail and flair to it easily. A bit like how cross can be turned into 3D cube. The Shaders describe the entire object, how it should react to lighting, how dark it should be, transparency, diffusion and etc. UV map scans the 3D model, creating a 2D map flat. It allows the modellers to add detail to the 2D map, then covering the 3D, easily matching it if done right. Normal maps are used as an illusion. A way to give the appearance as if the object has a lot of detail. It's useful if there isn't much Polygon to use anymore.
Graphics Pipeline:
Graphics pipeline is the process that CPU and GPU do when visualising the objects on the screen. For example, Microsoft used Direct3D, which support eleven stages of real-time process. During all stages the Pipeline will consume some resources of the RAM.
Stages in order:
- The first stage is "Input-Assembler Stage" that supplies triangles, lines and points for the shapes.
- The second stage is "Vertex-Shader stage" is step that process the vertices transforming, skinning and lighting.
- The third stage is "Geometry-Shader" that process the entire primitive shapes like circles, squares, triangles and etc.
- The fourth step is "Stream-Output" streams the primitive data from a pipeline to memory. In addition each primitive shape includes data for angle adjacent.
- The fifth step is the "Rasterize Stage" clips the primitives, prepares primitives for pixel shaders and determines how to evoke the pixel shaders.
- The sixth "Pixel shader". The pixel shader is the stage that receives the interpolated data of the primitive and generates and determines of form the pixel colours.
- The final stage is the "Output-merge" stage. The output merge combines several different types of the stages into one, with overall content render which basically buffing the general pipeline at the end.
Animation:
Animation is a lot in Entertain industry, mostly in the game Game market. The animation can vary largely from many degrees depending on the model and realism of the animation style. For example, a humanoid rabbit using a cartoon-ish animation style. Or if it is a normal human body they can animate normally, walking like a average person.
There usually two types of animations. One being handmade animation, second being CGI; Computer Generated Images. Fourth, is Inverse kinematics. The fifth type being a mix of the first and fourth one, usually used in games to save a lot of time for the animator(s). Handmade animations tend to be time consuming depending the complexity of the model movement. The Inverse kinematics allows the game to alter the animation depending on the object model is standing during the animation playout. This can also be used in movies and TV shows, where the developer can just let the walk animation go in cycle. So walk cycle will change automatically depending on the terrine.
Animation Terminology:
The animation terminology is the same in the Game industry and the Film/TV show. So animators tend to have a some or none transition from another. Anyway, the terminology like "Keyframe" meaning one frame to another frame is an individual keyframe. "Poses" are just a positioning of the model. "Line" actions are just invisible line that shows the general pose focus body's language. "Timeline" is just a frame timeline showing the animation sequences. It can be tuned at different points to get different poses. "Twining" is term used to show unrealistic or unnatural poses that are mirroring the halve of the body. Specularity is just how the model reacts to the lighting, basically creating a shiny look in bright areas.
The animation terminology is the same in the Game industry and the Film/TV show. So animators tend to have a some or none transition from another. Anyway, the terminology like "Keyframe" meaning one frame to another frame is an individual keyframe. "Poses" are just a positioning of the model. "Line" actions are just invisible line that shows the general pose focus body's language. "Timeline" is just a frame timeline showing the animation sequences. It can be tuned at different points to get different poses. "Twining" is term used to show unrealistic or unnatural poses that are mirroring the halve of the body. Specularity is just how the model reacts to the lighting, basically creating a shiny look in bright areas.
Rendering Process:
Rendering is the process that changes a 2D image into a 3D by following the rendering algorithm by following process. A scene will contain language called Data structure; it would contain information of the geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting and shading information. The data contained file of the source of 3D render calling it a digital image or raster graphics.
The term "rendering" may be said as "artist rendering". Through rendering process of the technical and artist challenge can vary depending on what Rendering Engine is being used and what it's offering. The process follows the same format of the "Graphics Pipeline", in processing and creating the 3D and the other effects.
When Rendering, the Computer will use the RAM (Random Access Memory), CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). Having large powerful CPU is useful, but having GPU as well, will the GPU to handle the graphic process, while CPU handles the complex calculations.
Rendering has many uses in the Gaming Industry for games, TV/Movie Entertainment used for visual effects (CGI), Simulations and architecture. As a product technique, efficiency and effectiveness can vary from which industry and Rendering application they are using.
Refernces:
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