The Reality Game

The Reality Game is folding

2005-04-27T11:32:00.000-03:00

I will be folding this blog shortly. All non-duplicate posts here will be moved, edited and republished on my main blog, The Mad Perseid, starting next week. The reason for this reversal? I can no longer see any reason to maintain two blogs, and it is distracting trying to drive traffic to both blogs simultaneously.

So, in the interests of simplicity, I will be consolidating the two. Hopefully, I'll be able to sit down again soon and write many more additional part of this essay. In the mean time, the existing entries will be edited and republished on the main blog.

However, this blog will not be deleted; it will simply contain an entry direct visitors to the other blog. This will be done for continuity. Please stay tuned.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 14

2005-04-04T13:18:00.000-03:00

3D - Continued 4

I really want you to understand this difference between an analog real world and a digital computer world. Take a white piece of paper and put a pop can on it, then with a pencil draw a circle by following the curvature of the bottom of the can. When you have done that, drink the contents of the can. Now, open the Paint application that's part of every Windows install and draw a circle. Compare the circle you drew on paper with the circle on the computer screen. Do you see a difference?

Notice how smooth the circle that you drew on paper is, and how rough the circle you drew in Paint is. This is a major difference between the real world and the computer world. In the real world, a sheet of paper is a material that accepts inks of many kinds. It is a canvas with an ability to show color limited only by the size of the brush(or pen tip) and the absorbtion factor of the ink(or paint) used. It is also a material that doesn't care where you paint on it, or how large or small your strokes are, it can represent them all, including extremely detailed shapes. We can say, then, that the paper material has a virtually unlimited resolution, in other words, it functions as an analog device.

Computers, however, are not like that at all. On a computer, a painting canvas is represented by a very specific resolution that you have to choose. Resolution is defined by a cartesian grid, with an 'X' and 'Y' axis, 'X' going left-to-right, and 'Y' going up-to-down. For example, common resolutions are 640x480, 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. If these numbers sound familiar, it is because these numbers are also what your screen resolution is, and also the resolution of images coming out of digital cameras. Though these resolutions are common, they are, by no means, the only resolutions you are limited to when working with computer images.

The higher the resolution of the image, the higher the level of detail you can see on the screen and print. There are drawbacks, however. Every time you double the size of your image, say, by going from 640x480 to 1280x960, you quadruple the amount of space it takes on disk and in memory. 640*480 = 307,200 dots, but 1280x960 = 1,228,800 dots, which is four times greater than 307,200 dots. This is because you double each dimension(X and Y axis) separately. Dots are also known as 'pixels', and hence the term “megapixel”. 1280x960 is a 1 megapixel image, but 1600x1200 is a 2 megapixel image. A megapixel is approximately 1 million pixels. These terms aren't exact, as you can see, so you must do your own calculations to determine exactly the resolution of any given image.

Your image resolutions need not match your screen resolution. You can easily view a 1600x1200 image on a 1280x1024 screen because the software that displays it will either let you scroll left-right and up-down, or will simply scale the image down for display purposes. In effect, you see a smaller version of your image, but can easily zoom in and out to see more detail.

Now that you know about resolutions and pixels, we will now proceed with the discussion of how this relates to a computer screen being used as a canvas for painting. Please stay tuned...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 13

2005-03-21T08:03:00.000-04:00

3D - Continued 3

The Universe is infinitely diverse, and it is a diversity that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a computer to represent. Why? Because the Universe can be thought of as being analog, but computers are digital. This means that computers, while capable of coming close, cannot achieve the level of diversity that's easily achieved by the simplest objects in nature. Let's take a look at why.

For an example of the difference between analog and digital, let's look at something that's probably available in every home, a radio. Most people have had radios with analog tuners before, and may still have them to this day, and certainly many people now have digital tuners on their radios. Look at your analog radio. When you move the tuning dial, your radio is tuned to the exact frequency you choose, regardless of how fast or how slowly you turn the dial. You can tune to any frequency on the dial, including all of the in-between frequencies. By contrast, digital tuners can only tune in to very specific frequencies. Most digital tuners tune to odd numbers such 103.1 or 107.1. They can also tune into 103.3 or 106.9. Some can tune to both even and odd numbers, but certainly nothing in between.

Let's now look at multi-meters. These devices measure voltage, resistance and current, and come in both analog and digital models. Just like the analog radios, analog multi-meters show exact values that exist on their scales, though sometimes they make reading the exact value a bit difficult. Digital multi-meters let you easily read the value, but it may not as accurate as a well-designed analog multi-meter. This is not to imply that analog is better than digital, only that it displays its values differently and often more precisely, though whether such exactness is required is a different question.

So, basically, what we're saying is that analog shows exact numbers of almost any complexity, while digital only shows discrete numbers within a certain precision. Put another way, analog can be represented by fractions(ie., one third, or 1/3), while digital represents only discrete values(ie., 0.3333333~). In many cases, where digital can represent whole numbers of sufficient size, it is far superior to analog. This is especially true in cases where information has to be transmitted.

You may be asking yourself why we're spending so much time on differences between analog and digital. Computers are digital, so why worry about analog. Well, the reason I spend so much time dwelling on this subject is that I want you to understand how the reality of 3D computer graphics differs from the reality of the real world. Please stay tuned for more.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 12

2005-03-21T08:01:00.000-04:00

3D - Continued 2

In the previous sections, you learnt what reality is and what 3D computer graphics allows the artist to do and how it works. You also learnt to look at reality on an object-by-object way. Let's now put it all together and see how reality relates to 3D computer graphics.

First, let's recap a very important question. What is “3D computer graphics”? At it's simplest, “3D computer graphics” are images generated by a computer based on information provided to it in a 3-dimensional, computer-stored space. It may include life-like representations of people, animals, worlds or even simple geometric forms or objects such as spheres, pyramids and cubes. These generated images are represented on a 2-dimensional grid and uses converging lines(and other techniques) to simulate depth.

There's the key operative word: simulate. That's all “3D computer graphics” really are, simulations. And not complete simulations, either. If you make a scene taking place inside a warehouse that has no windows, there is no need to simulate the outside world. In other words, when we're creating our 3D scenes, we're only creating them only so far as the camera can see.

“Camera?” Yes. In 3D software, all the regular photographic concepts such as cameras and lights apply.

Let's change tracks for a moment, and discuss the nature of universe. We haven't done that yet, we've only discussed the objects and forces in nature itself. No, this isn't going to be one of those metaphysical Star Trek type discussions.

Dr. Crusher: “If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the Universe.”

Dr. Crusher: “Here's a question you shouldn't be able to answer. Computer, what is the nature of universe?”
Computer: “The universe is a spheroid object seven hundred meters of diameter.”
---- Star Trek TNG: Remember Me

No, what we're going to discuss is the diversity of the Universe. Please stay tuned... In fact, the Universe is infinitely diverse, and it is a diversity that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a computer to represent.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 11

2005-03-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

3D - Continued 1

When we look at the world around us, we recognize things for what they are. They are people, they are cars, they are buildings, they are airplanes, fridges, stoves, TV sets, computers, and an almost infinite number of other objects around us every day. Each we recognize by its shape, noise, smell and feel. Sometimes we may recognize something as an object type, but not an exact object name. For example, many of us would recognize a machine, but we may not known what kind of machine it is.

So, as people, we rely on our varied senses, as well as memory, deduction and reasoning, to determine the function of the forms around us. Even animals do it, to a degree. You cannot expect a dog to understand what a computer it is, but it certainly can tell its own sleeping place from the other dogs'. This is where “reality carries its own conviction” comes in.

Objects on a photograph look real because they are real. When a light shines on a pane of glass, it affects the way it looks, it adds reflection and refraction, depending on the type of glass and the light. When you see a car sitting on the ground, you see the part of the tire touching the ground deformed as the weight of the vehicle rests on it. After a rain shower, most things are wet, and quite a few of them are reflective, but not entirely. Roads are uneven, as are the rain puddles on them.

What all this means is that in the real world, the world of photography, each object behaves according to its design, automatically, and with very little interference from you. Things in the real world simple are, you do not need to fake them. Now, it is true, that photography can also be misdirection and special effects, but that isn't what the real world is generally all about.

In the next section, we will begin our discussion on how it all relates to 3D computer graphics. Please stay tuned.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 10

2005-03-11T10:25:00.000-04:00

OK, so we can describe a car and what it can do. So what? you ask. Well, that's the first step to understanding 3D computer graphics. Let's talk about that now.

What is 3D computer graphics? At its simplest, 3D computer graphics allows the artist to configure a scene with various elements such as sky, atmosphere, light, terrain, water, plants, people, animals, simple and complex objects, and other such entities. While in the process of setting up the scene, the artist can view the scene from any angle in the three dimensions. Once the scene is configured to the artists satisfaction(or as the time allows), the artist then instructs the computer to produce an image from a particular point of view.

In many ways, it's much like photography. You position the model and all the props, set up the lights, point the camera, focus and click the shutter-release button. You then get a photograph, printed on photo paper, or displayed as an image on your screen. This is exactly what happens when you instruct the computer to produce an image from your 3D scene. The computer analyzes the objects, the lights, the textures, and all the other information contained therein, and begins calculating. In effect, it produces a 2D photo-like image from your 3D scene, just like your camera takes a real-world 3D scene in front of the lens and turns into a 2D image on film or memory card. In my opinion, if you come from a photography background, it will be easier for you to understand proper scene design in 3D than if you've never handled a camera.

There, of course, differences between 3D computer graphics and photography. For one thing, photography is instantaneous. If, for example, you have a busy scene in front of you, like a mirror market, it will take the camera no more time to record that image than it would an image of a blank wall. That is not so for 3D computer graphics. The more complex the scene, the more lights or reflections you have, the more time it takes the computer to calculate everything and produce an image. Some images are so complex, they'll literally take days for the computer to produce. That's days of calculations in addition to the amount of time it took for you setup your scene in the first place.

Another difference is that in 3D computer graphics, every element of the scene, every wall, every chair, every desk, every character, human or otherwise, must be created, either by you or by mesh designers. We'll talk about that in a later section.

In the very first section of this essay, I introduced the concept of “reality carries its own conviction.” In the next section, I will discuss it. Please stay tuned.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 09

2005-03-07T00:32:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 8

Congratulations! You are now able to describe how various objects in the world around you work, how they look, what they do, and even how they affect other objects around them. You know that objects have certain properties, such as color and transparency, and that they can do things like move in and out of other objects.

You've also learned about water, other fluids and light, and how each affects the others. Now let's talk about how it all hangs together. So far, we have looked at simple objects, such as desks. These objects can only perform very few actions. Let's now look at a more complex object, such as a car.

Ah, the car. Most of us love our cars, and I hope that love affair will never end. But have we really thought about them, in terms of form and function? Most people are content to get in their car, start the engine and drive. But let's look at the car.

A car, at its most basic, has a certain shape, it has four wheels, and it has see-through windows, or at least, if you're a pimp, it has distinct windows that may not let a lot of light through; the windshield is generally relatively transparent. The car may have a visible antenae, though many newer cars do not have those. When you see a construct made of metal, glass and rubber hurtling down the highway, you know it is a car. Through its shape, you may recognize different kinds of cars, but the fact that they are cars remains constant. The same is true of trucks; they may look different from cars and from each other, but the shape and size tells you what it is, a car or a truck.

OK, now let's look at what a car does. It has at least two doors, often four. These open and close, but only up to a certain angle. The door handles move. Side windows are mounted on doors, and move up and down; they also move with their doors, when those doors are opened or closed. Windshield and rear windows do not move. Wiper blades are attached to wiper arms and move together with the arms. The hood covering the front compartment, and the trunk covering the rear compartment, open and close by tiping up and down. Wheels spin around their centers and turn left and right, but only to certain degrees. If the car has an external antenae, it will wave and vibrate in the wind.

Now, how do you know the engine is running without raising the hood? It makes a sound generally recognizable as a running engine. When you turn the key in the ignition, it sends an electrical impulse to the starter motor which turns over the engine and it starts. If you see a car moving on the highway and you can see no one inside it, it will look very unnatural to you, unless it is sitting on a car transporter truck. If you see it moving down the highway and there's someone in it, but you don't see the wheels spin, it also will look very unnatural to you.

Think about other complex objects and try to come up with a list of actions those objects can perform and what will make it look natural or unnatural.

What is the point of this exercise, you may wonder. Stay tuned and you will find out...

Publishing has restarted

2005-03-07T00:31:00.000-04:00

I will now continue posting new parts of the essay “Reality and the world of 3D”. Posting frequency will be every few days.

On hiatus

2005-02-27T09:49:00.000-04:00

“The Reality Game” is currently taking a break, and will return to full-time posting on Monday, March 7^th, 2005. Please visit us again, and thank you for your continued support.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 08

2005-02-25T07:36:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 7

“May the Force be with you!” and “Use the Force, Luke!”

Possibly two of the most famous movie lines ever. Even people who hated those movies(and no, I'm not going to name them) are familiar with the quotes themselves. But in the immortal words of Cat from Red Dwarf, “What is it?”. Starting with this section, we will attempt to define what force is. And I'm not talking about that Force!

First, let's look a dictionary definition of “force”. For our purposes, we're only interested in definitions 4a and 4b. To paraphrase, force is something acts upon other objects. As such, forces are gravity, wind, sound. These are forces we do not see. There are visible forces, however.

Once such is a moving wave. When a wave hits a boat, it rocks from side to side, depending on the size and strength of the wave. This is also known as kinetic energy. Let's look at the way these various forces act on objects.

Take, for instance, gravity. Ordinarily, we don't think about it. Of course, we're aware of it on a subconscious level, and we take it for granted. We rarely even think about it, we just know it's there, being, well, gravity. Knock a glass of a table and gravity will break it across a floor for us. Jump out of an airplane and you have an appointment with the ground eventually. Bad gravity! Bad! But wait! There's more! You want to go for a car ride? Gravity's there to help you accomplish that goal.

“But I thought it was friction that lets cars move?” you say. Well, true. But without gravity to hold the car on the ground, friction would do you no good whatsoever. So, gravity can do good things and bad things. Of course, as far as gravity itself is concerned, they're neither good nor bad, only how we perceive them. Hang yourself upside down from acrobatic rings and your hair will move straight up, only it will actually be hanging straight down.

What about wind? Well, stand atop a hill in loose clothing on a windy day and you get two demonstrations of wind for the price of one. First, wind tries hard to move you in the direction it is travelling, and second, it succeeds partially with your loose clothing. If it weren't for the fact that solid objects can't move through other solid objects, your loose clothing would blow straight off. Instead, it just flops around in the wind. So, here we've just introduced resistance to force.

Now, what about wind blowing against a flexible object, such as a tree? Well, as the wind blows, the tree bends with it. If the wind is strong enough, and the tree is weak enough, the tree will break. Wind blowing against water will produce waves.

Let's take a quick look at sound. By itself, sound is simply a vibration that is passed through other objects like a rock, air, water or glass. Most objects have some facility to transmit sound, but they change it as it passes through them. Sometimes the force of sound is so strong and of just the right frequency that it breaks other objects. Case in point, some kinds of singing by certain people and wine glasses. I don't really know if it's possible in real life, but movies sure make a lot of use of it.

Phew! This was a long one. In the next section, we'll talk about how all this hangs together. Please stay tuned...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 07

2005-02-24T07:52:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 6

Let's continue our discussion of water and fluids.

When water(or any liquid, for that matter) flows, it does so in a particular manner. The flow isn't even, it breaks up on the sides and splashes, it coallesces when it hits a deep pool of liquid. It also makes a noise that is unmistakable.

What else can we think that water does? It drips. Watch it some time. Take a beaker of water and slowly, very very slowly let it pour out. Watch the water drops form on the tip of it, then break off and fall to the ground. For now, that's enough discussion about water movement.

Let's now talk about how water affects objects around it, and objects that are in it.

Splash some water on a stone and what happens? It gets somewhat brighter, and becomes more reflective, in the areas covered by water. This changes when the object dries and the water evaporates. Once that happens, spots may be left on the object where the water touched it.

Waves on water have a distinct pattern and work in certain ways. There may be mist in the air(mist is another way of saying that an amount of water has broken up into really tiny particles). When waves hit an solid object, they break and foam is formed in some cases, especially when the waves land on the beach.

Depending on the type water you're looking at, the surface may be relatively reflective and refractive. The reflection and refraction will not be smooth, but will follow the contours of the waves.

Under the surface, water may contain a large quantity of particulates like dust, air bubbles and small marine animals. Light from the surface may be refracted, and in many cases, especially oceans and lakes, you can actually see light itself in the water.

For now, we're finished with objects. In the next section, we will look at forces that act on the objects around us. Please stay tuned...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 06

2005-02-23T07:45:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 5

Before we discuss water, let's recap what we've learnt about objects.

To summarize, every object has certain properties such as color, reflectivity, highlights(sometimes known as specularity), transparency and refraction. Even objects that have, for example, no reflectivity, such as cement, are said to be non-reflective, in other words their reflectivity is zero. They are not said to have no such property as reflectivity. So, what we're really saying is that we measure property strengths using a range of values. Take a deep breath now, and read it again. And again. It will make sense eventually, I promise.

Some objects can perform certain types of actions, such as holding things or moving them. This becomes important later on in our discussion about how reality relates to 3D computer graphics.
Now let's talk about water. What is water? Well, the web has a number of sites dedicated to the discussion of water, and all its many varied meanings. What they all have in common, however, is that they say that water is a liquid, and a liquid's most important property is that it is able to assume a virtually unlimited number of shapes, all defined by the forces that act on it and the objects around it. This shapeshifting property of water is also controlled by a property of liquids called viscosity. It controls the fluid's resistance to flow.

Water, and many other fluids, also has the ability to easily break up into many, many irregularly-shaped blobs due to external influence. Take a spoon and slam it into a bowl full of water. What happens? Pour water from a glass onto a cement floor. What did you observe? Depending on many factors, water may break up into countless small pieces that coalesce back into the whole at the smallest provocation. Pour water from a glass into a lake, you'll see it break up for a moment, then merge with the lake so much that you'll never be able to tell it apart, unless it's a radically different color. If that's the case, then the colored blob will dilute with the main lake water and eventually disappear entirely.

When you poured water from a glass unto a cement floor, did you notice how fast the water flowed? That's because it has low viscosity. Higher viscosity fluid such as motor oil will flow much slower and will break up a lot less than water will. That's one of its properties.

Stay tuned for more discussion of water and fluids...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 05

2005-02-22T09:11:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 4

In the previous section, we spoke of reflectivity and highlights of objects. Both are aspects of light, but properties of objects. Take a look a bright, polished bronze door knob. Can you see your own reflection, even if it's indistinct? That's reflectivity. Does one part of the knob look shinier than the rest? That's highlights. Every object in the world has both, in varying degrees. Some objects, the polished metalic ones, will be highly reflective with large highlights. Others, the dull cements and bricks, will have none of either.

There are two additional properties of objects that are directly related to light: transparency and refraction. Refraction is related to transparency in so far as you can refract light only through a medium it can pass through. In other words, if light strikes a solid object such as a piece of wood, it cannot refract because it cannot pass through it. It can, however, refract through certain types of glass, and most especially through water. This becomes important later on.

Please stay tuned... In the next section, we will talk about water.

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 04

2005-02-21T08:15:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 3

Let's continue our discussion of what objects do by switching focus to something more complex, like light. Light can be thought of as an object that has a source. It may be totally invisible in its own right, but it also has the ability to change the color, brightness and other properties of many other objects in its path. Thus we have defined that light has a source and a direction. The source of the light may be a chemical reaction or heating element emiting light or any of a myrriad other sources.

“But wait!” you exclaim. “What's this about direction? When I turn on my upright floor lamp in the living room, it lights up the whole room, even though the only opening on the lamp faces straight up.”

You're right, this is exactly what happens, but keep in mind that we see light on how it hits our eyes, so if your lamp faces up and the room lights up, what we're seeing is light reflecting off of the various objects in the room, including the metalic lamp shade that's open at the top. And depending on the design of your lamp, we may even see the actual light source, but if there were no objects in the room, the light wouldn't actually do anything other than be a big glowing blob hanging in mid-air. In other words, we see light as a reflection of photons from surfaces of other objects.

What other properties does light have? Well, it has color, it cannot pass through solid objects, thus casting shadows(which themselves have properties), and it has intensity. All these properties of light define not how light itself looks but rather, how objects off which it reflects look. Which brings up another point about two additional properties of objects: reflectivity and highlights.

Please stay tuned...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 03

2005-02-18T10:00:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 2

In the previous section, we talked about what the objects around us are. We talked about their color, their shape, and other properties. In this section we are going to talk about what our objects do.

Now that we understand what the properties of the objects around us are, let's now turn our attention at what actions these objects can perform. As an example, let's take a look at the desk.

At first glance, it may not seem like our desk can do very much. After all, it just sits there, looking solid, taking up space and holding up the computer we talked about earlier. But if you look closely, you realize the desk has drawers and possibly even a keyboard tray.

Drawers. Those wonderful dark places that hold our molding sandwiches and expended batteries, for which generations of bugs will forever call you Deity. Why do drawers hold our molding sandwiches? It is because they have four walls and most importantly, a bottom. The four walls prevent objects from falling out, and the bottom prevents objects from falling through. Why? Because they are solid objects through which other objects cannot pass. Unless you're a member of Mutant X and your power is the ability to move through solid objects, but let's not talk about that now.

Now, you may think that this is what the drawers do, they hold things. Unfortunately, that is not so. Holding of other objects is a property of drawers, not an action. What the drawers do do, is move, in and out. As they move, they also move the objects contained therein, because one property of many solid objects, including drawers, is friction. Friction is present in lesser or greater amounts in different objects. This is why your tires spin almost instantly on ice(which is a property of water and doesn't have much in the way of friction), but it takes gunning the engine on dry pavement(which has quite a bit of friction) to spin tires.

In the next section, we'll continue discussing what objects do. Please stay tuned...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 02

2005-02-17T07:51:00.000-04:00

Reality - Continued 1

In the previous section, I talked about what makes up our physical world, the objects, life forms and most importantly, the forces that act on them. In this section, I would like to talk about the objects that are all around us.

Look around you, wherever you currently are. Are you at home? At work? At the library? Maybe you're at Chapters, having a coffee and using their public access terminals that you have to pay for. What do you see? Chances are there is a desk, a computer, a monitor, a keyboard and mouse and maybe even a printer. What about your desk? Is there a mess on it, or is it sparkling clean? Notice the properties of the objects around you.

Look around your room. What shape is it? What color are the walls and ceiling? Where are the light sources? What are the light sources? Is there any art on the walls? What about windows? What kind are they? What kind of light is coming through them and can you see it? What about shades or blinds? What color and type are they?

What about your keyboard? What shape is it? What color is? Are there logos? How about lights? Is it cordless? What about your mouse? Is it optical? How many buttons? Do the same thing for your computer and monitor.

What about a telephone? Is there a cup of water? Is it half-full? What kind of cup is it?

Are there pens or pencils on your desk? What kind are they? Are they in a pencil holder? What kind is it?

Are there any writings or pictures on papers on your desk?

When you click your mouse or the keys on your keyboard, what kind of noise do they make?

What does this excesive exercise in observational skills prove? It proves that each object you see around you has certain properties. These are shape, size, color, texture, reflectivity, transparency, highlights, light. So, now we have defined what the objects around us are. Let's move on to the next section, and talk about these objects do.

Please stay tuned...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 01

2005-02-16T07:43:00.000-04:00

Reality

Before we start thinking about 3D computer graphics, let's think about the real world. What does it mean, “reality carries its own conviction”? It's true that I heard this term in a fantasy book, but does it mean it's invalid merely because of that? I don't think so. In fact, I think it's a very succinct description of the problem with computer generated imagery. What does “real” really mean?

Well, in my mind as it relates to this discussion, “real” means to exist in the physical world, be a part of that world, interract with it, have other objects interract with us and have certain properties. Why the physical world? Well, for one, it is the only world we have, the one we live in and the one we interract with. So, in a very real sense, “real” means how it relates to our physical being. I don't really want to get sidetracked in this discussion with religion and/or spirituality, so I will leave these out.

Now comes the hard part. What is the “real world”? The “real world” world starts with the universe at large, then narrows down to our galaxy, the Milky Way, then our local star cluster, then our own star, our solar system, the asteroid belt, our planet Earth, the Moon, all life on Earth and the atomic and sub-atomic matter that all these things are made out of. Not surprisingly, the “real world” also includes all the visible and invisible energies and forces that are always present that we may or may not be aware of on a conscious level. It is these, these forces, that are very interesting and relevant in 3D computer art applications, not to mention difficult. All of these forces, energies and objects interact with each other, act on each other, and make up the totality of our physical existence. The physical objects that make up our world are nothing compared to the forces that surround us.

Reality will continue in the next section...

Reality and the world of 3D - Part 00

2005-02-15T13:30:00.000-04:00

Introduction

In a fantasy book I read long ago, a mage was required to produce a visual spectacle of warriors attacking a fortified keep in order to lure the occupants out. The mage argued for a small squad of warriors he could simply visually duplicate, rather than build the entire illusion from scratch. His point was that reality carries its own conviction, and it is much simpler to duplicate a real image than build the whole thing from the ground up. Having done some artwork in 3D, I now agree with that assessment.

In this little series, I'm going to talk about reality and 3D illusions we create, both real and imaginary. That sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? An “imaginary illusion” may sound like a contradiction in terms, but all will become clear in time. Keep in mind, though, that 3D computer graphics are merely attempts at reproducing reality. First up, I think, an initial definition of terms is in order.

Terms:

3D - 3 dimensional, having width, height and depth
3D software - software capable of configuring and outputing 3D scenes, consisting of a number of objects and/or characters. In my artwork, I use Poser, Vue and Bryce. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and is used for different things.
2D - 2 dimensional, having width and height, but no depth - in 2D, depth has to be simulated manually by the artist using converging lines and other techniques.
2D software - software capable of creating images using only height and width; these can be bitmap painting applications like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, or they can be sophisticated 2D animation tools like Flash.
Animation - the act of making multiple still images appear to show motion; animation can be accomplished by manually painting all the frames by hand, or with computer assistance.
Live Animation - dynamic animation that changes in real time in response to computer users, ie games.
Static Animation - animation that is pre-programmed by the artist, ie movies like Final Fantasy.

These should be enough to get us going. In the following sections, these terms, and others, will be expanded as I discuss reality and how it relates to the world of 3D computer art. Please stay tuned.