Surprisingly, most of the material for this particular issue actually made it into the article in some form or other. So even though it says in the article that there would be other tips on the web site, it might appear that you have been brought here under false pretenses. Still, just before you start foaming at the mouth and storm off, mouse clicking wildly in all directions, I should mention that this document does contain some things that I have thought about since it was written.
How this one came about As a result I had some orphan material dealing with 3D for newbies kicking
around. The stuff no longer fit in. There was enough of it too to peel it off
into its own article. One that would predate the one I had just written. I got
the nod for this and received a new deadline. This introductory article that
you have seen result of that.
The deadline was really short because I had been dawdling the time away on
the original piece and, unfortunately, after I stopped typing, the ideas still
kept flowing. This website seemed a good place for that material. What you see
here are things that I thought of after I submitted the piece as well as some
other things that were too esoteric for the larger audience of the magazine.
As usual, they are presented here in no particular order.
The space station image The version you see in the magazine here used as the opener was re-rendered
from the original model with a different camera. The sky was brand new and the
earth was repainted by hand. All I had in there originally were some shots of
the earth I had grabbed off NASA's site. Low resolution and no permission. For
this piece I used them as reference for a piece of artwork done in Painter.
I felt that if I painted it the earth would be de-emphasized. This arc was then
brought into Photoshop where the image was mastered.
For the vignetted space background I had a particular problem. In the depths
of outer space I wanted a nice rich black so I used solid black with about 40%
cyan underneath it. Naturally, this became a problem as the vignette faded out
at the right. The vignette itself began to look bluish rather than the grey
I was after. I duplicated the selection for the vignette, pulled it back using
the curves and then used this new channel to pull back on the cyan in the vignette.
So, in the vignette the cyan fades out much faster than the black.
You can also find out how the baked goods image was created in the RoboShop
Graphic Of The Month section of our website... follow this link to get to it:
GotM9805.html
A little rant
The raydiosity option
Oh, there are some tips
Modeling tips Build objects out of several small bits Details count... great visual clues Use mapping for details where necessary Use quick shaded views Use naming conventions and stick to 'em
Lighting tips Simple lighting means more drama Multiple lights=multiple problems Kickers and rim lights
Rendering tips Gang up your edits Only do anti-aliasing on final Consider distributed processing
Finally I am excited about doing this series of articles for SBS about 3D. I have
been looking forward to it for a long time. I hope you enjoyed reading the piece.
It started out as a little throwaway piece for beginners that I wasn't really
interested in. It didn't take long though for me to be really committed to the
idea... not just as an article for beginners, but for everyone who is involved
with 3D imagework. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it. Feel free to send me email
at simon@roboshop.com if you have any
comments or questions.
Links http://www.electricimg.com/
Look particularly for Henk Dawson's work in the Gallery section. Simply stunning.
http://www.chuckcarter.com/
Another person whose work is quite stunning. Most people know him from his
work on Myst and National Geographic Magazine.
http://www.metacreations.com/products/
These guys have several 3D products and a few galleries showing what can
be done with them
http://vi2.mclink.com/html/main.html
This is a link into the strata ring... a series of sites that use strata
3D products
http://www.softimage.com/
Another one of those sites where you think wow, did'nt realise you
could do that in a 3D program
http://www.aw.sgi.com/pages/home/index.html
Alias/Wavefront's home on the web
http://www.bmacleod.com/brycelobby.html
There's plenty to explore here... you can get quite lost in this huge
gallery of Bryce 3D images
Back in 1991 I wrote my previous article on 3D programs for Step-By-Step.
The article was about "Zing", a simple little Macintosh 3D program that could
create quite complex images ... well, complex for 1991. The day after the issue
was published that company stopped producing Zing. I've been kind of embarrassed
to talk about 3D programs ever since! But I have wanted to. I had been
threatening to write another over the years and finally sent in a proposal to
Talitha Harper the SBS editor. As usually happens when I write a piece, the resulting
article ends up being a bit different to the original proposal. While the article
was still on 3D the thrust of it went off in a different direction.
The space station scene was actually created for an industrial video.
There is an issue of our little online magazine "Graphic of the Month" about its
creation. You can get to it by following this link: GotM9709.html
In the article I talked about the sheer number of 3D programs out
there. Have you ever noticed how many of these programs say on their packaging
that they are "The Leader in 3D Illustration" Just who do these guys think they
are kidding? As if someone is going to snap up a $500 program just because of
that claim. They don't even have to qualify it though. "* By the word "Leader"
we mean this program is 50% more professional that 6 other leading programs".
I am sure the programmers inwardly reel when they see what their marketing departments
do with the programs.
While I was preparing the art for this article I rendered the Sanctuary
image, used in the article as the example of the different lighting types, using
the Raydiosity algorithm. The result was astonishing... unfortunately it finished
rendering far too late for the article... I sent a raytraced version in instead.
So here you can compare them... the raytraced version as it appeared in the article
is on the left and the Raydiosity version I wanted in there is on the right. Notice
how much softer the shades re in the raydiosity version. Things seem to glow.
At one point in the evolution of the article I had a series of modeling,
lighting and rendering tips. This was nixed as the article swelled to watermelon
proportions. So here, are the tips I had prepared up to the point of nixing.
Sketch out object first on paper -- stay focused
It is astonishing the number of otherwise talented designers who fire up the computer
and try to come up with ideas onscreen. That's like trying to get your computer
to design for you... to see if it will come up with an idea all by itself. Designing
in a box. It makes way more sense to design on paper with a pencil for that is
a place where there are no bounds. Nothing to hold you back, nothing to constrain
you. Only later should you turn to the computer and figure out how to get it to
render your idea, and then develo the ideas from there on. The same holds true
for modeling. Have a very clear idea of your objects shape before you start. Sketch
it out. See if it makes visual sense.
Smaller components make for much more easily edited files. You are much more
likely to build a successful object if you can figure out how to build it or
most of it using simple primitives. If that won't work move on to more elaborate
(and time consuming modelers). The further you get away from primitives the
longer it will take to render your model.
The more details you have in your model the more realistic it seems. This sounds
time consuming and, to a certain extent it is. Still if you use your details
more than once you can begin to save some effect. Reuse the details by placing
them repetitively. Show other sides of them. For example, on a satellite model
I can use a satellite dish more than once, the first time I use it the front
is visible. It is also seen a second time peeking over the back of the satellite
but this time only the back is showing. Remember that details are great visual
clues as to what your model is without drawing attention to themselves. No one
will remember the details themselves but they might remember the message those
details conveyed as a group.
Don't forget that some of the best detail is merely mapped onto a simple shape.
It renders quickly so why not? Other types of detail that might be forgotten.
What about dirt... I think this is another whole article. Making things look
dirty and real. Moving away from the clinical look. Ooops, sounds like someone
pipped me to it... see the June 1998 issue of Computer Graphics World in an
article by Randall Warniers entitled "Dirty Pictures".
3D programs are so slow that it makes perfect sense to speed the applications
up in any way we can. In most programs the programmers have included a host
of features to facilitate just this particular objective of speed. Refresh interrupts,
showing the objects as boxes or at least with less detail, quick shaded views,
even wireframes. Use these features and learn the short cuts to them for these
are types of features that we can rarely be bothered going to the menu for.
Recognize the need for naming conventions for your files. Generally you will
want to be able to know what a file is without booting up the application that
created it. Descriptive names which maybe an extension to tell you what type
of file it is. For example in my 3D model files I always put 3D somewhere in
the title. That way no matter how many other files are floating around in the
vicinity I can always go to that file for further 3D work.
If all else fails, studio lighting won't
If you light your scenes using the standard Key, Filler, Kicker lighting setup,
you cannot fail to get a well-lit scene. Actually, this whole issue of scene lighting
is an article in itself. Article #3 perhaps?
Try to light from odd angles and study the effect of that. Generally, the further
off camera the lighting the more drama you'll get, particularly if you restrict
you use of lights to a small number.
Well, this isn't always so but it does get a bit confusing. Here's a way to
minimalise the confusion on multiple light scenes. It often happens that people
need to do this for shots of hallways or large rooms. If you are using an hierarchical
modeling application create a light off in its own area. Then place that light
into the scene as many times as you need. Now if you have to modify the amount
of light output you only need to go to one item to change them all. Of course
this assumes that all lights will output the same amount of illumination. Generally
it is that way until you start tweaking the model. So, at that point, break
the lights away from their hierarchical parent and modify them separately...
you'll have still saved a lot of editing by just going to one item for all the
early changes.
Some applications work like real photo studios in that a light shone in from
the back of the studio will leave a handsome rim light (backlight or kicker)
on your subject. Use it when you need to separate your item from its background
some more.
Check mapping on teeny parts of image
Do mini renders to test your edits. Either render what you think is a typical
area of the overall image, one which will allow you to quickly verify that your
edit worked. Alternatively your software should allow you to render a small size
version of the overall image. It is better to sacrifice size and use your final
targeted rendering algorithm than to render at the same size and try to speed
things up by using quicker method of rendering. In some applications, Bryce 3D
for example, this is not an option but there are others that you should investigate.
Don't waste your life away watching that little rendering bar go across the screen.
Evaluate your renderings and then make notes of the things you want to change.
You are far less likely to forget to make the changes in this way. Then follow
the list as you edit the model. Once through the list you can re-render or render
just a portion of the image as I said in the point above.
Yep, It is silly to anti-alias your test renderings unless that is the aspect
of the image that you wish to check.
Does your software allow you to use other CPU's in the office? If it does you
may be able to save oodles of time (particularly on animation) if you render
overnight.
It is difficult to be just be a casual user of 3D programs, generally
you either use them or you don't. It is likely that once you start producing usable
material with the programs you'll realize it's too late, you're already hooked.
If you are interested in checking out some neat 3D graphics, the
following sites should get you going. Naturally a fast connection to the internet
will make this a much more pleasant experience...