UNDER
ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION history of 3d technology 2003 - 1975 computer developments 2003 - 1945 - the history of 3D computerized illustration/animation - |
The sophistication of realism utilized in computer generated 3D graphics largely began in 1975 as George Lucus needed innovation in Star Wars and the available computer technology had reached a place where it could support 3D. Since then a main vehicle disseminating this new technology to the rest of the world is the AMC SIGGRAPH conference and exposition which began in the mid-60's and continues to excite the computer graphics community with the most advanced technology and software interfaces for computer 3D graphic techniques.
While 3D based software companies have come and gone over the years the people haven't and most of the early pioneers are still active in the industry - just as enthusiastic about the technology as they were when they first started. Many of these pioneers can be readily reached on the Internet. This access is similar to an artist being able to pick up the phone and call Monet, Michelangelo, Renoir, or Rembrandt.
Most of the major advances in 3D graphic hardware and software have been developed by the military and the entertainment industries. Since around 1990 this technology has been able to filter out to the mass market where graphic artists working on personal computers inherit functionality originally developed for specialized high-end graphic workstations. Need is the mother of invention and such exotic places as George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic (1977) , Pixar Animation Studios (1986) (a spin-off of ILM) and Dreamworks Studios (1994) (the brainchild of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen) originated many of the ideas for 3D algorithms and systems commonly utilized in PC software programming today. As the timeline to the right shows, the development of 3D4D visual technologies with additional dynamic information layers (as compared to 2D) is an indispensable and integrating facet within the extant Age of Information.
Processor speed, other hardware developments, preceding graphic software technologies, and creative capital investment all work together to power, improve and evolve new 3D simulation systems. This creative process is ever more evident in everyday life as the graphic power of the personal computer grows and mass marketed software becomes ever more sophisticated, streamlined and tailored towards specific end uses such as the HAStudio artful illustration of architectural structures yet unbuilt.
GRAPHIC
DEVLPMT
DEVLPMT
released:
Autodesk 3d Studio Max 6
Autodesk Vis 4
Autodesk 3d Studio Max 5
Autodesk Vis 3i
Autodesk 3d Studio Max 4
ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) has pioneered many ground breaking effects and processes since it's inception in 1975. The following linked article focus's on the incredible and revolutionary water effects used in "The Perfect Storm". This movie provided ILM a unique opportunity -- integrating artificial, computer-generated water with real water. Given that foaming, blowing, churning ocean water is one of the most dynamic elements in nature, the challenge in the year 2000 was immense.for more: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/perfect-storm.htm.
This technology has filtered into the personal computer based graphic community via a variety of programs such as these from Autodesk Discreet.
Another major project for ILM was the movie, "The Mask"(1994). In this movie, the computer graphics artist at ILM had full creative freedom in producing wild and extravagant personalities for the character of the Mask. In one case, they digitally removed his head and replaced it with the head of a computer generated wolf. In another scene, they animated a massive cartoon style gun that the Mask pulls on a couple of criminals. This gun has multiple barrels, swinging chains of machine gun bullets, even a guided missile with a radar locks on the criminals. All of it was created hotorealistically using 3D graphics and then composited onto the live action shot.
| In 1993, Wavefront acquired Thomson Digital Image (TDI) which increased Wavefront's market share in the high-end computer graphics market. Wavefront immediately begin integrating products from TDI into their own line of computer graphics software including Maya. Early in 1993, IBM, James Cameron (writer/director/producer), Stan Winston (special effects expert) and Scott Ross (visual effects executive from ILM) joined forces to create a new visual effects and digital production studio called Digital Domain. Located in the Los Angeles area, Digital Domain gave ILM a run for its money. Not to be out done, ILM followed with their own announcement in April 1993 to form a joint "media lab" with Silicon Graphics Inc. called JEDI (Joint Environment for Digital Imaging). ILM will get the latest and greatest SGI hardware and SGI will get to use ILM as a testing facility. PDI (Dreamworks) opened their Digital Opticals Group in Hollywood to create special effects for motion pictures such as "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" "Batman Returns" and "The Babe" Now, PDI has become one of the leaders in digital cleanup work such as wire removal, for motion pictures. Often wires are used for special effects like people flying or jumping through the air. Sometimes scratches occur on irreplaceable film footage. For "Terminator 2," PDI used image processing to erase the wires that guided Arnold Schwarzenegger and his motorcycle over a perilous jump. PDI uses software to automatically copy pixels from the background and paste them over the pixels that represent the wires. Another edit for T2 involved a semi truck crashing through a wall and down into a storm ditch. The original shot was made at the wrong angle. So the director wanted the footage flipped left to right, to keep the continuity consistent with surrounding shots. Normally this would | problems, PDI first flipped the footage. Then they cut the sign from the unflipped footage and pasted over top of the flipped sign. Then they copied and pasted the driver from the left side of the truck to the right side. The finished sequence looked flawless. PDI performed many other sleights of hand for the movie "Babe," a documentary about baseball legend Babe Ruth. A number of challenges faced the producers, one of which was that the main actor, John Goodman is right handed, while Babe Ruth was left handed. As you can imagine, this really threw off many scenes where John had to pitch the ball. To resolve this problem, PDI used digital image processing. To create the effect of a pitch, John Goodman simply mimed it, without using a ball. Then they filmed a left handed pitcher throwing the ball from the same position. Then the baseball from the second shot was composited onto the first shot. However, the actor playing the catcher had to fake it along with John Goodman and the result was he didn't catch the ball at the same time it arrived. To solve this problem, they split the scene down the middle and merged the catcher from the second shot into the first shot. This resulted in a flawless left-handed fastball. "Cleanup" special effects like this have become a mainstay for computer graphics studios In the early 1990's Steven Spielberg was working on a film version of the latest Michael Crichton best seller, ""(1993). Since the movie was basically about dinosaurs chasing (and | hiring Stan Winston to create full scale models/robots of the dinosaurs, and hiring Phil Tippett to create stop-motion animation of the dinosaurs running and movements where their legs would leave the ground. Tippett is perhaps the foremost expert on stop-motion and inventor of go-motion photography. Go-motion is a method of adding motion blur to stop-motion characters by using computer to move the character slightly while it is being filmed. This new go-motion technique eliminates most of the jerkiness normally associated with stop-motion. As an example, the original King Kong movie simply used stop-motion and was very jerky. ET on the other hand used Tippett's go-motion technique for the flying bicycle scene and the result was very smooth motion. Tippett went to work on Jurassic Park and created a test walk-cycle for a running dinosaur. It came out OK, although not spectacular. At the same time, however, animators at ILM began experimenting. There was a stampeding herd of Gallimimus dinosaurs in a scene that Spielberg had decided to cut from the movie because it would have been impossible to create an entire herd of go-motion dinosaurs running at the same time. Eric Armstrong, an animator at ILM, however, experimented by creating the skeleton of the dinosaur and then animating a walk cycle. Then after copying that walk cycle and making 10 other dinosaurs running in the same scene, it looked so good that everyone at ILM was stunned. They showed it to Spielberg and he couldn't believe it. So Spielberg put the scene back into the movie. |
This was obviously a tremendous blow to the stop-motion animators. Tippett was later quoted in ON Production and Post-Production magazine as saying, "We were reticent about the computer-graphic animators' ability to create believable creatures, but we thought it might work for long shots like the stampede sequence." However as it progressed to the point where the CGI dinosaurs looked better than the go-motion dinosaurs, it was a different story, he continues, "When it was demonstrated that on a photographic and kinetic level that this technology could work, I felt like my world had disintegrated. I am a practitioner of a traditional craft and I take it very seriously. It looked like the end." However, Tippett's skills were very much needed by the computer animators. In order to create realistic movement for the dinosaurs, Tippett along with the ILM crew developed the Dinosaur Input Device (DID). The DID is an articulate dinosaur model with motion sensors attached to its limbs. As the traditional stop-motion animators moved the model, the movement was sent to the computer and recorded. This animation was then touched up and refined by the ILM animators until it was perfect. Eventually 15 shots were done with the DID and 35 shots were done using traditional computer graphics methods. The animators at ILM worked closely with Stan Winston, using his dinosaur designs so the CGI dinosaurs would match the large full-scale models Winston was creating. Alias Power Animator was used to model the dinosaurs, and the animation was created using Softimage software. The dinosaur |
Later that year, in October, Alias Research signed a 2.3 million dollar contract with ILM. The deal called for Alias to supply 3D, state of the art computer graphics systems to ILM for future video production. While ILM in turn would test these new systems and provide feedback.
NewTek, a company founded in 1985, released the Video Toaster in October of 1990. The Video Toaster was a video production card for Amiga personal computers that retailed for $1,595. The card came with 3D animation, and 24-bit paint software and offers video capabilities such as a 24-bit frame buffer, switching, digital video effects, and character generation. The practical video editing uses of the Video Toaster made it very popular, and in the 1990's was used on broadcast television shows such as Sea Quest and Babylon 5 for 3D computer graphics.
Also in 1990, AutoDesk shipped their first 3D Computer animation product, 3D Studio (in 1996 'Max' was appended) for DOS. Created for AutoDesk by Gary Yost (The Yost Group), 3D Studio has been dynamically and creatively engineered over the years and now assumes a lead position in PC based 3D computer animation software because it works so well.
DEVLPMT
not be a problem, yet in
this instance a street sign was in thepicture, and even the driver
could be seen through the windshield of the truck. So these elements
prevented the normal flip that any studio could have performed. To
solve these |
eating) people, the special effects presented
quite a challenge. Originally, Spielberg was going to take the traditional
route, in the 80's and 90's. |
Next they tackled the Tyrannosaurs
Rex. Steve Williams created a walk-cycle and output the animation
directly to film. The results were fantastic and the full motion
dinosaur shots were switched from Tippett's studio to the computer
graphics department at ILM. |
skins were created using hand-painted texture maps along with custom Renderman surface shaders. The final scene which is a show-down between the T-Rex and the Velociraptors was added at the last minute by Spielberg since he could see that ILM's graphics would produce a realistic sequence. The results were spectacular and earned ILM another Special Effects Oscar in March of 1994. |
 |
The World Wide Web was born when Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva, developed HyperText Markup Language. HTML, as it is commonly known, allowed the Internet to expand into the World Wide Web, using specifications he developed such as URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol). A browser, such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer, follows links and sends a query to a server, allowing a user to view a site. |