Wiley 978-0-470-05135-1 Datasheet

Introduction to ComputerGraphics and 3DThis book is to introduce you to the workings of 3D animation (called computergraphics, or CG) with one of the

You should not create incredibly detailed environments if they are not featured in a shot,especially environments that use a lot of geometry. The grea

To animate something properly, though, you might need quite a lot of setup beyondjust modeling. Depending on the kind of animating you’ll be doing, yo

time or budgetary constraints, you want simple scenes to keep the render resources and times to a minimum. But the general rule in production is, you’

raster images, you need to use a higher resolution to begin with. The higher the resolution,the larger the file size. Figure 1.1 shows what happens wh

When scaled, vector graphics do not suffer from the same limitations as raster images.As you can see in Figure 1.2, vectors can be scaled with no loss

8-Bit Image File Commonly referred to as 24-bit color display or True Color, each colorchannel is given 8 bits for a range of 256 shades of each red,

MOVIE FILESAnimations can also be output to movie files such as AVI or QuickTime. These usuallylarge files are self-contained and hold all the images

With subtractive color mixing for painting, the traditional color wheel’s primary colorsare red, blue, and green. These three pigments can be mixed to

All output from a computer, which is RGB based, to a printer goes through a CMYKconversion as it’s printed. For professional print work, specially cal

Any discussion of resolution must include the matter of aspect ratio. Aspect ratio is theratio of the screen’s width to its height, and of course, the

Embrace the ArtArt, in many instances, requires transcendence of its medium; it speaks of its own accord.Learning to look past what you’re working wit

Space is defined in three axes—X, Y, and Z—representing width, height, and depth.The three axes form a numeric grid in which a particular point is def

Form, Space, and CompositionSpace is defined as your canvas or frame. Since ultimately your canvas will be a renderedimage, your design space becomes

ContrastContrast in design describes how much your foreground subject “pops” from the back-ground. As you can see in Figure 1.5, when you create an ar

ColorYour use of color also plays a big part in creating impact in your frame. Warm colors tend tocome out toward you, and cooler colors recede into t

CG productions of even the simplest topics can follow this simple organization. By fol-lowing a similar layout in the scripting and storyboarding of y

In CG, a keyframe can be set on almost any aspect of an object—its color, position,size, and so on. Maya will interpolate the in-between frames betwee

WeightWeight is an implied facet of design and animation. The weight of your subject in theframe rests on how it is colored and its contrast, shape, a

SUGGESTED READINGThe more you know about all the arts that inform CG, the more confident you’ll feel among your peers. To getstarted, check out the fo

PhysicsYou’ll see in Chapter 12 that one of Maya’s most powerful features is its ability to simulatethe dynamics of moving objects. To use that capabi

Now that you have a foundation in CG and 3D terminology and core concepts, you are ready to tackle the software itself. Maya is a capable, intricate p

If you’re familiar with 2D graphics software such as Adobe Illustrator or MacromediaFlash, you already know something about vectors. What Maya and oth

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Fairly soon, you will begin to see CG as a bigger part of the everyday computing envi-ronment, as we are seeing with image editors and digital-video e

Since the CG artist must define 3D scenes in the program, it is essential to have a suc-cinct plan of attack for a well-organized production. The more

CG production itself has an involved number of steps that are usually defined by theneeds of the production. We’ll peer into 3D work flow in the next

EditingThe rendered and composited CG footage is collected and edited together to conform to the script and boards. Some scenes are cut or moved aroun

How It All Works TogetherThe process behind making a South Park episode makes for a perfect pipeline example.Although the show appears to be animated

It helps a great deal in figuring out how to proceed with the modeling to have a goodidea of your whole story via a storyboard. Knowing how an object