Rendering hardware
An API or application programming interface is a source code interface which provides users of software with support and services A GPU is a Graphics processing unit (used in personal computers, consoles or work stations) located on the video card which handles the processing of 2d and 3d graphics. It is a single chip processor with integrated rendering engines, lighting, transform and triangle setups/clipping capable of processing over 10 million polygons per second.
There are many different kinds of shaders like Vertex and Pixel shaders.
Shaders are graphical functions which calculate effects on a per pixel basis mimicking reality. By altering lighting and surface effects a simple red chair can gain a leathery look and brick walls can gain texture, the artists are able to create complex and realistic scenes by manipulating colours, textures and shapes.
A render engine is a piece of software which renders objects animations you have made. With more advanced rendering engines like those found in Maya 5 or 3DS Max, huge improvements have been made in surface textures thanks to advances in the rendering components of the computer programs. Rendering grass or realistic hair is done with mathematical algorithms that are chosen by the user with commands. Thanks to the render engines it is no longer needed for the user to create two point polygons and copy those thousands of times and apply similar materials to each one to create a field.
History of 3D
1960′s
First Experimentation with 3D Graphics
Spacewars, 1st video game, developed by Steve Russell at MIT for the PDP-1
John McCarthy developed the LISP Programming Language which was used for Artificial intellignce Applications
Ivan Sutherland of MIT/Lincoln Labs developed the ’Sketchpad System’ for computer graphics.
Roberts hidden line algorithm (MIT)
Boeing in Seattle created a 3D animation of a aircraft carrier landing – plotted drawings by William Fetter and W. Bernhart
University of Utah asks Dave Evans to form a CG department in computer science
’Hummingbird’ the first example of computer generated representational animation was done by Charles Csuri.
Computer Space arcade game built by Nolan Bushnell
1970′s
RA&A opens.
Uah hand (Catmull) and face (Parke) animations produced
At the university of Utah, Ed Catmull developed an animation scripting language and then created an animation of a smooth shaded hand.
video game Pong developed for Atari
Atari formed
Fred I. Parke created first generated facial animation.
Disney produces The Black Hole using CGI for the opening
The short film ‘Hunger/La Faim’ was directed by Peter Foldes and made use of Burtnyk and Wein interactive keyframing techniques. this was released by The National Rsearch Council of Canada.
A computer group opens at George Lucas’ Industrial light and magic.
Atari 8-bit computers introduced
1980′s
Donkey Kong introduced by Nintendo (Mario named in US release)
Turner Whitted of Bell Labs publishes ray tracing paper
REYES renderer written at LucasFilm
Penguin Software (now Polarware) introduces the Complete Graphics System
Wavefront, Digital Productions, Polygon and RGA (R. Greenbug and Associates). All open with their focus on 3D Animation.
‘Tron’ was released and was the first movie to have over 20 minutes of computer animation.
‘Star Tekk II; The wrath of Khan’ has the ‘Genesus’ effec which is the first fully computer animated visualeffects shot
Utah Raster Toolkit introduced (Spencer Thomas)
Autodesk introduces first PC-based CAD software
Robert Able & Associates produces the 1st computer generated 30 second commercial used for Super Bowl
Wavefront Technologies is the first commercially available 3D software package
Abel Image Research takes Robert Abel & Associates to shaded graphics business
GIF format (CompuServe), JPEG format (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Marching Cubes algorithm (Lorensen and Cline – GE) (Ref: Lorensen, William and Harvey E. Cline. Marching Cubes: A High Resolution 3D Surface Construction Algorithm. Computer Graphics
Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixes live action and animation
D-2 composite video format introduced by Ampex
Disney and Pixar develop CAPS (Computer Animation Paint System) (academy technical award in 1992)
mental ray renderer released (integrated with Wavefront (1992), Softimage (1993), Maya (2002)) – awarded AMPAS Technical Achievment Award in 2002
1990′s
Disney and PIXAR agree to create 3 films, including the first computer animated full-length film Toy Story
ILM produces Terminator 2
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects for Total Recall (Metrolight Studios)
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Disk array and compression codecs allow for nonlinear editing and full motion video
Jurassic Park – ILM and Steven Spielberg
Doom released
2000′s
Significant FX movies – Final Fantasy (Square), Monsters Inc.(Pixar), Harry Potter, A.I., Lord of the Rings, Shrek(PDI), The Mummy Returns (ILM), Tomb Raider (Cinesite), Jurassic Park III, Pearl Harbor (ILM), Planet of the Apes (Asylum)
xBox and Nintendo Gamecube released
History of 3D
1960′s
First Experimentation with 3D Graphics
Spacewars, 1st video game, developed by Steve Russell at MIT for the PDP-1
John McCarthy developed the LISP Programming Language which was used for Artificial intellignce Applications
Ivan Sutherland of MIT/Lincoln Labs developed the ’Sketchpad System’ for computer graphics.
Roberts hidden line algorithm (MIT)
Boeing in Seattle created a 3D animation of a aircraft carrier landing – plotted drawings by William Fetter and W. Bernhart
University of Utah asks Dave Evans to form a CG department in computer science
’Hummingbird’ the first example of computer generated representational animation was done by Charles Csuri.
Computer Space arcade game built by Nolan Bushnell
1970′s
RA&A opens.
Uah hand (Catmull) and face (Parke) animations produced
At the university of Utah, Ed Catmull developed an animation scripting language and then created an animation of a smooth shaded hand.
video game Pong developed for Atari
Atari formed
Fred I. Parke created first generated facial animation.
Disney produces The Black Hole using CGI for the opening
The short film ‘Hunger/La Faim’ was directed by Peter Foldes and made use of Burtnyk and Wein interactive keyframing techniques. this was released by The National Rsearch Council of Canada.
A computer group opens at George Lucas’ Industrial light and magic.
Atari 8-bit computers introduced
1980′s
Donkey Kong introduced by Nintendo (Mario named in US release)
Turner Whitted of Bell Labs publishes ray tracing paper
REYES renderer written at LucasFilm
Penguin Software (now Polarware) introduces the Complete Graphics System
Wavefront, Digital Productions, Polygon and RGA (R. Greenbug and Associates). All open with their focus on 3D Animation.
‘Tron’ was released and was the first movie to have over 20 minutes of computer animation.
‘Star Tekk II; The wrath of Khan’ has the ‘Genesus’ effec which is the first fully computer animated visualeffects shot
Utah Raster Toolkit introduced (Spencer Thomas)
Autodesk introduces first PC-based CAD software
Robert Able & Associates produces the 1st computer generated 30 second commercial used for Super Bowl
Wavefront Technologies is the first commercially available 3D software package
Abel Image Research takes Robert Abel & Associates to shaded graphics business
GIF format (CompuServe), JPEG format (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Marching Cubes algorithm (Lorensen and Cline – GE) (Ref: Lorensen, William and Harvey E. Cline. Marching Cubes: A High Resolution 3D Surface Construction Algorithm. Computer Graphics
Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixes live action and animation
D-2 composite video format introduced by Ampex
Disney and Pixar develop CAPS (Computer Animation Paint System) (academy technical award in 1992)
mental ray renderer released (integrated with Wavefront (1992), Softimage (1993), Maya (2002)) – awarded AMPAS Technical Achievment Award in 2002
1990′s
Disney and PIXAR agree to create 3 films, including the first computer animated full-length film Toy Story
ILM produces Terminator 2
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects for Total Recall (Metrolight Studios)
Beauty and the Beast (Disney)
Disk array and compression codecs allow for nonlinear editing and full motion video
Jurassic Park – ILM and Steven Spielberg
Doom released
2000′s
Significant FX movies – Final Fantasy (Square), Monsters Inc.(Pixar), Harry Potter, A.I., Lord of the Rings, Shrek(PDI), The Mummy Returns (ILM), Tomb Raider (Cinesite), Jurassic Park III, Pearl Harbor (ILM), Planet of the Apes (Asylum)
xBox and Nintendo Gamecube released
Software Information
3D Studio Max -
3ds Max is a 3D animation and rendering program created by Autodesk and runs on Win32 and Win64 platforms. It is one of the most widely used of the shelf 3D development softwares because of its strong modeling capabilities. 3Ds Max is widely used in the areas of interactive games, visual effects for movies and industrial design models and has been used in movies like X-men 3, The Matrix reloaded and Black Hawk Down.
The software lets you create 2D shapes that become the cross sections of the 3D models or predefined 3D shapes like boxes cones and spheres and includes a physics engine, called reactor, originally created by Havok. Reactor can simulate rigid bodies, soft bodies, cloth, gravity, and other forces.
Unreal Engine 3-
‘ Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX10-equipped PCs, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers ‘
Unreals key featurs include Rendering, Audio, Physics, Scrpting, Cinematics, Editing tools, 
Rendering -
Audio -
Physics -
Gameplay Scripting -
Cinematics -
Editing Tools -
Maya-
Autodesk Maya is an award winning with powerful 3d integrated effects for modeling, lighting, animation and rendering. Maya has been used for movies such as Jurrasic park and Terminator 2 and more notably Transformers. aswell as games like F.E.A.R and Resident Evil
Tools:
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Useful tools found in Maya include: Complete particle system, Artisan brush based interface, Full dynamics system, Character rigging and full body inverse Kinematics.
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Maya Fur, Hair, Fluid effects and Ncloth. (only found in Autodesk Maya Unlimited)
New in 2008 :
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New Polygon Modeling worklow – enhanced tools for manipulation and component level editing of polygon models and a new “Smooth Mesh” workflow
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Maya nCloth Wind Features – lets you direct and control your cloth and other meterial simulations
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Maya Rendering Mental RayShaders + IPR: New mental ray sky portal system and tone mapping shader. IPR – new snapshot feature.
3D Rendering techniques
In the last few years the importance of generating more realistic images and environments has been increased because of need to attract buyers and realisticly create everything from game environments and shematics to furniture and planning rooms for interior designers. with the rise in importance the number of methods used to add realism have been increased. the two most popular methods for calculating realism are Ray Tracing and Radiosity.
Ray Tracing -
Ray tracing is a method used to simulate specular reflections and transparancy, it is very good because the rays can be ‘bounced at mirrors’ or refracted through transparent objects such as glass or water.
The black monitor has a diffuse reflection on the screen, it would have taken a long time to calculate because ray tracing is not well suited for calculating diffuse reflections.
Radiology -
Radiology was invented because ray tracing took a very long time to render since many rays have to be shot.
The Cartesian Co-ordinates
The Cartesian Co-ordinate System The Cartesian Co-ordinate System was first developed by Rene Descartes in 1637; he did this in an attempt to merge forms of algebra and geometry into one. This method has played a large role in helping the development of 3D creational software. When we are working with 3D software we are looking at 3D space in a 2d Environment, so by using the Cartesian Co-ordinate System the illusion of a 3d environment is created.The 2 dimensional Cartesian system uses the axes X and Y, which create the XY plane, the arrows represent that the axes go on forever, meaning that both positive and negative values can exist. The point where the 2 axes meet is called O; this represents the centre of the co-ordinate universe. An example of the use of this system is shown below 
This point is (5,6) which means 5 along on the X axes and 6 up on the Y axes, in coordinates X always comes first. Early in the 19h century another axes was added (the Z axes) this would represent depth, it runs at right angles to the X and Y axes and also goes on forever, which allows the location of any point in 3d space.
in 3d space we write the co-ordinates like (X,Y,Z) you can see the 3-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system showing xyz planes below.
Below you can see a point which is -9 on the X axes, +10 along the Y axes and -5 on the
The viewport in 3DSMAX show us the different perspectives so we can accurately place objects. These viewport use a osteopathic view (they only show 2 axes at a time) 
3D Production Pipeline
The Idea – before any action can be taken an idea needs to be thought of and specified, without a clear idea of what the teams will have to make there will be confusion and mistakes along the production line.
Revising the idea – looking over the idea, pointing out points where changes should be made, and changing them. once the product is finished being reworked and finalised then the next steps can be taken.
Story Board – after the finalization a linear storyboard is made showing every scene in the product.
Concepts - Many 2d sketches of the Enviroment and its characters, then sketches are chosen and reworked project leaders directions, then 3d sketches can be drawn, for the characters sketches of the front, sides and back of the face and body and for the enviroments different angles acording the the landscape. after the project leaders finalisation the modeling can begin.
3D Modeling – the modeling of the enviroments and characters will start with modeling the skeletons of them. effectively making the bones for the textures and colours to be made upon, making the skeletons first ensures that no mistakes are made in scaling or otherwise while creating the objects.
Colouring – Colouring or painting the objects in many layers, for characters the skin, then the next layer of clothing then the next layer,
Texture – Materials are added to the 3d objects in layers to form the textures for the like of clothing.
Scripting – Rigging the characters and behaviours and how movement effects different textures, like if 2 items will bounce of each other or stick together in contact.
Lighting – creating lightsources, establishing the scenes and effects such as shadows.
Rendering – the final touches, rendering and composition.
Animation - altering the parts in succesion frame by frame to give the objects movement.
Sounds – adding sounds and music pre recorded to the animation, this is the last step taken and essentialy gives life to the product.
Rendering
This is an example of real time radiosity rendering, radiosity realistically simulates the way that light interacts in a environment. For example reflecting off mirrors and bouncing off the floor up underneath surfaces. Using radiosity a scene looks more realistic, as light reflects off surfaces and illuminates shadowed surfaces.
Without light render engines we would be left with solid shadows in environments, which is useful also because it will render quickly and you may not need to see all the lighting effects when just constructing the models and surfaces of an environment.
The radiosity lighting also uses photometric units which determine lighting effects based on spectrums visible to the human eye (Candelas) and also the power of light (Lumens) you can say “the power of this bulb is 10000 lumens”
In rendering there are 2 main types of illumination rendering algorithms which are Local and Global. Local is the simplest and fastest technique to illuminate an image with 3d shading. A local illumination algorithm will only describe how individual surfaces reflect or transmit light. This is an example of a environment rendered with a local illumination rendering algorithm. 
A global illumination algorithm calculate the ways which light is transferred between surfaces. The goal of the global illumination algorithm is to recreate the environment as if you saw the environment in real life .
This is an example of rendering without Global illumination. You can see the light casting shadows but the light is not reflecting off objects. The light is actually a lamp and there is a green wall but we can’t see it because the light can’t reach those surfaces.
This is an example of rendering with global illumination. You can now see the lamp and green wall also the reflected light on the red wall from the glass ball next to it.
An algorithm is a defined task which reaches (or calculates) an end product.
3DS max uses 2 main Global illumination algorithms which are Radiosity and Ray tracing. The Ray tracing algorithm can model a large variety of lighting effects and can accurately account for characteristics of shadows, secular reflections (mirrors) and direct illumination. In 3DS Max Radiosity and Raytracing work together to accomidate most of the needed lighting effects you would encounted in 3d animation.
