Displaying 3D polygon information - APIs Application programming interface

 Application programming interface (API)

An API is a set of rules that allows software to send 3D polygon information to the GPU. If the correct API is used then the GPU is able to display the 3D polygon information, if not then no information is displayed. Two common API's are Direct 3D and OpenGL. 

 

Direct 3D

Direct 3D is part of Microsoft's Direct X API, It is used to render 3D graphics in applications such as games where performance is important. Direct 3D is the base for the graphics API on the X box consoles.

 This is an screenshot of a game played on the Xbox 360 console. This particular game is called Call of duty and was running on DirectX. This game was displayed using 3D polygon information in the Direct3D API format.

OpenGL

OpenGL is a cross platform programming interface for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The OpenGL interface can be used to draw complex 3D shapes from simple primitives. OpenGL is mainly used for 3D applications such as the display of graphics in computer animated films, scientific visualisation, virtual reality, flight simulation and computer aided design. As with any API OpenGL renders 3D objects to the screen by providing a set of instructions for exchanging 3D data between applications and graphics cards.

Here is an example of an OpenGL code that describes a cube, and also an image of the cube it describes. The example demonstrates how an OpenGL code allows a cube to be rendered to the screen. The OpenGL code in this example specifies a set of commands that provide a set of rules or instructions for exchanging the 3D data for this cube between the application and the graphics card. The result is that the 3D polygon information for the cube is displayed on the screen. Programmers can use hundreds or thousands of these OpenGL commands to create 3D worlds that can include texture mapping, fog, transparency and lighting effects.

Applications/uses of 3D models

For anything to exist in 3D it must be modelled. A few examples include objects for 3D environments, animations and games, scenery, products, buildings and characters. After that the models can be rendered, animated and used for almost any digital 3D purpose.

This example shows how a 3D model of a lamp-post is first made then rendered and used for a particular purpose. In this particular example the model has been used as part of the scenery of a 3D animation. This example also shows how a 3D object can be animated, in the picture where the 3D lamp-post model is labelled as part of an animation the lamp-post has been animated to fall over to give the impression that the 3D character in the image knocks it over as he is walking past.

Applications/Uses of 3D - Environments

Digital 3D can be used to produce 3D environments very effectively. This is down to;

• The amount of detail that can be created using 3D shapes
• The quality of the rendering possible
• The fact that environments can be animated
• Digital 3d can be made interactive, allowing 3D environments to be explored.

3D environments can be simple or extremely detailed and can look completely different from each other.

Some 3D game environments have real- time effects like changes in weather and lighting to show time of day.

The most popular software for making 3D environments for games is Autodesk 3D studio max. Autodesk 3D studio max is only one ingredient for making games you also need a game engine.

This is an example of a 3D Environment it was made with 3D studio max. It shows the effectiveness of making 3D environments with Digital 3D and points out 3D shapes with a lot of detail and also illustrates the quality of rendering that can be achieved using digital 3D.

 

These are examples of an interactive 3D environment that is part of a computer game; it was made using 3D Studio Max. I have shown the environment finished as a screen shot of a game and also an image of the environment as it was being made.

The environment is the world where the game takes place and can be explored by the player. This environment is quite detailed and the meshes and textures used to make it must have been quite complex.

Not all 3D environments are this detailed, to show this I have also included an example of a 3D environment that is simple to show exactly how different 3D environments can be.

This example of a 3D environment is really simple; all of the objects in this environment are made from simple shapes and simple textures. It is not very detailed at all and shows just how different 3D environments can be.

Some software is more suitable for creating 3D environments of the natural world because they are specifically made for 3D terrain construction. These programs include Eon Vue D'esprit, Daz Bryce and Worldbuilder and are compatible with other 3D construction software such as 3Ds max, Maya, lightwave and softimage.

This is an example of a 3D environment of the natural world that has been made using the Worldbuilder program. The artist has used the program to produce geological formations, water, clouds, sunlight and trees which are clearly labelled in this example. The Worldbuilder program is particularly suitable for creating 3D environments because it lets the 3d artist make entire forests from a single tree or an entire lawn from a single blade of grass. WorldBuilder has more plants included than any other terrain generation tool and the plants are not static, which means you have endless plant and tree variations.

Rendered static images of 3D environments can be used as illustrations for such things as architectural visualisation, historical reconstruction and training/education. They can also be rendered animated for use in TV and film

This is an example of a 3D environment that has been used for an architectural visualisation illustration. For the purpose of illustration only the parts of the environment that will be seen in the illustration need to be modelled.

3D Development software

3D development software can be used for developing 3D graphics for such purposes as Video game models and environments, animation and architectural walk-throughs

Here are some examples of 3D development software and their uses.

3DStudioMax

3D studio max is for modelling, animation, rendering and compositing. 3D studio max is most commonly used for producing animation and computer games. The video game industry uses 3DStudioMax to create assets for video games including 3D models of characters, environments and objects.

This is an screen shot from the online video game War hammer that was developed using the 3D development software 3D Studio Max. Every angle of every scene in this video game had to be generated using 3DSMax software. The example labels the assets that were made using 3DsMax and include 3D objects (weapons in this example). 3D character models (playable characters and enemies) and 3D environments (everything that surrounds the characters, including the buildings, ground etc.) 3DSMax was used to create, texture and render the 3D models in the example above.

Maya

Maya is an application used to generate 3D assets for use in film, television, game development and architecture. Maya is used mainly for special effects in movies and modeling objects and characters in video games. In addition to 3D, Maya is also used for matte painting for backgrounds in digital work. Maya has been used for many films that have received academy awards for their visual effects because the films artists have use Maya such as the film “the case of Benjamin button” that received an academy award for the ageing effects that were created using Maya.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gladiator, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Hulk, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and king Kong all had effects created by Maya.

Here is a screen shot from the film the chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The film used Maya to create its special effects. Maya was used to create the effects for many of the talking animals in the film such as the 3D wolves, foxes and beavers. Maya was used to animate these 3D characters to move, speak and interact with actors and live action animals throughout the film. The beaver character shown in the example was crafted using the 3D development software Maya, this example shows the 3D character alongside live actors.

Lightwave

Lightwave is a software program used for rendering animated and static images. Lightwave has advanced features such as reflection and refraction, radiosity and caustics. The animated film “Jimmy neutron- boy genius was made entirely using lightwave software.

This is an example of how the 3D development software Lightwave can be used. This particular image shows the lightwave software in action as it shows an example from an animated film that was made using the Lightwave software. The film in the example Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius was made in its entirety with Lightwave. Everything from the 3D models of characters to the background, The animation was even rendered in Lightwave.

AutoCad

AutoCAD is a computer aided design program used for 2D and 3D design and drafting. AutoCAD software is used by architects, CAD technicians, designers, engineers, project managers, in a variety of industries, including the manufacturing, building, civil, and mapping industries. AutoCAD Software is popular for creating and making architectural visualisations and walkthroughs.

This example illustrates how the AutoCAD software can be used. In this particular example AutoCAD has been used by architectural company. The artist has used The AutoCAD software to create 3D models of buildings that make up a city and has placed a 3D model of a potential future building in the location it may be built. This provides architects with an accurate architectural visualisation of how the building will look if it is built.

Cinema4d

Cinema 4d is a modelling animation and rendering package used for creating advanced 3d graphics. Cinema4D has unique features such as 3D texture painting and motion graphics and has been widely used by the film making industry because of its ability to create stunning visual effects.

The uses of Cinema4D in industry include a number of films that have been made with the help of the Cinema4D the golden compass, surfs up, war of the worlds and the polar express.

This is a screen shot from the film “surfs up” which was created with the help of Cinema4Ds 3D texture painting to create its lush environments and details on the characters such as feathers on the penguins. The example above shows the level of detail that can be achieved using Cinema4D.

Softimage/XSI

Softimage/XSI is a 3D computer graphics application designed for producing 3D computer graphics, 3D modelling and computer animation. Softimage/XSI is predominantly used for creating computer generated characters, objects and environments in the film, video game and advertising industries. Softimage/XSI has been used for games development in games such as metal gear solid 3 and 4, devil may cry 4, resident evil 4 and 5 and final fantasy XIII to name a few. Softimage/XSI has been used in numerous film and television productions which include 300, charlottes web and transformers as well as advertising in the coca-cola and M&Ms commercials.

This image demonstrates how the 3D development software Softimage/XSI can be used. This particular example shows a video game cinematic in progress and shows the computer generated characters, objects and environments that are being made using Softimage/XSI. The 3D characters in this example have also been animated using Softimage/XSI.

3D Constraints

I thought i'd post up my 3d theory, the constraints section.
 I just love posting stuff to my blog.

Polygon count, File size, Rendering time

3D Animations are pre-rendered to create a “video” for film and TV. The time they take to render will depend on there complexity (amount of polygons). Animations for non-interactive media, such as feature films and video, are rendered much more slowly. This type of rendering (sometimes called Non real-time) rendering enables the effective use of limited processing power in order to obtain higher image quality.
Rendering times vary for individual frames and may take anything from a few seconds for simple frames to several days for complex scenes. Rendered frames are stored on a hard disk. The Rendered frames can then be transferred to other media such as motion picture film or optical disk. File size can be an issue for Rendered frames because of the amount of data in them, if a rendered frame is too big it may not fit in the computers memory and can be difficult or impossible to store or transport.
File size is an issue for games as well because the game needs to be able to fit onto a disk in order to be played, If the file size of a games was too big to fit onto a disk it could not be played unless you ran it directly from the computer it was stored on, which would be useless if you were making a game that was meant to be played by others.
Games differ from animation in the way in which they are rendered. Computer games are rendered in Real-Time because unlike animation's which remain the same every time you watch them, games change because they are controlled by the player, you never know when the player will fire a gun or in which direction they will move.
Polygon count can easily become an issue in Games because there is a limit to how many polygons a game can have so that the memory is able to run it. Because games are rendered in real-time the more polygons the game has the longer the game will take to render. An example of polygon count being an issue in games is if there are too many polygons and not enough memory it could cause the game to freeze, making the game unplayable. The objective is to make the 3D for games look satisfactory enough in terms of detail without sacrificing precious polygons to do so. A lot of games in development are using more and more polygons per 3D object because the new ultra fast computers can handle them.

File formats

Different kinds of 3D development software have different kinds of file formats. Here is a list of the different file formats for the different programs.

.3ds -3D Studio Max,

.mb – Maya

.lwo – Lightwave

.C4D – Cinema 4D

.dxf –AutoCAD

.xsi –Softimage/XSI

Victorias... post refferal stuff

Oh well ive almost met the criteria for my final major project.

here are the things that I forgot to do..
Ive posted the into the correctlocation on my blog ( in red ) and also here for convenience.
The stuff i've added will make more sense in the correct location.... but here goes nothing.

1. Notice the dodgy scene where Alice has no head. rectify it.

been done... here's the link   final major project - on youtube

2. Evaluate the dodgy scene.

here's the evaluation

One of the problems I had regarding the specialist factors of my animation was one of the shots camera angles. There was a particular scene where Alice had to walk to the mushroom. I found very difficult to get a shot that included the whole of Alice without the caterpillar showing as she was a large character and I found that moving the camera back resulted in the area surrounding the scene to be visible, so I made a decision to just include part of Alice in the shot.

The reason that the caterpillar could not be seen was because he wasn't meant to appear in the story until a certain point. On reflection I suppose I could have just removed him from the mushroom, but I felt that that would be strange because it would appear that he had appeared from nowhere and I didn't want the viewer to be confused. 

The result was that the shot appeared to be an accidental error because Alice's head was missing, this was not the case because the shot was filmed like that deliberately, however, the shot looked really unprofessional so I decided that I would make a change to it so that Alice's missing head was not an issue.

Here is an example image from the scene in question, you can clearly see the issue with Alice's head not being in the shot.

One of the solutions I thought about was to ditch the shot completely. This shot however was vital because it showed the transition between Alice's Location at the front of the scene going into the scene. If I had of left it out it would have confused the viewer as it would have made Alice seem to have appeared from nowhere so this was not an option.

I thought about increasing the size of the scene so that only part of Alice was visible. As the original images for the animation had been downsized appropriately for the animation. I had access to larger images. At first I tried to make a new avi with the images from that scene in the program Monkey jam but at a larger scale so that if I was to increase the size of the clip in the video editing software it would not look pixelated but i found the size of the files where so large that they caused Monkey jam to crash or not build the avi correctly. As an alternative I used the video editing software adobe premier pro to increase the size of the existing video and move it around so that only Alice's feet where in view. This did not look perfect and considerably reduced the quality of the clip, but it looked better than before and more importantly it didn't look like a mistake.

I was not satisfied with the quality of this part of thew animation I think it looked terrible But I had to base this decision on what the animation would look like as a whole and not just on the one scene.

I felt that the animation in its entirety looked better after I had made this alteration than it did when the shot looked dodgy.

 

Here is an example of the rectified scene. As you can clearly see the quality of the shot has been reduced.

So heres the comparison between the before and after shots of that scene.

Understanding why the first scene was bad helped me to make it better.

Changing it also helped; as it was a speicialist factor. I decided on

Keeping the images in this scene. It was very helpful to me as it saved time.

It was not poissible for me to animate again because my models had broken.

Now I look back at it I can see how unprofessional it looked.

Giving it that extra thought improved the whole animation.

Even though I had problems with this particular video clip redoing it

Gave me an insight into the day to day hell pros go thru to achieve

Greatness when it comes to animation. And I hope this experience will

Serve me well in the future.

3. Include examples of my primary research 

Even though I looked at primary sources to gather research for my project, I did not include examples of that research.

Part of my research included me watching stop motion animations with a similar target audience to mine. I watched them to find examples of visual language that had been used in those films to help me find out what was suitable for my target audience. The visual language I was looking for in the examples where what colours where used and if there was any relation between use of colour and target audience. I researched this to help me solve a problem I had deciding on what colour hair my Alice character should have.

I looked at the hair colour of female characters from these stop motion animation films.

• Coraline from the film Coraline
• Sally from the film The nightmare before Christmas
• Lady Tottington from the film Wallace and Gromit, the curse of the were rabbit.

Here are the original screen shots from all the films

Responding to the primary research

After I looked at examples of the hair of female characters from stop motion animations I put the pictures to together and made notes to see what comparisons they had, if any.

in response to this I discovered that the tone of the hair for female characters from stop motion animations with a similar target audience to mine was never a bright in your face colour it was always a subtle tone. Even lady tottintons hair which is the brightest of the 3 is not overly bright.

I used this information to help solve the problem I had with choosing a colour for Alices hair that would be appropriate for my target audience.

I used a subtle tone for alices hair based on what I learnt from this research.

4. Screenshots and research response to primary research -  nausicca storyboard

Primary research

I was able to get some pictures of the primary research That I had gathered by playing the dvd on my laptop and taking screenshots, they were much better quality than taking pictures from the TV.

Responding to primary research

After I had looked at the animated storyboard from the film nausicca of the valley of the wind, i put my screenshots together and i made notes on it to help with the development of my own animatic, and storyboard.

Things that inspired me from the reserach

• instead of actual movement lines were drawn on the storyboard to give the effect of movement.
• the drawings just contained enough detail to show what was going on.
• storyboard contained several veiwpoints, not just from a front angle.
• images only changed when the veiwpoint changed

In response to this research I decided to use the inspiration that I recorded above in my own storyboard and animatic. I used lines for movement an example of this is when i used lines to show that Alice's head was turning round. Some of the drawings in my own animation just contained enough detail to show what was going on like in the nausicca storyboard. I made sure the viewpoints were different not just one throughout and I only drew one image for every viewpoint.

5. Pictures of references from the book the complete animation guide and responses regarding building the armature.

 I did this but unfortunatley it wasnt on  the link I sent to the teacher. I think this was either because I didnt publish the post,  or because I remembered I had forgotton it at the last minute and added it in later. Regardless of the reasons here it is again.

Before i made the armatures for the characters I looked at a book called to help me with making them correctly in previous animations i had made my characters were unable to walk properly so i thought it was important to look at this speicialist factor to ensure that my armatures where built correctly this time. more importantly my alice character ad really skinny legs and needed to be able to stand up so i found an example of how to make the armature for a skinny character so that it could stand and move correctly.

here is an example from the book that shows how to correctly make the armature with drill, i used the same method of placing the wire in the drill to twist it. the book says to use 3 peices of wire together for added strength to the armature to prevent it from breaking and i only used 2 in my last animation i felt the armatue was week and parts of it broke off. I decided to follow the example from the book and use 3 peices of wire this time.

This part of the book I read shows how you can join parts of the wire armature together.

I made a few alterations based on what equipment I had available and what was affordable to use for instance I used the glue gun to glue the wire together instead of polymorph. i found that before the glue dried completley i could press it around the wire so that when it dried it held it firmly in place.

This reference shows how to use tools correctly to make a wire armature for a stop motion animation character. I shaped my wire into a similar shape to the reference in the book using the same tools as in the book (pliers) to make a frame for the rest of the body. the book really helped to show me the specialist factors or how to use the tools correctly to create an armature.

This paet of the book shows how to cover an armature. I covered my own armature like the one above , I did not use the same material because I had none available, cost was an issue also. I used tape but I followed the tehnique used in the research. it was important to cover the model so that I could add the modelling material afterwards and adding the tape helped when it came to adding the other material to the armature.

alice covered armnature

here is my covered armature, before i added the model magic i used model magic because it was light and wouldnt weigh the model down, the only part that needed to be heaveier was the feet so I put plasteine on the feet before covering with model magic this also helped the character maintain a grip when standing.

here is the model complete before being painted, on top of the wire armature i have created using these references.

finding out how to make the armature proparly helped extend my creative ability when making armatures which was part of my own brief, as they were much better quality than i had made previously