IS 490 Essay Example For Students

IS 490 Essay SPECIAL TOPICSComputer GraphicsMay 6, 1996Table of ContentsIntroduction3How It Was3How It All Began4Times Were Changing6Industrys First Attempts7The Second Wave10How the Magic is Made11Modeling12Animation13Rendering13Conclusion15Bibliography16Introduction Hollywood has gone digital, and the old ways of doing things are dying. Animation andspecial effects created with computers have been embraced by television networks,advertisers, and movie studios alike. Film editors, who for decades worked by painstakinglycutting and gluing film segments together, are now sitting in front of computer screens. There, they edit entire features while adding sound that is not only stored digitally, butalso has been created and manipulated with computers. Viewers are witnessing the results ofall this in the form of stories and experiences that they never dreamed of before. Perhapsthe most surprising aspect of all this, however, is that the entire digital effects andanimation industry is still in its inf ancy. The future looks bright. How It WasIn the beginning, computer graphics were as cumbersome and as hard to control as dinosaursmust have been in their own time. Like dinosaurs, the hardware systems, or muscles, ofearly computer graphics were huge and ungainly. The machines often filled entire buildings. Also like dinosaurs, the software programs or brains of computer graphics were hopelesslyunderdeveloped. Fortunately for the visual arts, the evolution of both brains and brawn ofcomputer graphics did not take eons to develop. It has, instead, taken only three decadesto move from science fiction to current technological trends. With computers out of thestone age, we have moved into the leading edge of the silicon era. Imagine sitting at acomputer without any visual feedback on a monitor. There would be no spreadsheets, no wordprocessors, not even simple games like solitaire. This is what it was like in the earlydays of computers. The only way to interact with a computer at that time was through toggleswitches, flashing lights, punchcards, and Teletype printouts. How It All Began In 1962, all this began to change. In that year, Ivan Sutherland, a Ph.D. student at (MIT),created the science of computer graphics. For his dissertation, he wrote a program calledSketchpad that allowed him t o draw lines of light directly on a cathode ray tube (CRT). Theresults were simple and primitive. They were a cube, a series of lines, and groups ofgeometric shapes. This offered an entirely new vision on how computers could be used. In1964, Sutherland teamed up with Dr. David Evans at the University of Utah to develop theworlds first academic computer graphics department. Their goal was to attract only the mostgifted students from across the country by creating a unique department that combined hardscience with the creative arts. They new they were starting a brand new industry and wantedpeople who would be able to lead that industry out of its infancy. Out of this unique mix ofscience and art, a basic understanding of computer graphics began to grow. Algorithms forthe creation of solid objects, their modeling, lighting, and shading were developed. Thisis the roots virtually every aspect of todays computer graphics industry is based on. Everything from desktop publishing to virtual reality find their beginnings in the basicresearch that came out of the University of Utah in the 60s and 70s. During this time,Evans and Sutherland also founded the first computer graphics company. Aptly named Evans ;Sutherland (E;S), the company was established in 1968 and rolled out its first computergraphics systems in 1969. Up until this time, the only computers available that couldcreate pictures were custom-designed for the military and prohibitively expensive. E;Sscomputer system could draw wireframe images extremely rapidly, and was the first commercialworkstation created for computer-aided design (CAD). It found its earliest customers inboth the automotive and aerospace industries. Times Were Changing Throughout its early years, the University of Utahs Computer Science Department wasgenerously supported by a series of research grants from the Department of Defense. The1970s, with its anti-war and anti-military protests, brought increasing restriction to theflows of academ ic grants, which had a direct impact on the Utah departments ability tocarry out research. Fortunately, as the program wound down, Dr. Alexander Schure, founderand president of New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), stepped forward with his dream ofcreating computer-animated feature films. To accomplish this task, Schure hired EdwinCatmull, a University of Utah Ph.D., to head the NYIT computer graphics lab and thenequipped the lab with the best computer graphics hardware available at that time. Whencompleted, the lab boasted over $2 million worth of equipment. Many of the staff came fromthe University of Utah and were given free reign to develop both two- and three-dimensionalcomputer graphics tools. Their goal was to soon produce a full -length computer animatedfeature film. The effort, which began in 1973, produced dozens of research papers andhundreds of new discoveries, but in the end, it was far too early for such a complexundertaking. The computers of that time were simply t oo expensive and too under powered, andthe software not nearly developed enough. In fact, the first full length computer generatedfeature film was not to be completed until recently in 1995. By 1978, Schure could no longerjustify funding such an expensive effort, and the labs funding was cut back. The ironicthing is that had the Institute decided to patent many more of its researchers discoveriesthan it did, it would control much of the technology in use today. Fortunately for thecomputer industry as a whole, however, this did not happen. Instead, research was madeavailable to whomever could make good use of it, thus accelerating the technologiesdevelopment. Industrys First AttemptsAs NYITs influence started to wane, the first wave of commercial computer graphics studiosbegan to appear. Film visionary George Lucas (creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jonestrilogies) hired Catmull from NYIT in 1978 to start the Lucasfilm Computer DevelopmentDivision, and a group of over half-dozen compu ter graphics studios around the country openedfor business. While Lucass computer division began researching how to apply digitaltechnology to filmmaking, the other studios began creating flying logos and broadcastgraphics for various corporations including TRW, Gillette, the National Football League, andtelevision programs, such as The NBC Nightly News and ABC World News Tonight. Althoughit was a dream of these initial computer graphics companies to make movies with theircomputers, virtually all the early commercial computer graphics were created for television. The Invisible Man Essay PaperHardware is the brains and brawn of computer graphics, but it is powerless without theright software. It is the software that allows the modeler to build a computer graphicobject, that helps the animator bring this object to life, and that, in the end, gives theimage its final look. Sophisticated computer graphics software for commercial studios iseither purchased for $30,000 to $50,000, or developed in-house by computer programmers. Most studios use a combination of both, developing new software to meet new project needs. Modeling Modeling is the first step in creating any 3D computer graphics. Modeling in computergraphics is a little like sculpting, a little like building models with wood, plastic andglue, and a lot like CAD. Its flexibility and potential are unmatched in any other art form. With computer graphics it is possible to build entire worlds and entire realities. Eachcan have its own laws, its own looks, and its own scale of time and space. Access to these 3-dimensional computer realities is almost always through the 2-dimensionalwindow of a computer monitor. This can lead to the misunderstanding that 3-D modeling ismerely the production perspective drawings. This is very far from the truth. All elementscreated during any modeling session possess three full dimensions and at any time can berotated, turned upside down, and viewed from any angle or perspective. In addition, theymay be re-scaled, reshaped, or resized whenever the modeler chooses. Modeling is the firststep in creating any 3-dimensional computer animation. It requires the artists ability tovisualize mentally the objects being built, and the craftspersons painstaking attention todetail to bring it to completion. To create an object, a modeler starts with a blank screenan sets the scale of the compute rs coordinate system for that element. The scale can beanything from microns to light years across in size. It is important that scale staysconsistent with all elements in a project. A chair built in inches will be lost in a livingroom built in miles. The model is then created by building up layers of lines and patchesthat define the shape of the object. AnimationWhile it is the modeler that contains the power of creation, it is the animator whoprovides the illusion of life. The animator uses the tools at his disposal to make objectsmove. Every animation process begins essentially the same way, with a storyboard. A storyboard is a series of still images that shows how the elements will move and interactwith each other. This process is essential so that the animator knows what movements needto be assigned to objects in the animation. Using the storyboard, the animator sets up keypoints of movements for each object in the scene. The computer then produces motion foreach object on a frame by frame basis. The final result when assembled, gives the form offluid movement. RenderingThe modeler gives form, the animator provides motion, but still the animation process is notcomplete. The objects and elements are nothing but empty or hollow forms without anysurface. They are merely outlines until the rendering process is applied. Rendering is themost computational time demanding aspect of the entire animation process. During therendering process, the computer does virtually all the work using software that has beenpurchased or written in-house. It is here that the animation finally achieves its finallook. Objects are given surfaces that make it look like a solid form. Any type of look canbe achieved by varying the looks of the surfaces. The objects finally look concrete. Next,the objects are lighted. The look of the lighting is affected by the surfaces of theobjects, the types of lights, and the mathematical models used to calculate the behavior oflight. Once the lighting is completed, it is now time to create what the camera will see. The computer calculates what the camera can see following the designs of the objects in thescene. Keep in mind that all the objects have tops, sides, bottoms, and possibly insides. Types of camera lens, fog, smoke, and other effects all have to be calculated. To createthe final 2-D image, the computer scans the resulting 3D world and pulls out the pixels thatthe camera can see. The image is then sent to the monitor, to videotape, or to a filmrecorder for display. The multiple 2D still frames, when all assembled, produce the finalanimation. ConclusionMuch has happened in the commercial computer graphics industry since the decline of thefirst wave of studios and the rise of the second. Software and hardware costs haveplummeted. The number of well-trained animators and programmers has increased dramatically. And at last, Hollywood and the advertising community have acknowledged that the digital agehas finally arrived, this time not to disappear. All these factors have lead to an explosionin both the size of existing studios and the number of new enterprises opening their doors. As the digital tide continues to rise, only one thing is certain. We have just begun to seehow computer technology will change the visual arts. BIBLIOGRAPHYHow Did They Do It? Computer Illusion in Film TV , Alpha Books 1994;Christopher W. BakerComputer Graphics World, Volume 19, Number 3; March 1996;Evan Hirsch, Beyond RealityComputer Graphics World, Volume 19, Number 4; April 1996;Evan Marc Hirsch, A Changing LandscapeWindows NT Magazine, Issue #7, March 1996;Joel Sloss, Theres No Business Like Show BusinessCinescape, Volume 1, Number 5; February 1995;Beth Laski, Ocean of Dreams16