Before going
off the lid, I want to specify that this article has nothing to do with any
upcoming technology or a life changing event. Rather the motive behind this
article is to introduce new parameters in human perception through an
amalgamation of nature and science behind the nature. I wish that by the end of
this article, readers may be awoken to enjoy finer, easily neglected details of
nature and improve their perspective.
God has
gifted us with a pair of eyes to see the beautiful world around us. But how
much of the beauty can we extract out of it is solely dependent on the way we
perceive it. Big bold letters written in newspaper or printed on banners can be
visible to everyone but there are few who can read the smaller and finer ones
hidden in between the description, unseen to naked eyes. Aim is to take you
inside the mind of an artist and show you how things are perceived in his
world. Everything at this point might sound spiritual and not even remotely
related to science, so let me add a dimension to the convoluted mess. The
person or the artist as stated earlier here, is a designer, an architectural
designer or a 3D modeler.
Such an
artist rely on not only the random shapes and structures he create but also on
how realistically they are created. Life of a 3D artist is nothing but an
irony. He create a virtual (computer generated) world in order to survive in
real world. Where real world enjoys an incredible support from nature, virtual
world relies on individuals for its recognition. According to a recently
published study, a 3D artist enjoys twice more powerful senses than any other
normal human being. The only barrier is knowledge of tools to create a virtual
simulation. He is gifted with a power of seeing the unseen, involuntarily
avoided world. The ever so evolving hardware and software has made it possible
to further blur the line between virtual and reality. Enough of beating around
the bush, let’s talk about this mystical unseen world only visible to artists.
The world
unseen
The whole
hoopla of this mystical world within a world is nothing but a collection of
those details which are so fine that they are generally missed from grabbing
any sort of attraction to human eyes or more specifically the human brain. Let’s
look at one of such detail. [pic] Any source of light illuminates the world
around us. What generally nobody cares about is the infinite parameters
associated with that light. Any obstacle in the path of light cast shadows, the
shape, length, intensity and direction of which is dependent on source of
light. However there are panumbrae due to impartial cutoff of light too and
also indirect shadows casted from other objects in the scene. The very fact
that light never reaches our eyes directly but is reflected by objects, dust
particles and surfaces in the entire scene before reaching our eyes making
various natural phenomena to take place simultaneously and their cumulative
effects in the actual view which we finally get, can make everything so complex
and fascinating. Now imagine simulating all that on a computer which accounts
for living of these 3D artists. The amount of calculations required were
insurmountable to both human brain and computer until the dramatic evolution of
hardware industry. Now the computer is intelligent enough to produce those
effects with shocking accuracy.
Look around
you, the world is so vast and dynamic that we can’t possibly notice all the
different phenomenas occurring at any given moment. Look at the material of
things around you. Shiny, glossy, dull, smooth, rough, bumpy, patterned,
grudgy, dusty and whatnot. All are reflecting, refracting different amount of
light to make you aware of their unique properties. Also look at the
interaction of two surfaces. Image and even color of one object is reflected on
other object. You can simulate and manipulate the exact effect on a software.
Turn on Global illumination for calculating the lighting in a scene
realistically by taking into account reflection of light from other objects and
surfaces. Set the color, transparency, texture and reflectivity of materials
and see the magic after rendering.
Humans are
the most expressive creatures on earth with uncountable number of emotions
expressed in equally uncountable ways. Emotions or expressions are processed by
both our eyes and brain. They are meant to be felt. But what if we change the
rules of nature and cut off the brain and sound part? Just imagine humans as a
non-living, lifeless robot able to imitate different facial expressions. Focus
on the visual part rather than anything else. Check out the movements of
various parts of the face be it twitching of eyes, lines on forehead,
fluffiness of cheeks, movement of jaw, widening of nostrils, movement of lips,
pushing back of ears. Also facial hairs, their color, thickness and density,
hairstyle or maybe a mole. Some of these details are impossible to notice in a
regular conversation because of their irrelevance and also because most of the
time our mind will be busy in gathering information about his/her assets. There
is a French quote which says, ‘your ignorance is someone else’s fortune’. Same
goes with artists in making human models or characters in films and video games.
The above
few paras might make you realize how everything around us is connected to each
other. Each and every little detail has some role to play in the final imagery
which is perceived to our eyes. There are millions of other phenomenas like the
sunflares, fog, ripples in pond, bright spot of light when you concentrate
light to a point, random splash of water, water vapors, movement of curtains
etc each with a scientific and logical existence. These are the elements of
realism which a normal human being doesn’t really care about most of the time
but are of essential importance to 3D artists.
How it
works
Imagine the
world made up of millions of polygons which are arranged in such a way to
contrive any real world entity. Everything is nothing but a mesh of random
shapes with textures applied to them accordingly and lighted up with a number
of light sources. These are the various layers of a computer generated world.
The geometry of things is of utmost importance. Even the most complex
structures in the world follow a pattern. Without patterns, it’s humanly
impossible to construct anything in the world. It might seem difficult to
really think about making anything, but just take an example of any structure
around you. Start from the smallest geometrically similar portion of the
building, let’s say the base floor. It’s probably going to have a couple of
windows, balconies and lift area. Now imagine replicating the same bunch of
things repeated again and again on top of each other or maybe horizontally too
and forming a single large structure. Modify this structure by bending it or
making curves out of it. That will be the front face of the building. Repeat
the procedure for rest of the faces and you have your own apartment (ofcourse
on a computer). CG modelers and architecturer use the same technique of
breaking down a large structure into smaller, similar parts for minimizing and
speeding up their work. This is pretty much how things work be it cars, planes
or even humans. Adding finer details for realism follows next.
Talk about revolution, a common man may answer
smartphones or viral internet videos of stupid dance forms but ask an expert 3D
artist or game designer and his instant answer will be the unbelievable amount
of realism achieved in computer generated world. So much that you can fool
anyone to call a CG imagery, a real world entity. Hardware is growing every day
and has reached to a point where we are standing at the brink of the door
through which we can peak into a virtual world which looks and breathes just
like ours but fully manipulable. We are now equipped with hardware which can
handle such unparalleled amount of processing.
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