Monday, 23 February 2015

The 3D Pipeline Part 2: UV Mapping, Texturing and shading, Rigging and Animation



In today’s post, I will go into part 2 of the 3D Pipeline. The topics I will discuss are UV Mapping, Texturing and shading, Rigging and Animation. So without further delay, let’s begin.

UV Mapping


Image 1

UV mapping to be put into simplest terms would go something like this. Do you remember when you a kid and how you used to draw out those nets onto paper in math class to make a cube? Well image you’ve just made a cube in a 3D program. You will now take the cube and fold it back out into a net. Once doing so you can now add whatever texture you would like to the surface while it is all laid out flat in either Photoshop or Gimp. Once you do this, you can now apply the texture back to the object or in the case of the paper net, fold it back into a cube and viola. It’s done. Now there are other ways to do texturing onto 3D models, but this option offers the most degree of control.

Texturing and shading
Use this in the right way and it’s possible to add a high amount of detail to a low poly count model and save processing power in a video game. At the same time however, if you happen to have access to a render farm and the time then go right ahead and put a high detailed texture unto a high poly count model and blow people away with the realism. So to put a long story short, texture mapping and shading is a method for adding detail, surface texture in a bitmap or raster image, or colour to a CG graphic or 3D model to give it life.


Rigging


Image 2

A character rig can be looked at as a digital skeleton that is attached to the 3D mesh of your 3D model. Like a real skeleton, a rig is made up of joints and bones, each of which act as a "handle" that animators can use to bend the character into a desired pose.

A character rig can range from simple and elegant to staggeringly complex. A basic setup for simple posing can be built in a few hours, while a fully articulated rig for a feature film might require days or weeks before the character is ready for Pixar level animation.

Animation
3D animation, sometimes referred to as 3D CGI, is a type of animation that uses computer generated images to create animated scenes. Compared to 2D animation, 3D has much more depth, and it looks much more realistic due to the fact that you can have a higher degree of control over the animated character than you would if you used 2D animation.

Stay tuned for Part 3 coming out this Thursday and until next time . . .

This is James Ball signing out.


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