Over the course of this week, I went over Nigel’s feedback on the literature review I wrote last semester. Starting with the title of my thesis, the suggestions were extremely helpful. The initial focus was primarily on researching rendering styles and techniques, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of offline and real-time rendering. However, this title was too broad and resulted in a rather dull research topic because the benefits and drawbacks of each are well understood, making it difficult to write an outstanding paper on this subject. Taking the feedback into consideration, I decided to change the focus of my paper by changing the title. I scoured Google Scholar for animation-related articles and eventually changed my title to one about the performance of animated characters. The following are the specifics of my literature search and the final confirmation of my new title.
This week, I started writing my Draft Literature Review , as I went back over the Harvard format and the specific content and format that i need to submit.
My abstract for my thesis
Rendering plays a crucial part in the animation, video game, and film industries since it is responsible for producing the audience’s final visual output. To determine which renderer method is superior for an animated film or a video game, it is necessary to comprehend the rendering techniques employed in the animation and game industries. The current rendering methods for film, television, and video games can be loosely grouped into two categories: 3D Real-Time and 3D Post-Process Rendering. Real-time 3D rendering generates and analyses pictures with the aid of graphics software, often to give the appearance of motion at 20 to 120 frames per second. 3D post-processing rendering is performed on a 3D render once the artist considers it suitable. Typically, editing software is used during post-processing to correct small flaws and add realismenhancing features. This article will concentrate on discussing the employment of these two rendering technologies in the animation and gaming industries, assessing and elaborating upon their distinct benefits and shortcomings. Using existing American animated films as a case study, this thesis will investigate the impact that the use of different rendering techniques has on the representation of a film.
References
Adamo-Villani, N., 2008. 3D rendering of American sign language finger-spelling: A comparative study of two animation techniques. International journal of human and social sciences, 3(4), p.24.
Goswami, P., 2021. A survey of modeling, rendering and animation of clouds in computer graphics. The Visual Computer, 37(7), pp.1931-1948
Meier, B.J., 1996, August. Painterly rendering for animation. In Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques (pp. 477- 484).
Shvetsova, O.A., 2020. VR technologies for knowledge transfer process: new perspectives and sustainability. In ISPIM Conference Proceedings (pp. 1-19). The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).
Tatarchuk, N., 2009. Advances in real-time rendering in 3d graphics and games i. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 Courses (pp. 1-1).
Yuan, M., Yang, X., Xiao, S. and Ren, Z., 2007, May. GPU-based rendering and animation for Chinese painting cartoon. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2007 (pp. 57-61)
This week, I continued to look up literature that would be helpful for my dissertation, and took notes on them to extract the highlights.
Common modelling and rendering tools have trouble with complex, repetitive scenes with forests, leaves, grass, hair, or fur. Even in high-end productions, this kind of scene is rarely used because it takes a lot of data, is hard to model and animate, and costs a lot of money to render realistically. The author talks about how volumetric textures work well in these kinds of scenes. These basic shapes can make modelling and animation much easier. More importantly, they can be rendered quickly and with little aliasing by using ray tracing. Kajiya and Kay (1989) came up with the main idea, which is to represent a pattern of 3D geometry in a reference volume that is tiled over a surface like a regular 2D texture. In our contribution, the mapping is independent of the mesh subdivision, the pattern can be any shape, and it is prefiltered at different scales, just like MIP-mapping. Even though the model is encoded in a volumetric way, the way it is drawn is very different from how volume rendering is usually done. A volumetric texture can only be found near a surface, and the repeated parts of the reference volume, which are called texels, are distorted in space. Also, each voxel in the reference volume has a key feature that controls the reflectance function that shows the overall geometry of the voxels. This lets a single ray per pixel be used to trace very complicated scenes with very few aliasing artefacts (for the part of the scene using the volumetric texture representation). The most important technical parts of our method are figuring out the ray path and figuring out the reflectance function. （Neyret, 1998)
Neyret, F., 1998. Modeling, animating, and rendering complex scenes using volumetric textures. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 4(1), pp.55-70.
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It allows texture elements to be placed on a surface in a way that is not limited by the mesh subdivision, just like regular 2D textures.
References:
Lake, A., Marshall, C., Harris, M. and Blackstein, M., 2000, June. Stylized rendering techniques for scalable real-time 3d animation. In Proceedings of the 1st international symposium on Non-photorealistic animation and rendering (pp. 13-20).
McDonnell, R., Breidt, M. and Bülthoff, H.H., 2012. Render me real? Investigating the effect of render style on the perception of animated virtual humans. ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 31(4), pp.1-11.
Rosenblum, R.E., Carlson, W.E. and Tripp III, E., 1991. Simulating the structure and dynamics of human hair: modelling, rendering and animation. The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation, 2(4), pp.141-148.
Strothotte, T. and Schlechtweg, S., 2002. Non-photorealistic computer graphics: modeling, rendering, and animation. Morgan Kaufmann.
This week, I looked up more relevant literature on rendering, and distilled the information that was useful to me in different kinds of literature, and recorded and saved it.
Idea01: GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and CPU (Central Processing Unit) are two types of computer hardware that are commonly used for rendering.
CPU rendering is when the computer’s CPU is used to do calculations for rendering. This method is usually slower than rendering with a GPU, but it can be more flexible because CPUs are made to handle a wide range of tasks. CPUs are usually used for rendering applications that need a high level of accuracy and precision, like scientific simulations and photorealistic rendering. In GPU rendering, on the other hand, calculations for rendering are done by using the computer’s GPU. GPUs are made for rendering and can handle a lot of data at the same time. This makes them perfect for real-time rendering applications like video games and virtual reality. GPUs are also often used for architectural visualisations and product design, which are two other types of rendering.
Both GPU rendering and CPU rendering have their pros and cons, and which one to use will depend on what the application needs. Many modern rendering programmes can do both CPU rendering and GPU rendering, so users can choose the method that works best for them.
References from : https://academyofanimatedart.com/cpu-vs-gpu-renderer-which-is-better/
This week, I decided on the title of my thesis, ‘ what is the significance of rendering in the animation, video game and film industries? (The significance of various rendering techniques and rendering styles in the film of animation, film, and game). After deciding on a title for my dissertation, my primary responsibility was to locate relevant articles, books, and academic papers.
Rendering is the process of utilising computer software to generate an image or animation from a 2D or 3D model. In computer graphics, various types of rendering techniques are routinely employed, including:Rasterization is a quick and effective rendering process that includes projecting 3D objects onto a 2D plane to transform them into 2D images. Rasterization is a technique that is frequently employed in real-time applications such as video games and interactive simulations.
Ray tracing is a rendering approach that replicates how light interacts with items in a scene by tracing the course of individual light rays as they bounce off surfaces and interact with other things in the image. Ray tracing may produce incredibly realistic visuals, but it is computationally expensive.
Global illumination: This approach simulates the way that light bounces around a scene to provide indirect lighting effects like as reflections and ambient occlusion. To create highly realistic visuals, global illumination can be used with other rendering techniques such as rasterization and ray tracing.
Radiosity is a technique used to create diffuse lighting effects by simulating how light bounces off surfaces in a scene. Radiosity can be utilised to provide soft and nuanced lighting effects that would be difficult to achieve with other rendering approaches.
Volume rendering: This approach is used to render volumetric data, such as medical pictures or fluid dynamics simulations. It entails projecting light beams through a volume of data and calculating how the light rays interact with the data to form an image.
Photorealistic rendering is a rendering approach that seeks to create visuals that are indistinguishable from actual photographs. Photorealistic rendering often entails the use of several rendering techniques, including ray tracing and global illumination, as well as advanced texturing and shading techniques.
Also, I have concerns about two categories: 3D Real-Time and 3D Post-Process Rendering.. These are the two ways of renderers, which are used very frequently in games, and movies. Real-time rendering is the main rendering method of almost every large AA game, in order to enhance the effect of the graphics, more efficient and fast to improve the player’s experience.
The process of creating graphics or animations in real-time, generally at interactive frame rates of 30 frames per second or more, is referred to as real-time rendering. Applications like video games, augmented and virtual reality, simulations, and architectural representations frequently use real-time rendering.
Rreferences
Song, M. and Grogono, P., 2009, May. Application of advanced rendering and animation techniques for 3D games to softbody modeling and animation. In Proceedings of the 2nd Canadian Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (pp. 89-100).
Goswami, P., 2021. A survey of modeling, rendering and animation of clouds in computer graphics. The Visual Computer, 37(7), pp.1931-1948.
Often, short films, particularly animated ones, sit between film and other media disciplines. It’s Such a Lovely Day is peculiar since it is neither a standalone film nor a series of episodes. It is a feature-length adaptation of a trio of short films.
While the title frames appear 30 to 60 seconds into each short, it is difficult to determine where one short finish and the next starts when seeing the feature film, as the shorts create a single narrative. Yet, each component has its own attributes.
The film’s clear main theme is that every day of life is lovely. And this dying enables us to enjoy life. Bill was apparently reared by a single mother. His family was plagued by dementia and other ailments. Many members of his family have perished due to a variety of illnesses and/or suicide. Bill was eventually diagnosed with a dangerous condition comparable to a tumor. When he had his first attack, he was brought to the hospital, where the physicians were baffled by what was occurring. William recovered and was released from the hospital. Bill, like most of us, feared death. He even spent hours contemplating it. Fear of death was so intense for Bill that he barely survived. Despite this, he began to progressively feel better and more positive about the future.
On graduation which area or environment of production do you wish to focus upon and why?
The primary goal of my four years of university education to continue working in the animation and game industries after graduation. I will focus on character or creature riggings, such as how to construct the skeleton and muscular systems for the creature character, as well as the distribution of weights. I am passionate about giving life to a character, and rigging is the foundation for doing so. This is the aspect of my animation experience that I found most interesting during my university years. A good rig gives the animator more room to manoeuvre and creates increasingly engaging movement effects.
What skills will you need to attain the standards required for vocational practice?
I must be proficient with film and animation software, such as Maya, as well as the number and location of the skeletons of various creatures and the fundamental movement patterns of characters or animations. I must also be familiar with a few simple codes and expressions in order to create additional animation effects that will facilitate the animator’s work.
How will you showcase your FMP practice for the final shows?
My final FMP project will most likely be a three-minute-long, cartoon-style animated short film.
Is it important to directly connect the thesis research to your practical work?
Yes, it’s important. My current thinking is that my thesis will investigate the field of animation rendering, including real-time rendering, offline rendering, GPU rendering, and CPU rendering. Rendering plays a significant role in my FMP animated short, so I believe it is crucial. I must choose a renderer and rendering method that will significantly reduce my working time and improve the quality of my work.
Do you have an area of research you wish to conduct that is unrelated to practical element?
Currently, rendering and animation are the areas I wish to investigate. I will seek out additional data and resources to determine what I want to do.
