Programming

Beginning... 3D Graphics

Computer graphics has moved on drammatically over the last three years for the home computer with the tools for producing good quality results available from free to many thousands of pounds. However it doesn't need a Kings ransom to start creating your own. 3D Graphics are essentially split into two camps. Rendered and Real Time.

Rendered

The goal of rendered graphics is to produce an image which is as near to reality as possible. Probably the most known use of rendered graphics in computer games is with Myst and Riven from Cyan Inc. The computer programs that generate these pictures are called Ray Tracers.

Within the Ray Tracing program you create a scene. This scene is made up of many objects. The fundamental part of an object is the triangle. The triangle is used as it is very easy to tesselate. Virtually all computer generated objects you will ever see started from a triangle.

The more triangles added to an object the more detailed it becomes. See below as the sphere has more triangles added to it.

All complicated models are made up from basic objects such as cones, spheres, planes etc. For instance here is a basic tree made up of a cone and a rod

Now the tree has been made it can be added to the scene, and duplicating it can create a whole forest.

Real-Time

Real-Time graphics concentrate on speed. Until recently all home PCs had use their Central Processor Units (CPU) to calculate the scene. Now plug in cards are available to take all the hard calculating work off the CPU's and because most of the calculations have already been worked and out and stored on the card the scenes are drawn a lot quicker. These graphics are used within VRML browsers

Resources

There are two places to get hold of good quality programs. The first is the Internet and the second is the front of computer magazines.

Ray Tracers

POV-Ray

POV-Ray is a freeware ray tracer which allows you to make scenes by describing the objects in a text file and then rendering them. It can be difficult to visualise how the scene will turn out but there are add-ons to give you a graphics scene maker.

TrueSpace by Caligari

TrueSpace is a different type of renderer. Instead of the usual four window setup of top, front, side etc, it presents you with a space viewed from 45 degrees there the scene is created. It IS different but is interesting to work in. Check out Caligari's web page for information plus a gallery of artwork.

Extreme 3D 2 by Macromedia

Softimage|3D by SoftImage

LightWave by NewTek

Renderman by Pixar

Real 3D by RealSoft

RayDream 3D by MetaCreations

Bryce 3D by MetaCreations

Poser 3 by MetaCreations

Infini-D 4.5 by MetaCreations

3D Studio MAX

3D Studio Max is the king of all the ray tracers. It is the ray tracer of choice by a large majority of the games development software houses. It has more features that you can shake a stick at and is the benchmark by which other products are judged. According to the Kinetix Website it was even used in the production of Lost in Space!

3D Programming

Silicon Graphics Open GL

Java GL

Java 3D Alpha 3

Cosmo Software VRML Developer Tools

3DFX Developers Area / Glide

Microsoft DirectX Multimedia Expo