Datasheet

You should not create incredibly detailed environments if they are not featured in a shot,
especially environments that use a lot of geometry. The greater the amount of geometry,
the slower your computer will run and the longer rendering will take. You can create a
good deal of the environment using clever textures on simple geometry. Detailed maps on
bare surfaces are used frequently for game environments. The rule of thumb for all kinds
of CG is “use whatever works.”
Props Modeling
Props modeling covers almost everything else needed in the scene. In theater and film terms,
a prop is an object used by a character in the action; anything relegated to the scenery or
background is a scenic. For example, a prop can be a purse a character is carrying, a leash
on an animated dog, or a car a character is driving. If the car or purse were just sitting in
the background, it would be considered a scenic.
Texturing
Once the models are complete, it’s a good idea to begin texturing and shading, the process
of applying colors and textures to an object to make it renderable. When you create an
object in Maya, for example, a simple gray shader is automatically assigned to it that will
let you see the object when you light and render the scene.
Because the textures may look different after animating and lighting the scene, it’s wise
to leave the final adjustments for later. Just as a painter will pencil in a sketch before adding
details, you don’t need to make all the shading adjustments right away since you can
return to any part of your scene in Maya and adjust it to fine-tune the picture.
You’ll learn more about texturing in Chapter 7.
Animation
Although modeling can take the biggest part of a CG artist’s time, you can really make or
break your scene with its animation.
We all have an innate sense of how things move. Culled from years of perception and
observation, we understand how physics applies to things and how people and animals
move around. Because of this, viewers tend to be much more critical of CG’s motion than
of anything else. Put bluntly, you know when something doesn’t look right, and so will
people watching your animation.
Since your computer stores everything in the scene as vector math, the term geometry refers
to all the surfaces and models in a scene.
10 chapter 1: Introduction to Computer Graphics and 3D
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