To help you make better 3D renderings, this book fuses information from several fields. In these pages, you will find concepts and techniques from professional cinematography, design principles from traditional visual arts, practical advice based on professional graphics production experience, and plain-English explanations of the science behind the scenes.

Cinematography

When you want to make the most of the camera and lights in your 3D scene, it helps to study techniques developed and used by professional cinematographers shooting live-action film. This book gleans many concepts and techniques from cinematography, to help you answer questions like these:

How do you reproduce the recognizable qualities and color temperatures of natural light sources? (See Chapters 5, "Qualities of Light" and Chapter 6, "Color.")

How can you apply principles and techniques developed by Hollywood lighting designers to your 3D scenes? (See Chapter 3, "Three-Point Lighting.")

How do you simulate the exposure process of a real camera, and the natural side-effects of a cinematographer's exposure controls? (See Chapter 7, "Exposure.")

Artists working in a new medium need to learn from older media, but also to grow and develop on their own. While learning from cinematography is important, it would be a mistake to assume that 3D rendering was merely a computerization of the same artform. This book explains many situations when imitating the same lighting set-ups used in live-action would not yield the same results, and covers many techniques that are not possible in live-action cinematography.

It took decades after the invention of motion pictures before filmmakers developed the cinematic conventions that we now take for granted in well-filmed movies. As film production matured, cinematographers actually began relying to a greater extent on principals that had existed for centuries in painting and illustration; early films had suffered because many of the first camera operators were technicians unschooled in other visual arts.

Computer graphics, like early motion pictures, are still frequently created by technicians instead of artists, and the difference is visible. Being an expert user of a 3D program, by itself, does not make the user into an artist, any more than learning to run a word processor would make someone into a good writer. Just as a writer needs to know what to say, a 3D artist needs to know how to compose an image, and which lighting and shading are needed in a shot. Fortunately, the infant artform of computer graphics has vast pools of knowledge to draw from in cinematography and in the classical visual arts.

Classical Visual Arts

The classical visual arts, especially painting and illustration, are the source of most rules, conventions, and expectations with regard to creating and composing images. You can help your work by taking advantage of established esthetic guidelines and 2D design principles, to answer questions like these:

What kind of composition and perspective will create the most appealing rendering, best guide the viewers eye, and complement your 3D scene? (See Chapter 8, "Composition and Staging.")

What visual functions do you want your shadows to serve in your composition? (See Chapter 4, "Shadows.")

What kind of color scheme will be used in the scene, and how will your color choices be interpreted by your audience? (See Chapter 6, "Color.")

Several chapters in this book focus on visual arts topics as a source of esthetic principles to help plan, improve, and complete your work.

Science

Understanding relevant aspects of optics, physics, computer science, and human perception can improve your work in 3D graphics. It pays to know what's going on behind the scenes, so that you can answer questions such as:

What optical and physical principles are being simulated by your software, and which aren't being simulated correctly? (See Chapter 9, "Materials and Rendering Algorithms.")

How will people perceive your images, and how do you influence a viewer's perception? (See Chapter 6, "Color," and Chapter 8, "Composition and Staging.")

An artist should never be afraid to get his hands dirty with his work; just as a sculptor gets to know every facet of his stone, a 3D artist needs to know his renderer. This book is written for end-users of 3D software, not for programmers, but nonetheless strives to cover in plain English many of the calculations and algorithms being used behind the scenes by your 3D rendering software. One of the keys to taking control over your medium is to understand how it works[md]and to learn it well enough to break its rules.

Production Techniques

In the real world of professional graphics production, you need to get your work done quickly and efficiently, and you need to work with your clients, bosses, and co-workers. Throughout the book is information drawn from professional graphics production experience, to help answer questions such as the following:

How do you work efficiently with a client to create 3D renderings that you are both happy with? (See Chapter 2, "Lighting Workflow.")

How do you use multi-layer and multi-pass rendering to deliver the most versatile elements to a compositor? (See Chapter 10, "Compositing.")

What tricks do you need to develop the most realistic texture mapping based on real-world surfaces? (See Chapter 9, "Materials and Rendering Algorithms.")

What techniques are most effective for integrating your 3D renderings with a real scene, and how do you prepare on location for the lighting match? (See Chapter 10, "Compositing.")

The professional production information in this book is written to be useful to other professionals, students, and hobbyists alike.

Who Should Read This Book

You should read this book when you have at least a working knowledge of how to use a 3D rendering package, and you are interested in taking your 3D rendering further.

For professional users of 3D rendering software, including 3D artists, animators, and technical directors, this book is designed to help with real-world production challenges, and to contribute to the on-going growth of your work.

For intermediate to advanced students of computer graphics, this book will help you develop more professional production skills.

For dedicated 3D hobbyists, this book can help you improve the artistic quality of your 3D renderings and learn more about professional approaches to graphics production.

This book is written to be clear, but not condescending. Every effort has been made to define terms the first time they are used, and to illustrate every concept and technique with figures and sample renderings. However, this is not an introduction to 3D graphics. This book is designed to complement, rather than to replace, your software's manuals and help files.

Software Requirements

[Digital] Lighting and Rendering is not limited to one specific brand of software. This book covers art, techniques, and concepts that will be applicable to your 3D rendering work, no matter which brand of 3D rendering software you choose.

3D Rendering Software

No single program is going to support every feature, function, and rendering algorithm described in this book. Hopefully you won’t mind learning about a few functions that aren't in your particular software yet. While different programs have different features, the similarities in how you create a well-lit rendering outweigh the differences, making the content of this book applicable to multiple 3D rendering packages.

You've probably heard the saying "it's not what you've got, it's how you use it." If you do a professional job of texturing, lighting, and composing a 3D rendering as described in this book, nobody will know or care if you are using a lower-cost software package. On the other hand, if you don't work on your lighting, if you never think about color schemes, if you leave your shadows and composition to chance, then the most expensive software in the world won't help you make a decent rendering. Naturally, to have the best of both worlds, to be a skilled user running powerful professional tools, is an ideal most people look forward to.

The techniques, concepts, and layouts detailed in this book are applicable in any 3D rendering package. Coverage of specific features and terminology has been carefully edited to work with multiple programs and platforms. Most sections show several alternate approaches or work-arounds to achieve any effect that is described. With an awareness of the art and computer graphics principles that go into a rendering, and a little bit of "creative problem solving," you can accomplish great work in almost any rendering package.

2D Software

Besides 3D rendering software, you will also need 2D paint, image-processing, or compositing software to complete many types of texture mapping, histogram analysis, and compositing processes described in this book.

Any good 3D system should be complemented with 2D software capable of at least basic creation and manipulation of texture maps. Ideally, a program with a histogram display, support for a full range of image-processing filters, and still or motion compositing capabilities, will round-out your system.

Reading this book may teach you some things about your software, and about other software used in the industry. But software is not the subject of this book. This book is about what you can create.

Creative Control

You probably learned this lesson in dining at seafood restaurants: If it smells like fish, it is not good fish.

A similar principle applies in computer graphics: If it looks like computer graphics, it is not good computer graphics.

When an image is well lit and well rendered, the technology behind the image does not call attention to itself. Viewers will only notice a compelling image, a realistic scene, or an innovative new visual style. When viewing a great rendering, the fact that a computer was used in creating the image will not be the first thing that strikes a viewer's mind.

When you, the artist, are truly in control of your 3D rendering, then it is your hand that the viewer will see in your work, rather than the impression that a computer has made the picture.

The goal of this book is to help you take control over the lighting and rendering process, so that every aspect of your rendering is the result of your own deliberate and well-informed decisions. Every chapter will deal with an issue or aspect of lighting and rendering a 3D scene, and discuss how it works, and how you can make it work better.

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Read more about the book, with sample pages and reviews, at Amazon.com (USA), Amazon.ca, or Amazon.co.uk.

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[Digital] Lighting & Rendering, by Jeremy Birn, Copyright © 2000. Introduction on 3dRender.com by exclusive permission of Publisher.