3D Models and the Industries That Use Them

The development of the modern day computer has spurred along almost all aspects of our lives including the now all powerful entity that is the entertainment industry. The creation of digital content has radically altered the media that we consume and the processes that go into making it. If it weren't for the dawn of computer technology then, of course, video games would not exist. Furthermore, the digital age has dramatically affected movies and television and the use of CGI has (for most people) improved the experience. The content for such visual experiences is often done by creating 3D models. The technical aspects of those models, however, differs drastically when compared between different forms of media.

A multitude of factors affect the final result of a 3D model. Time, budget, rendering speed and target audience all affect it.

Rendering Speed

First and foremost is how the model is going to rendered; usually this means pre-rendered or real-time. Unsurprisingly, these terms describe what they actually mean. Real-time rendering involves rendering frames at a fast enough rate that the motion is still fluid and can also be interacted with at any point. Pre-rendering involves a very powerful computer (sometimes called render farms), rendering out each frame, one at a time and can take as much time as there is available, depending on the quality desired. Of course, the number of polygons for something that will be pre-rendered can be much higher than the number used to make something that is being rendered in real time. This comes at a sacrifice of quality but abstraction of detail techniques such as Normal mapping (which is sometimes used in films, but not regularly) can help even the disparity.

Here is an example of a high poly and low poly mesh. As you can see, the fewer polygons means the surface of the model is more faceted compared to the smoothness of the high poly version.

Video Games

If this were to be used in a video game, the high poly version would be "baked" into a Normal map and sometimes an Ambient Occlusion map which means converting all the high frequency detail into 2D textures which are then applied to the low poly model. The Normal map then works within the engine and helps define how the light reacts against the surfaces and gives the appearance of much more detail without the use of more polygons.

Movies

In a movie, the high poly model would be used with a Displacement map (for greater low frequency details) directly, with a different LOD (level of detail) model for the animators to actually use before rendering time. Of course, because of the greater number of polygons each frame can't be rendered within a 30th of a second. In fact, for the Transformers movie it took 38 hours to render just one frame of movement. In some extreme cases this can balloon to ridiculous degrees: in Transformers 3, during a scene in which a skyscraper is destroyed by a robot, took 288 hours per frame!

Overview

As can be seen, the difference the time available to render something dramatically changes what is and is not possible for the quality of the final model. Smaller productions such as advertising and TV series follow similar guidelines to movies but only allow for much shorter render times meaning the geometry still can't be as high fidelity as used in big blockbuster films but also isn't constrained to real-time rendering like games are.

Budget & Time

The budget of a production frequently influences how much time it has before release. As such, these are both related and affect the same parameters in regards to the final model. 

Video Games & Movies

The budgets of modern video games and movies tend to both be in the tens of millions range. The time per model however will be drastically different and means that 3D models used in movies can have more details in comparison.

Children's TV Series

A TV program for children would have a much smaller budget and a greater time constraint than in video games or movies, requiring work to be done for weekly episodes. This greatly affects the final look of the product; typically they are simpler designs as shown here by The Octonauts. The simpler aesthetic enables the models to be less labor intensive and as such, cheaper and quicker to make.

Overview

Budgets typically affect the number of models as well as influencing their design. Larger amounts of money means more time and therefore more complicated and higher fidelity designs. Movies will usually have the biggest budgets and so their models can be complicated and high fidelity. Video games have similar but slightly smaller budgets and so their models are slightly less complicated and much lower fidelity and finally, TV series tend to have less time than either movies or games and so have less complicated models.

Target Audience

Whenever a commercial entertainment first enters pre-production, one of the foremost decisions companies need to make is what the desired demographic their product is aiming to sell to will be. These groups can be created by a combination of gender, age, socio-economic status amongst other things.

For Young Audiences

Young children's games, movies and TV programs (as well advertising aimed at them) will use much simpler models, with rounder edges and smoother forms. This, combined with other factors will decide the final model.

Overveiw

The final quality and fidelity of an asset for any part of a project is wholly dependant on the intention and constraints that the project itself is under. More money, time and rendering power allow for greater scenes of complexity - providing it's appropriate for the intended audience.

Contextual Influences

Dwarf fortress, initally released in 2006 and in a constant state of development, is a game for PC created by two brothers, Tarn and Zach Adams. Describing the gameplays systems would be too complicated and since it's really irrelevant to the contextual influences on it's art I shall leave the reader to learn more about the game itself.

The beautiful ASCII in action

The game world is three dimensional but is displayed to the player in a 2d topdown veiw. For the graphics, the game use a slightly modified code page 437 characters in 16 different colors. This is often referred to as "ASCII" art, since it uses characters rather than images to convey information. This style of visual representation traces back many years back to games which ran on computers that couldn't display images. All of these games are influences to some extent but perhaps the one that could be considered most influential is Rogue.

Rogue, the original Roguelike

In fact, in the "Adventure Mode" portion of the game (which could be described as an open world roguelike) the character is represented by an "@" symbol; just like the aforementioned Rogue. Also, as seen in the screenshots above, both games use full stops to denote the ground, although Dwarf Fortress as taken this and, in an attempt to create a more visually pleasing aesthetic, has used a mix of full stops and commas, an example of a tiny but noticeable evolution in this graphic style.

Bob Rafei - Video Game Artist

Looking into specific artists or visual designers is not something I usually spend a lot of time doing. I enjoy analyzing and appreciating visual stimuli, especially for video games since I am looking at them quite often and because of the wide variety of art styles that can and have been used. Regarding the specific artists behind those styles however, seems unimportant; why does it matter who did it when I can spend time reviewing the final product? Nevertheless, there are a some artists that I do recognize based on the virtue of their work and one of these is Bob Rafei.

Bob Rafei was the first employee of Naughty Dog, a video games company founded in 1984 as Jam Software. He joined in 1995 and worked on Crash Bandicoot, helping to establish the visual style of the entire series. Bob was involved in many areas of development including background modelling, lighting and texturing to character rigging and animation. After Crash Bandicoot he worked on what has now become one of my favorite games of all time, Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.

The design of the main character as he matures through the series.

A colourful and vibrant 3d platformer in the early days of the PS2 era, Jak & Daxter is amazing, a technological marvel as well as an artistic delight. Even now, twelve years after release, the game looks gorgeous. It's combination of bright, highly saturated colors as well as stylized human-ish characters creates a veritable visual treat.

A screenshot of the HD version of the game.

Now, of course, a lot of different artists go into making an entire 3d scene or level so the praise may not be entirely his. A look at his concept work gives greater insight to his personal art and may be easier to explain my love of his work.

His website, http://www.bobrafei.com/, contains a wide selection of his art from many of the games he has worked on. A lot of the art are just concept design sketches and so don't really lend themselves to analysis of artistic merit but nevertheless, I shall attempt to do so.

A selection of poses from one of the main characters

This here is Keira. An ally non-player character from the game, she is very physical and expressive in her gesticulations, which lend to creating a sense of her character. I like the way Bob draws the poses using what are essentially overtly dramatic silhouettes which install a sense of movement and animation to the images. Some examples of this exageration of the pose is the third at the top, her legs crossed impossibly far and waist bent to an extreme, yet it doesn't look unnatural, it merely conveys a very specific emotion. Also, whilst a very common design choice, I still feel as though the addition of large eyes really does enhance the amount of emotion the character can display.

Another work of his that I enjoy is this environment that the game begins in:

The Green Sage's hut

This piece includes color and demonstrates a great use of bright, saturated colors that radiate a certain mood, namely one of safety. It also is great at showing the player the kind of world they are playing in. There is little technology and the bits that exist border on magic. It is warm, as evidenced by the trees in the back and the bright sky, as well as warm palette, and although not overly comfortable, it is a place of relaxation and contentment.

Overall I think Rafei did an amazing job on Jak & Daxter. His art direction of bright colors and clear preference of aesthetic over graphic fidelity allows the game to remain a great looking game. his individual artworks, although perhaps perfect on a technical, fundamental level, have plenty of character and zest and makes a believable and enjoyable world.