WEEK 2: 3D PRODUCTION PIPELINE

3D PRODUCTION PIPELINE

MDU115 Research and Development Blog

There are many different aspects and stages in a 3D production pipeline. All are important steps in creating an appealing, believable, 3D product. In this blog I will go through the different steps in this process and what they involve. 


UV Mapping, Textures and Shaders
The next step in a typical 3D production pipeline is 'colouring' your model. This is done using UV mapping, texturing and shaders. By unwrapping your model and turning it into a flat 2D image, colouring that image and attaching the painted image onto a shader you can add colour and much more to your 3D model.

UV mapping is the process of flattening out a 3D model to represent it in a 2D image. This process can be done automatically or manually. Most of the time it is done manually. Which can be a tedious task but needs to be done correctly as the UV map needs to fit into a particular size and format to properly be applied. Once you have your UV map you can export it out to a painting program and start making your texture.

http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~gl/teaching/Interactive3D/2012/lecture9.html

Once you have exported the UV map to your painting program of choice you can start texturing. Textures are basically the skin of your model. You can paint it from scratch or use photos to create the texture. After the texture has been created you can attach it to a shader.

A shader is how you apply your texture to your model. You attach a shader onto your model and the attach the texture onto the shader. The shader calculates how to show and process the image.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/07/ptex-3d-texturing-becomes-a-reality-at-siggraph/

Rigging and Animation

Once the textures have being completed you can start to rig your model for animation. In bigger productions texturing and rigging are usually done by separate people. If that is the case the rigging can be setup well the textures are still being completed. Rigging involves binding bones and joints to a 3D mesh and attaching handles so they can be easily manipulated to move your model in a desired way. 

http://en.9jcg.com/comm_pages/blog_content-art-16.htm

Next up in the process is animation. As stated before handles are attached to the rigging so you can move the model. By using keyframes to capture certain poses the software will automatically fill in the rest. For example if I were to animate an arm swinging from left to right I would position the arm on one side. I would then attach it to a keyframe. Next I would more up the time line a few frames and adjust the arm to the other side and attach that to a key frame. The program will then make the calculations necessary to fill in the actions inbetween. 

http://austinvisuals.com/how-2d-and-3d-animation-is-made-at-austin-visuals-animation-studio/

Written by Blake Head