1. An Introduction to 3D Art
Chakrit Watcharopas
Reference:
The Essential Blender: The Official Guide to 3D Creation with the Blender Open Source Suite  
Author Roland Hess Publisher No Starch Press Publication Date 

2. An Introduction to 3D Art
This chapter gives an analogy for 3D art
It would give you inspirations some day
It shows general examples of what can be done

3. Taking Pictures of Tiny Little Houses
3D Art is more than building a model and taking a picture of it
Did you ever build a little setup with toy houses, put miniature figures in it?
Did you take a picture of it, close enough to the ground to try to make it look like the town was real?

4. A street scene created with miniatures and raw materials

5. 3D Art more than building a model and taking a picture of it
You would spend many hours trying to make the whole thing as realistic as possible
The essence of 3D art would start by creating and taking pictures of models
There are still more deeper topics in 3D Art

6. Raw Materials
What would you need, to build a miniature of a downtown street?
boxes, for the buildings
knife or scissors, to cut windows and doors
marker, to draw them on
colored paper and cardboard, to make things like the road, the sidewalks and curbs, the trash bins and benches
etc.

7. Computer Generated 3D Art
After miniature was built, you could use a digital camera to frame up the picture
You could move the camera to get shots from different angles
You could have some action figures taped to sticks running around the place while being recorded with a digital video camera
Working in computer generated 3D art is almost exactly like the explanation above
So, you build a model, you paint it, you arrange your models, and start snapping pictures

8. Building Models
3D art is commonly referred to as CG - Computer Graphics, CGI - CG Imaging, or simply 3D
In 3D art, almost all models are built from triangles
These are triangles

9. Building Models (2)
Some modeling tools let you work with quadrangles, etc., but in the end, it's all triangles
These are quadrangles

10. Building Models (3)
Computers are really good at calculating and drawing triangles
There are tools that allow you to work with triangles
From triangles, you can build a quadrangle
With triangles and quadrangles, you can build anything, e.g.,
a box,
a monkey
or something beautiful, etc.

11. A simple 3D model, showing its triangle construction on the right
Building Models (4)
A simple 3D model, showing its triangle construction on the right

12. A monkey head (Suzanne, Blender's mascot), showing triangles
Building Models (5)
A monkey head (Suzanne, Blender's mascot), showing triangles

13. Detail of "Miracle" by Robert J. Tiess
Building Models (6)
Detail of "Miracle" by Robert J. Tiess

14. Building Models (7)
Modeling tools let you move triangle corners, edges or the whole thing at once
They let you duplicate them, smooth the angles between them, split them apart and weld them together
They let you push them around like clay, order them in rows or rotate them in space around an arbitrary axis

15. Modeling Tools
In Blender, you have access to a number of different basic models to help get you started
Some of the available primitive shapes
The primitive shapes accessible through the toolbox

16. Modeling Tools (2)
You can use the other tools to grow, shape and refine your model
Available Tool : the Extrude tool

17. Modeling Tools (3) You can make each arm grow in the middle
Available Tool: the Loop Cut tool

18. Modeling Tools (4) You might think the edges are too sharp
Available Tools: a combination of the bevel tool and the smooth tool

19. Materials
In Computer Graphics, you can get your materials in many ways
You must tell the computer about properties you want your material to have
Should it be shiny or dull?
Rough or smooth?
How should it react to light hitting it from different angles?
All of these questions are answered by using different Shaders

20. Materials (2)
In Blender, you can choose from a variety of shading models, each suited to slightly different tasks
Lambert

21. Materials (3) Oren-Nayer shading is good for rough surfaces
More 'physical‘ to the diffusion phenomena,
taking it into account the amount of microscopic roughness of the surface

22. Materials (4) Comparison between Lambertian Model and Oren-Nayar Model
Images from

23. Materials (5) Minnaert shading is good for velvets and cloths
working by darkening parts of the standard Lambertian shader
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24. Materials (6) Toon shading simulates cartoon-style coloring
'un-physical' shader, not meant to fake reality but to produce cartoon cel styled rendering

25. Materials (7) If you want to get more complex, e.g.,
to make your material look like bricks, you need to add Textures

26. Materials (8) There are a few more things to worry about,
how to orient the texture on the model, so things look right

27. Lighting Good lighting makes a model set come to life;
great lighting can make the most simply built and textured model look like a real physical object

28. Lighting (2) Blender gives you many options for lighting
your models, allowing you to create setups that mimic natural conditions

29. Animation In CG, there are basically three ways to create motion
First is to tell certain objects where to be, and at what time
Essentially, you say:
"Car, I would like you be at this side of the street when I start rolling the camera, and over at the other end of the street three seconds later. Can you handle that?"
The second division, Character Animation, is really just keyframe animation - the same basic procedure of telling "where" and "when", but it requires a different set of skills

30. Animation (2)
Some people might think that character animation is the same as clay and model based stop-motion animation. Not so.
Character animation is a combination of technical skill, imagination, acting ability and puppetry
Certain high-profile animation studio's in- house character package is called "Marionette",
a well set up system of controls for character animation will react more like a complex puppet

31. Animation (3)
In Blender, the structure that controls character animation is called an Armature
Armatures can resemble skeletons

32. Animation (4)
The clever armature and controls move the model of a person, causing it to change shape as it does so

33. Animation (5)
This change in shape is called Deformation

34. Animation (6)
The third method of animation is called Simulation or Procedural Animation,
just different ways to say "the computer figures it out for you."

35. Animation (7)
All natural processes, like a block wall collapsing on itself or the motion of poured water splashing into a glass,
are governed by the laws of physics