Born in 1938, Ivan Sutherland is considered to be the creator of computer graphics. He introduced concepts such as 3D computer modelling, visual simulations, computer aided design and virtual reality.  His father being a PH.D in civil engineering and his mother being a teacher Ivan had been brought up to appreciate learning. In high school he enjoyed geometry and solving problems, a couple of his famous quotes include: 

“I just need to figure out how things work.”

“It’s very satisfying to take a problem we thought difficult and find a simple solution. The best solutions are always simple.”

 Sutherland’s computer experience began with a computer called Simon. Simon was a relay based computer with a mere 12 bits of memory. The 12 bits of memory allowed Simon to add up to 15. During high school Ivan wrote a big computer programme which enabled Simon to divide. Using 8 pages of paper-tape scripting, the programme was one of the longest programmes ever written and made Sutherland one of few high school students to ever write a computer programme in that era.  After high school he went on to study a B.S and an M.S at the Carnegie Mellon University and California Institute of Technology. After this he went onto study a PH.D at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his time there Ivan began working with the TX-2 computer. In the early 60’s the TX2 computer was known for its role in advancing both artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. The TX-2 was a transistor-based computer and used what was then – a huge amount of 64K 36-bit words of core memory. The TX-2 computer was an “on-line” computer used to investigate the use of “Surface Barrier transistors for digital circuits.”  It included a nine inch CRT monitor and a lightpen which first gave Sutherland his idea 

A circuit module from the TX2

Sutherland imagined that “one should be able to draw on the computer” and as a result – In the early 60’s developed the first Graphical User Interface – “Sketchpad: A Man-machine Graphical Communications System.” Using the light pen equipped TX-2 computer – sketchpad could create highly precise drawings.  It also introduced important innovations such as memory structures to store objects and the ability to zoom in and out on a computer.  

Here is a photograph of Ivan working with the TX-2

Here is some of the first known video footage of the Sketchpad programme. This was filmed in 1962! He has drawn the outline of an object and draws a hole through the object using guide lines and dashes. He then creates a drawing of a rivet and positions it in the hole he has created:

After graduating and creating this amazing computer programme Ivan enlisted in the army as an electrical engineer at the National Security Agency (NSA)  Shortly after this, Sutherland was transferred to the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) Here he was commissioned to research projects in important new computing concepts such as artificial intelligence.  

After this he continued as a professor at Harvard University. Two years later, he became a Professor at the University of Utah – helping to build the school’s reputation as the Mecca for computer graphics. By the mid 70’s Ivan was the head of the Computer Science department at Caltech. There he helped make integrated circuited design a subject in academia. Before then, circuit design was considered too difficult to study.  By introducing circuit design, Sutherland helped pave the way for advances in chip design.

In his time Dr Ivan Sutherland has written 49 publications and holds 12 patents including important window functions such as Display Windowing by Clipping and Computer Graphics Clipping for Polygons. Ivan has also received many awards for his contributions toward computer science.

• Computerworld Smithsonian Award, 1996
• AM Turing Award, Association for Computing Machinery, 1988
• First Zworykin Award, National Academy of Engineering, 1972
• Member, National Academy of Sciences, since 1978
• Member, National Academy of Engineering, since 1973
• Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
•  Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery

1984 –  

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3D CGI isn’t just used for unrealistic animated films such as ‘toy story’ and ‘finding nemo’. It is used a lot in modern film to create realistic looking environments and special effects. These are just some of the things involved in making a computer generated 3D environment for a film such as The day after Tomorrow:

A New York City data base was obtained from a company called ‘urban data solutions’ who are part of a bigger company called ‘earth data’

http://www.u-data.com/http://www.earthdata.com/servicescat.php?cat=1

Earth Data work from a huge fleet of aircraft, collecting aerial photography and using imaging radar technology to produce high quality, accurate 3D terrain models of the earth surface. They also use thermal and multispectral data collection for 3D city modelling for use in planning, zoning, asset management and engineering. The company employs over 300 people with contacts all over the world, including asia and the far east so they can produce 3D mapping of virtually anywhere. They can offer 3D city models like this:

Once they have one of these accurate 3D city models, they get accurate details of all the buildings measurements in New York using a powerful LIDAR VFX scanner with a 3 mile radius. The laser is mounted in an aircraft and by deflecting the laser beam (using a mirror), from left to right, a range of points can be measured. Commonly the laser scanner can take around 5000 measurements per second.

The final rendering of the measurements and textures on the buildings is then done by visual effects studios using programmes similar to 3D studio max. The day after tomorrow used shaders in Auto desk Maya rendered in Auto desk Mental Ray – a high performance rendering engine for creating photorealistic imagery such as the environment below:

Around 12 different visual effects companies were used in the making of the day after tomorrow:

Crack Creative – is a Hollywood based production design and effects company

Custom Film – Effects is a post-production house specializing in optical and digital effects, based in Burbank, California.

Hunter Gratzner Industries/New Deal Studios – miniature and mechanical visual effects.

Some of the other visual effects studios used were:

Digital domain

Hydraulx

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)

The Orphanage

Tweak Films

Zoic studios

Yuco

The skills of all these studios were put together to create these amazing photo realistic environments:

http://www.skillset.org/games/careers/article_3739_1.asp http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Video-Game.html http://www.artstorm.net/blog/

3D special effects can also be used to create amazing computer generated graphics. A prime example of this is the new Spiderman 3 movie. A lot of the stunt scenes aren’t 100% computer generated like you might think; a lot of the scenes are actually live footage with heavy computer generated editing.

Here are some detailed drawings, storyboarding and modelling for the movie:

Then once the film footage is being filmed, a lot of the scenes are live footage rather than 100% CGI. Scenes begin with the stunt men being hoisted up on cranes and filmed being swung through the air to create the dramatic scenes:

On the close up scenes a lot of the texture is live footage of the suits and make up:

Special techniques are used to film the inhuman facial expressions. The actors faces are manipulated using thin wire as opposed to special effects:

Then once as much as possible has been done using special techniques and live footage the 3D, the footage is handed over to the texture artists. The close up scenes of Spiderman, when he is fully masked are created from scratch in Maxon software:

Then detailed texture is added using Maxon body paint 3D:

While this is happening the artists in the matte department are creating realistic 3D environments and painting in sky elements using Maxon 4D cinema to create amazing photo realistic imagery like this:

I also looked at the 3D production pipeline of computer games. I decided to look at the production process and the timescale a bit more as opposed to the software and creation process. The game production team consists of:

• An external producer who works along side the game production coordinator.
• A lead designer who controls departments of 3D modellers, Animators, Builders, texture artists and the audio departments.
• A lead programmer who controls the Level and game play set up, the user interface, and the Al scripting and engine programming.

Heres is a quick overview of game production: Looking at the production process of the Hit man Games, the process begins with the idea stage.

This takes around 3 months and consists of:

· Deciding on a graphical style

· Game play Sketches

· Storyline write up

Then the creation process begins – Finishing the game design document and creating prototypes then getting a game publisher involved. This can take 6 months before the preproduction process starts. The preproduction process consists of experimenting with game play ideas before the real creation can begin. Preproduction takes another 6 months.

Next the real production can begin. This is where the graphical game content is made, sound recorded and scripts recorded. Creating the game content takes around 10 months. Next comes the so called crunch period which involves tying everything together, rectifying any errors and glitches that are found and putting the game through quality assurance which takes a further 3 months.

Once the game is complete, game patches are made and advertising and press becomes an important issue. This work continues up to 6 months after the release of the game.

The process sounds fairly straightforward but a lot of work is involved. During the preproduction pipeline, the production team have to experiment with game play to find the perfect mix of Combat action, Stealth, Planning and Thinking to create the perfect game package. Levels can then by constructed by combining different amounts of these elements, whilst still trying to keep the game style consistent.

Another consideration is the state machine. This is how the characters in the game react to the players actions and how the individual characters state changes. For example is there is a maid and a guard kissing in a hallway, and the player enters the hallway and begins shooting, the characters state will change differently.

As the players actions change, the state of the characters has to react realistically to them:

The Maids State: Normal > Kissing > Normal > Panic

The Guards State: Normal > Kissing > Suspicious > Aggravated

The producers do this by taking advantage of human psychology to make the game as realistic as possible.

The game must also react realistically to stealth movements of the player. For example consider this scenario:

Cook stands and makes food in the kitchen.

Outside kitchen a guard patrols.

Hitman sneaks into kitchen takes a cutting knife and slit cooks throat, takes cooks outfit and hides in a nearbycloset.

The game characters must react to these actions and be programed to make realistic decisions of what action to take. The state machine for the guard in this scenario would go something like this:

Guard patrols > Guards hears odd sound > Guards goes to investigate > Guard finds dead body > Guard calls for assistance (another state machine must be created for the guards coming to assist) > All guards in area looking for suspicious fake cook.

So as you can see alot of consideration goes into what is quite a simple reacurring action during gamelay. Every action the player makes, must have a state machine created for every character this action may effect. Heres is a sample of the C++ programming used to programe the state machine for each character: