Overcoming the curse of precision: exploring the ambiguous nature of visual perception using 3D animation software

3D animation software is extensively used to create graphics for special effects sequences in live-action films, in animated feature film production and for the generation of computer games and virtual reality content. It is a commonly held view within the computer graphics community that 3D animation software is “just another tool” for self-expression. This research questions that view by examining the inherent nature of the tool itself. In doing so, some of the philosophical assumptions embedded in the design of the new digital tool are revealed. 3D software assumes that vision is a mechanical process independent of any context, and thus reduces the world to mathematical principles. This research posits that no tool is neutral; all tools orient our behavior and contribute to the way we perceive the world. The researcher has been trained in the use of traditional artistic methods, and like a growing number of other visual artists in recent years, has incorporated computer graphics into her artistic practice. This exegesis reflects upon the various ways an artist may ‘see’ and interpret a visual representation of the world and how traditional painting and drawing practice can inform the creation and manipulation of geometry in 3D animation software, and suggest what other variables and settings might be appropriate to arrive at a result that is different from the ‘photorealistic’. The project work outcomes embedded in this investigation explore how a tool of such mathematical precision can be deliberately used to create work that communicates the subjective and ambiguous nature of everyday visual experience. The researcher’s previous experience as an observational drawer and painter is compared throughout this investigation with her more recent experience as a 3D animator. The research concludes that 3D is a powerful tool for creating animated graphics and, when used in conjunction with traditional drawing and painting techniques, can successfully be used to illustrate aspects of subjective visual perception. However, without reference to paintings and observational sketches, the 3D user is likely to approach the visual world in terms of the software’s inherent Cartesian assumptions. 3D software, therefore, is too prescriptive to be used in isolation as a tool for the exploration of subjective perception. This finding has implications for the changing nature of visual arts practice and deserves further examination in order to encourage a more fruitful dialogue between traditional art practice and digital graphics software

THE REALISM OF ALGORITHMIC HUMAN FIGURES A Study of Selected Examples 1964 to 2001

It is more than forty years since the first wireframe images of the Boeing Man revealed a stylized hu-man pilot in a simulated pilot's cabin. Since then, it has almost become standard to include scenes in Hollywood movies which incorporate virtual human actors. A trait particularly recognizable in the games industry world-wide is the eagerness to render athletic muscular young men, and young women with hour-glass body-shapes, to traverse dangerous cyberworlds as invincible heroic figures. Tremendous efforts in algorithmic modeling, animation and rendering are spent to produce a realistic and believable appearance of these algorithmic humans. This thesis develops two main strands of research by the interpreting a selection of examples. Firstly, in the computer graphics context, over the forty years, it documents the development of the creation of the naturalistic appearance of images (usually called photorealism ). In particular, it de-scribes and reviews the impact of key algorithms in the course of the journey of the algorithmic human figures towards realism . Secondly, taking a historical perspective, this work provides an analysis of computer graphics in relation to the concept of realism. A comparison of realistic images of human figures throughout history with their algorithmically-generated counterparts allows us to see that computer graphics has both learned from previous and contemporary art movements such as photorealism but also taken out-of-context elements, symbols and properties from these art movements with a questionable naivety. Therefore, this work also offers a critique of the justification of the use of their typical conceptualization in computer graphics. Although the astounding technical achievements in the field of algorithmically-generated human figures are paralleled by an equally astounding disregard for the history of visual culture, from the beginning 1964 till the breakthrough 2001, in the period of the digital information processing machine, a new approach has emerged to meet the apparently incessant desire of humans to create artificial counterparts of themselves. Conversely, the theories of traditional realism have to be extended to include new problems that those active algorithmic human figures present