RENDERING BASICS

Introduction to 3D | 2006

c 2006 Gray Holland | a production of

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INTERACTIVE SHADING

Hardware Shading F3
Hardware Shading is the principal tool for the evaluation of surfaces
and design work. It is fully interactive, yet its speed is directly tied to
the graphic performance of the given machines graphic card. The
key is to match the Hardware Shading settings to the speed of the
machine.
There are 3 levels of settings that will most dramatically affect the
speed of interactive shading:
1] Tessellation is the quantity of triangulation that will take place
when the shading is invoked (this will be covered in more detail on
the following page).
The Fast option is a must for responsive graphic performance.
Accurate will dramatically slow down interactively.
The Tolerance is a factor that is relevant to the units you are
working in. So in the example right, the triangulation will deviate no
more than 0.01 cm from the NURBS data.
2] Shading Method is the next level of performance.
Per Pixel is the high quality setting, and is necessary to show off
reflections, texture maps, bump maps, etc.
Per Vertex does not support the reflections, texture maps, etc., but
is focused on showing off basic surface quality. It is the appropriate
option for lower end graphic cards.
3] Ground Plane Settings are extra bells and whistles that
show realistic effects of interactive shadows and reflections. It is
most useful for preparing for software rendering, but it should be
used sparingly because it will dramatically slow the performance of
Hardware Shading (especially ground reflections).
The Ground Plane option opens the shadowing and reflecting effects.
Shadows produces shadows on the user defined ground plane. User
Defined matches the shadows to the lighting in the scene. Shadow
Blur and Transparency add realism.
Reflections add more realism, but this effect is very demanding
graphically. The level of Reflectivity, Depth and Blur can produce a
sophisticated look and feel.

Lighting Source has several useful options. Default has an overriding light that projects
from the view camera itself. All Lights interactively uses the lighting you have set up in
your scene.

Alt W Save Current Window [Default Panel > Windows tab]

Screen shots are great for quick presentations. The following can enhance quality captures:
Background color can be changed to white.
Toggle Model-gets rid of wire frame.
Toggle Smooth anti-alias the wire frame and shading
Window Sync synchronizes ortho windows for multi view shots.

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SHADING QUALITY

Tessellation
All rendering, both hardware and software, is based on the shading
of small triangles. Surfaces are broken up into small triangular facets
and then shaded smoothly from edge to edge combining to form an
over-all effect of smooth surface.

The examples to the right graphically show the effects of low and
medium tolerances for tessellation. One must remember that this
tessellation has NOTHING to do with the actual quality of the
surface, it is just controlling the quality of the tessellation, and thus
the speed of the interactive shading.

0.5 tolerance

>> There are several areas that tessellation affects beyond Hardware
Shading; Diagnostic Shading, which is an alternative technical
shading technology, and Render Globals, which controls the quality
of software rendering; both have the same tessellation control at the
center of their quality settings.
>> A good way to figure out the tessellation for a rendering is to
use Hardware Shading to figure out the right tolerance number
interactively, then enter that same number into the Render Globals
Mesh Tolerance (WYSIWYG).

>> The Tolerance factor is basically the amount

of deviation from the NURBS surface allowed
when tessellating.

0.01 tolerance

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TECHNICAL SHADING

Diagnostic Shading: [Default Panel]

Diagnostic Shading is a set of technical shading evaluation tools. They consist of abstract
visualization of concepts, such as graphic visualizations of rate of curvature (Mean, Gaussian,
Principle Minimum and Maximum) as well as stylized highlight and reflection studies (Stripe
Environment, Hard Horizon, and Sky). All are very useful when evaluating high end surface
development such as curvature continuous class A modeling...

>> The set of Curvature Evaluation tools includes

several ways of looking at the rate of curvature on
selected surfaces. These tools are designed to
help highlight surface quality issues and will provide
interactive feedback when manipulating surfaces.

>> The reflection shading places surfaces in hardedge theoretical environments to study the reflective
qualities interactively.

>> The key is that this shading is focused on

evaluation of surfaces, not about creating materials
and their assignment to objects.

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BASIC LIGHTING

Minimum Lighting Scenario:

Lighting does more than just illuminate your objects: it sets the
mood. And although you can add lots of lights to your scene, its best
to keep it simple. Below is a basic layout of the minimum lighting
needed to produce realistic shading and rendering of objects.
Most scenes need just 3 lights: one primary directional light for
overall illumination and highlights, one ambient light controlling
the shadow core intensity, and one last directional light, pointing
exactly opposite to the primary light, to simulate bounced light and
delineate the resulting core shadow.

Ambient
Light

Primary
Directional
Light

Fill
Directional
Light

Ambient Light: [core value]

This light has the effect of ambient or
defused light. It mainly determines the value
of the darkest areas of objects:
The cores value.
[highlight]

>> Create this fill light opposite the main directional light:
To accomplish this: scale a copy of the main directional light by -1 -1 -1
in the Informational Window (Alt Shift I). Then cool off the lights color and
reduce its intensity by half (0.5).

Directional Light: [primary light source]

This light simulates the illumination from the
sun through the projection of parallel
rays of light.

Fill Directional Light: [bounced light]

This light simulates the bounced light
which illuminates the shadow
side of given objects.

[shadow]

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MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT

Multi-lister:
This is where all shading, lighting, and environment control are
created and edited. All these entities can be endlessly manipulated
and assigned to any number of surfaces. A simple double-click on
any of these shaders opens its editor, which gives access to the
shaders many attributes. In addition, the editor enables
the application of additional parameters: this is known as
Texture Mapping.

Mapping:
Texture mapping is the
primary way of adding realistic
details to shaders. Textures
are mapped onto the various
channels of a given shader.
There are several types of
mapping (covered more on
the following pages): Surface,
Solid, and Environmental.

Alt Q Multi-lister All

Ctrl Q Multi-lister Picked Only

All these types use two

categories of mapping:
Procedural Maps are software
controlled textures with many
variable attributes; and Image
Maps are textures controlled
by image files (.tiff, .jpeg,
.als, etc.). The key to building
realistic materials is often to
use multiple texture maps by
layering both procedural and
image maps throughout the
many shading channels.

>> Refract Limit:

Refer to pages 11-14

Editor:
The edit window provides access to all the detailed shader
controls. It also provides map points for the texture mapping
channels. Double-clicking on any shader icon in the multilister opens the shader editor.

>> Image Mapping can add huge amounts

of realism to renderings by bringing real
world textures into the virtual world. Also
layering texture map on top of texture map
helps to create realistic shaders.

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BASIC SHADING

The Blinn Shading Model:

There are four Shading Models (Phong, Blinn, Lambert, and
Lightsource). In the end Blinn is the most useful because it is the
most flexible. Blinn can produce a large range of shading effects by
manipulating six primary parameters (covered in detail below). Blinn
has the capacity to describe diamond hard leaded glass, or velvety
soft rubber, and everything in between
Diffuse >
Specular >
Specular Rolloff >
Eccentricity >
Reflectivity >

0.8
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.0

Diffuse >
Specular >
Specular Rolloff >
Eccentricity >
Reflectivity >

1.0
0.5
0.0
0.2
0.3

Diffuse: The ability of the surface to respond to light, affecting the fall
off of the highlight itself. The higher the Diffuse value, the more the
actual surface color realized. Thus a low value will dull the shaders
color, a higher value will intensify its colormaterial saturation control.
Specular: Defines the color and intensity of surface highlights.
Specular Rolloff: applies to the quality of the specularity and the ability
of the surface to reflect from oblique angles. This value is often set low
for shiny materials, but can be used to produce many special effects.
Middle values are useful for rubber-like materials.
Eccentricity: Controls the size of highlights on a surface. Small
highlights define shiny surfaces like glass; large ones are used for soft
or velvety surfaces such as rubber.
Reflectivity: Is the ability of the surface to reflect its surroundings. Low
values simulate lightly textured plastics and diffuse reflective metals
like aluminum; high values work well for materials like glass, water, and
chrome.
Reflection: Refers to applied environmental reflection mapping only.
This is most useful for Hardware Shading and RayCasting. Raytracing
over-rides this channel with the scenes Environment (unless Reflect
Map parameter is turned on).

Diffuse >
Specular >
Specular Rolloff >
Eccentricity >
Reflectivity >

1.0
0.5
0.0
0.3
0.3

Diffuse >
Specular >
Specular Rolloff >
Eccentricity >
Reflectivity >

0.8
0.7
0.0
0.2
0.2

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TYPES OF MAPPING

Surface, Solid, and Environment Mapping:

There are 3 basic types of texture mapping. Each applies
textures to channels in a different way, to achieve
different effects. All of these different mapping functions
can be used in different combinations to develop
sophisticated material effects.

Surface Mapping:
This type of mapping stretches the given texture to
the 4 corners of the assigned surface(s). Surface
mapping takes on all the parameterization
qualities of the mapped surface itself.

Environment Mapping:
This mapping is focused on applying
reflection environments. There are
several types of environments to map:
Cube is used to map 6 images to
create a room-like reflection. Ball and
Sphere environments map images to
for realistic exterior reflections. Chrome
and Sky environments produce stylized
procedural reflections.

>> Many of the Textures

offered are procedural in nature.
>> Image-based Textures
include: File, Stencil, Ball,
Cube, Sphere, Projection, and
Volume

Solid Mapping:
This mapping procedure is based on the volumetric intersection of
surfaces with Projection Objects. There are 8 different types of Projection
Objects; each uses a different projection geometry model. The Solid
texture uses the Projection Object to place itself in respect to the applied
surfaces, and has the ability to move, scale, and rotate it in any way.

>> Environment Maps applied directly to shaders work for Hardware

Shading and Raycasting
>> When Raytracing the Environment Map needs to be applied only to
the master Environment in the Multi-lister (see page 6).

rendering | 

TEXTURE MAPPING

The Value of Effect:

Many of the texture mapping channels rely on a simple gray scale for
the level of effect. White is equal to 100% full effect, black is 0%
effect, and everything in between is a shade of that effects intensity.
The following examples highlight how this gray scale can control a
variety of texturing effects (mapping path: see page 6).
100% effect

50% effect

0% effect
clear
translucent
opaque

Bump Map:
Mapping this Checker pattern to the Bump channel will create a
slightly raised texture. Positive intensities produce positive bumps;
Negative values produce embossed bumps.

Transparency Map:
A Checker procedural texture is mapped to the transparency channel.
White areas are completely transparent; black are completely opaque
Notice that the transparent squares still have a specular highlight

Specularity Map:
By adding a modified copy of the same Checker texture mapped to the
Transparency channel, and then applying it to the Specularity channel,
the appearance of a square hole is possible. In this case, the black
and white checker pattern is inverted to make the lack of specularity
(black) match up with the Transparency (white).

Displacement Map:
Applying the Checker map to the Displacement channel produces a
true 3D texture. Note that the intensity value can produce dramatic
effects.

>> This perforated steel shader involves several applications of the

same Ramp texture map, slightly modified to meet the requirements of
the given channel. For this shader, maps are applied to Transparency,
Specularity, and Bump channels to create the desired perforated effect.

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IMAGE MAPPING

Mapping A Logo:
The following example covers the basics of creating a logo on a given
object, based on a set of associated image files. In this case we want
the color of the logo to be embossed into a metallic material.

Bump Image Map

Step 1: On the selected shader, start by mapping a Solid > Projection

map to the color channel. Then map a Surface > Stencil map onto its
Source Texture channel. Then map a Surface > File onto its Image
channel. Now you can finally Browse to map the actual color image
map. Now to place the map precisely in relation on the surface itself
you must first toggle on the Projection Object by clicking on the 3D
texture icon. Now select that Projection Object (green cube) and
transform it into position (see page 6).

>> 3D Texture Icon:

Toggle on and off

Step 2: Note that the surface(s) seem to be covered by repetitions of

the logo (above left)to limit the logo to just the intersection of the
Projection Object, you must turn OFF the Wrap option under 3D
Placement (within the Solid Projections editor). When you are happy
with the placement of this logo rename it COLOR_project and save
out the Solid Projection map with the Multi-listers > Save As option.

Color Image Map

Step 3: Now add a bump map to the Bump channel by clicking its map
button followed by the Browse button and selecting the recently saved
color Solid Projection, then name it BUMP_project. Next go to this
projection maps image file and replace it with the prepared grey-scale

Mask Image Map

>> These image files above are TIFF format prepared in Photoshop.

bump map. Note that the logo now looks embossed into the metal
surface (you must have Per Pixel selected in Hardware Shade to see
this effect).

Multi-Channeled Shader:
It is often necessary to produce several images to map to several
channels to create the desired effects. This shader represents an
example of this multi-dimensional use. Below is sample of the multilister view of this shader with all of its channels exposed.

Step 4: Now to make the logo float, you must

use the Stencil feature to Mask out the area
around the logo image.
Go back to the Stencil map and map a Surface
> File to the Mask channel, then browse for the
prepared masking image. You will now notice
that the result is a floating logo.

>> A negative
intensity
produces an
embossed
look, and
vice versa.

rendering | 11

BASIC RENDERING

Setting Up and Testing Renders:

Software rendering is very much like photography. First you compose
the shot. Next you adjust the placement of the lighting. Then you
snap some test shots...
Direct Rendering is a way to render directly into the Studio
windows. In fact, you can even select just part of the window
to render into. This is the place to tweak all the aspects of your
rendering [composition, lighting, shaders, etc.]. Do these tests at
smaller resolutions and at a Medium or Low Global Quality Level.
Lastly you will want to tweak the rendering settings themselves >>
[details to the right].

Global Quality Level: This field enables switching between 3 levels of

rendering quality settings. Of course these settings are a default starting
point and should be edited to reflect the requirements of the individual
rendering.
Mesh Tolerance: This controls the tesselation of objects in the render.
High values are good for fast test rendering. Low values are best for final
renderings, delivering fine details but longer rendering times (page 3).
Anti-aliasing Levels: Anti-aliasing controls the pixel smoothness of the
digital rendering. It also greatly affects rendering times. A general rule is
to set the Maximum value to twice the Minimum value. 8-12 values are
good settings for final renderings; 2-4 for medium tests, 1-2 for low.
Raytracing Maximum Limits: This set of controls is the overhead limit
for the rendering. These values can also greatly affect rendering times.
EACH shader has its own settings for these values, so dont forget to set
them first (to their highest final rendering values). Then use this setting in
the globals to crop limits down during test rendering (pages 13-14).
Format: This is where the image format is set. TIFF is the best format
because it can store alpha channel information.
Render Window Selection: Allows the user to select which windows
to use for rendering and whether or not to include the alpha channel (or
mask). Multiple windows can be rendering and be set up at one time, but
they must have exactly the same resolution.

Opens the
Render Globals
editing window

Kicks off
Direct Render

Final shots
should be
kicked off
for rendering
outside of
Studio...

Resolution: These fields set the rendering resolution. To calculate the

printable size of a given rendering, multiply your desired DPI by the
image size in Inches to determine the render resolution:
such as 300 DPI (8.5 x 11) = 2550 x 3300 pixels.

rendering | 12

RAYTRACING vs RAYCASTING

Computer Rendering:
There are the two types of rendering: Raycasting and Raytracing.
The key is to figure out which one is best for each individual
shot. Each has its own pluses and minuses; each has its own
characteristics, special considerations, and set up.
The following chart outlines some of the basic capabilities and should
help explain some of the basic differences between the two
rendering engines:

Raycasting

>> If a shader is representing a colored translucent

material, then that color must be added to the
Transparency channel in order to make a colored shadow
(often the color in the Transparency channel should be
slightly less saturated than the shader color itself).

1:33 minutes

Raytracing

18:59 minutes

Time:
Faster [in most cases]

Time:
Slower [in most cases]

Memory:
Generally less intensive (except for large Shadow Maps)

Memory:
More intensive with high levels of refractions and reflections.

Shadows:
Only with Spot lights
[Shadow Maps produce even, soft, and constant valued shadows]

Shadows:
Default hard edged shadows [fast rendering]
Soft Shadows option [increasing render time]

Transparency:
Yes, but not realistic material quality [no refractions]
[Also, transparent objects will not cast any shadows]

Transparency:
Photo-realistic refractions

Reflections:
Only reflection maps apply here. Objects cannot reflect into each other.
[Only environmental maps are be reflected].

Reflections:
Objects can reflect back and forth multiple times, as in reality.

Best Applications:
Interior lighting conditions, Softly defined shadows, non-refractive
materials, environmental reflections only.

Best Applications:
Outdoor lighting conditions, Super accurate shadows, anywhere realistic
object to object reflections and refractions are needed (metals and
glass)

Summary:
A limited but very time effective render. If you can use reflection maps
and avoid much refractive materials, this is a good way to render.

Summary:
Raytracing accurately traces the rays of light and calculates physical
material properties as the rays intersect different types of materials. It is
also more expensive as far as time is concerned.

rendering | 13

TRACING RAYS

Raytracing Concept:
Raytracing works basically backwards from how rays of lights work
in reality. Instead of rays of light bouncing off objects into a cameras
lens, Raytracing starts by sending rays outward from its virtual
camera and traces their bounces through the objects in the scene.

>> When Raytracing transparent

materials each material has to be
though of (and modeled) as a solid.
In the case of a glass filled with a
liquid, it is very important to have
small offsets between the 2 materials,
such as liquid and glass.
This assures correct Raytracing of
the materials and avoids potential
tessellation artifacts.

The image below attempts to illustrate a single ray bouncing through

this sample scene. Refractions happen at points where the ray
intersects transparent objects and as a result changes the angle of its
path. The Refractive Index calculates the amount of refraction for any
given material. The largest count of refractions in a given scene will
determine the Refraction Limit needed to render effectively.

3
4

5
6

8
>> This ray trace reveals that it would take a Refraction Limit of
at least 8 to see the floor just behind the glass through all of its
refracted bounces (the Refract Limit is set per shader page 6, and in
the Render Globals page 11).
>> Just to be safe, you might want to add 2 more to the Refractive
Limit to achieve the best render results...

>> The Shadow Limit is linked to

the Refract Limit: for shadows to be
rendered properly the Shadow Limit
is always 1 less than the Refract Limit
(Shader page 6, Globals page 11).

rendering | 14

RAYTRACING REFRACTION SETTINGS

Refractions Limits:
Setting the Reflection, Refraction, and Shadow Limits are some of
the most confusing aspects of Raytracing. Setting them too low will
not look realistic, setting them too high will drive rendering times
high. The illustrations on this page hopefully with help guide you
through setting up these limits just right.

>> The Shadow Limit is always set 1 less than

the Refraction Limit (page 6 and page 11).

Soft Shadow 12

>> Rarely are reflections needed past 2, too

many reflections often make shots messy.

Hardware Shade
with shadows

Reflect Limit
Refract Limit
Shadow Limit

2
6
5

Reflect Limit
Refract Limit
Shadow Limit

Reflect Limit
Refract Limit
Shadow Limit

2
8
7

1
2
1

Reflect Limit
2
Refract Limit 10
Shadow Limit 9

>> Final rendering with all the tweaked settings ends up taking
16:27 minutes to render at a 600 X 460 resolution.

Reflect Limit
Refract Limit
Shadow Limit

2
4
3

Reflect Limit
2
Refract Limit 10
Shadow Limit 9
Soft Shadow

>> Setting Shadow Samples to around 12 will most often give you fairly
smooth Soft Shadows, but will drive up render times; use 2 for test
renders.