Table of Contents
Acknowledgments XV
Introduction 1
A Note about Animation 2
A Quick Overview of the Book 3
Part 1 Core Concepts 7
Chapter 1 Reality and Photorealism 9
Human Vision and Cameras 9
The Similarities 10
Field of View 10
Seeing with the Mind 11
The Uncanny Valley 14
The Detail Conundrum 15
The Role of Imperfections 16
Case Study: Detail and Imperfections in Man-Made Objects 17
The Reality of the Unreal 18
Image Quality and Photorealism 19
2D and 3D Workflows 20
Chapter 2 Photorealism in Digital Media 22
Visual Effects 22
Games 24
Visualization 25
Architectural Visualization 25
Product Visualization 28
Case study: Exterior Architectural Renders 29
Chapter 3 Color 31
The Six-Layer Approach 33
Thinking Additive 35
Subtractive Color 35
Additive Color 36
Hue, Saturation, and Brightness in RGB 37
Color operations 40
Gain (exposure) 41
Offset 42
Lift 42
Gamma 44
Saturation 44
Bit Depth and Dynamic Range 45
The Low End 46
The High End 47
Part 2 The Real World 49
Chapter 4 Light Essentials 51
Light as Waves 51
Light as Particles 52
Light Decay 53
Direct and Indirect Illumination 54
What Is "Ambient Light"? 55
Chapter 5 Light Interaction 57
Absorption 58
Reflection and Scattering 59
Specular Reflection 59
Diffuse Reflection 62
Scattering 63
Subsurface Scattering 63
Transmission and Refraction 64
Albedo 66
Case Study: Side by Side Comparison 67
Chapter 6 Daylight 69
The Sun 69
The Atmosphere 71
Reflection and Absorption 72
Atmospheric Scattering 74
Rayleigh Scattering 74
Mie Scattering 75
Volumetric Light 76
Aerial Perspective 76
Air 77
Water Droplets 78
Haze 79
Case Study: Natural Environment in Clarisse IFX 79
Chapter 7 Nighttime and Artificial Lighting 82
Natural Nighttime Light 82
The Purkinje Effect 82
Artificial Lighting 83
Color Temperature 83
Light Intensity 84
Common Lamp Types 84
Light Modifiers 85
Chapter 8 Shadows 87
Shadow Softness 88
Shadow Color 91
Overlapping Shadows 92
Nested Shadows 92
Contact Shadows 93
Chapter 9 Basic Material Properties 94
Dielectric Materials 94
Dielectric Diffuse/Specular Balance 94
Fresnel Effect 95
Metals 97
Chapter 10 Lens and Camera Characteristics 99
Defocus 99
Depth of Field 99
Bokeh 102
Lens Distortion 103
Chromatic Aberration 104
Lens Flares 105
Simple Glow 106
Diffraction Spikes 106
Additional Flare Elements 107
Dirt and imperfections 107
Anamorphic Lens Flares 108
Lens Bloom 108
Motion Blur 109
Grain 110
Part 3 The CG World 113
Chapter 11 Rendering and Lighting 115
From Scanline to Path Tracing 115
Scaniine/Rasterized Rendering 116
Raytracing 116
The Challenge of Global Illumination 118
Path Tracing 120
Unbiased vs. Biased Rendering 121
Traditional Light Emitters 122
Point/Spot Lights 122
Directional Light 123
Contemporary Light Emitters 123
Area and Mesh Lights 123
Image-based Lighting 124
Procedural HDR Environments 126
Photometric Lights 126
Essential Strategies for PBR Lighting 128
Scale Matters 128
Natural Daytime Lighting 128
Skylight Color 129
Ambient Occlusion for Outdoor Scenes 129
Daytime Interior Scenes 130
Man-made Lighting 131
Case Study: Rendering Interiors in Unreal Engine 131
Chapter 12 Shading 133
A Brief Overview of Shader Evolution 133
The BRDF Shading Model 134
Diffuse 135
Dielectric/Metallic Toggle 135
Specular 136
Coat 137
Transmission 138
Subsurface Scattering 139
Emission 140
Additional BRDF Features 141
Other Common Shaders 142
Car Paint Shaders 142
Volumetric Shaders 142
Hair/Fur Shaders 143
Case Study: CG Portraiture 144
Chapter 13 Texturing 146
PBR Texturing 147
The Linear Workflow 148
Base Color Map 148
Roughness Map 150
Metallic Map 150
Bump (Normal) Map 151
Ambient Occlusion (AO) Map 152
Displacement (Height) Map 153
Transparency Map vs. Opacity Map 153
Texture Generation Workflows 154
Image Textures 154
Shooting and Prepping Photos for Texturing 155
Resolution 155
Baked-in Lighting 155
Angle, Perspective, and Focus 156
Exposure 156
Optimizing Photographs for Tiling 157
Procedural Textures 157
Combining Workflows 159
Case Study: Creating Bark Textures for SpeedTree 160
Chapter 14 Modeling 163
Modeling for Lighting 163
Procedural Modeling 164
Terrain Modeling 165
Case Study: Erosion Algorithms in Gaea 167
Plant Modeling 168
Part 4 The 2D World 171
Chapter 15 Integrating 2D Elements 175
Color Matching 175
Edges: Problems and Solutions 176
Matching Background Luminosity 177
Spill Suppression 178
Edge and Core Extractions 178
Edge Reconstruction 179
Matte-less Extractions 180
Edge Blur and Edge Color 182
Light Wrap 182
Chapter 16 Integrating CG Elements 183
Compositing with Render Passes 183
Lighting Passes 183
Utility Passes 186
Deep Compositing 189
Improving CG in Comp 190
Render Resolution 191
Hazing Effect 191
Highlights Bloom 191
Albedo Pass and Contrast 191
Edge Treatment 192
Chapter 17 Lighting in 2D 193
Relighting with Color 193
The Challenge of Reflections 193
Fresnel Effect 196
Breaking up Reflections 196
Creating Shadows 197
Shape, Angle, and Stretching 197
Shadow Softness and Falloff 198
Breaking up Shadows 198
Shadow Color 198
Contact and Proximity Shadows 200
Case Study: Matte Painting Integration in Film 200
Atmospheric Depth 202
Referencing the Footage 202
Chapter 18 Lens and Camera Effects 205
Defocus 205
Lens Distortion and Chromatic Aberration 206
Lens Flares 207
Motion Blur 208
Grain 208
Epilogue: The Future 210
Realtime Rendering 210
Photorealism on the Cloud 211
LED Screens and Virtual Environments 211
Machine Learning 212
Procedural Environments 213
Will Photorealism Disappear? 213
Appendix A Glossary of Abbreviations 215
Appendix B Software list 217
All-round 3D Software 217
Specialized 3D Software 217
Sculpting 217
Terrain and Landscape Creation 217
Plant Modeling 217
Other Specialized 3D Software 218
Game engines 218
Render Engines 218
Image editing 218
Compositing 218
Texture Authoring 218
Index 219
