Animation

無意間，發現了一個 blog：Pzman 的 3D Revolution 全紀錄 ，裏頭有兩篇介紹今年在 siggraph 2006 出的 Maya 8.0，相當有意思，特別貼出來： MAYA8新功能第一手詳細解析 MAYA8新功能補完計畫 其中最讓我感興趣的就是下頭這一段： ...

剛剛收到來自 CGTalk 的電子報，它們邀請打獵季節（Open Season） 的視覺特效總監（Visual Effects Supervisor）Doug Ikeler 到他們的論壇，回答眾人的問題。剛好我昨天才看了打獵季節，印象還很深刻，於是趁著一邊工作等算圖的片段時間，邊看文章 邊就我感興趣的內容作點簡易翻譯。 ...

最近的工作之一，是利用 3D 裏的一支 NPR（Non-PhotoRealistic rendering）技術，把 3D 場景給算成很像 2D 的樣子，而我手邊的任務是讓它很像中國的一幅畫，算出來的樣子，可以參考這個網頁 。 ...

娥蘇拉．勒瑰恩的畢生傑作《地海傳說》系列（The Earthsea Cycle），就在今年要被搬上大螢幕了，背後的製作團隊，是與日本動畫大師宮崎駿齊名的吉卜力工作室 。 與魔戒齊名的地海傳說、 日本吉卜力工作室、 再加上這次的導演是由宮崎駿之子宮崎吾郎擔任、 宮崎吾郎也以「監督日誌」的形式公開了他的心路歷程，劈頭就這麼寫道：「家父反對我擔任這部電影的導演。」 因為這幾點，讓人很想一窺這部在日本叫格得戰記（格得是地海裏的男主角，又叫雀鷹）的面貌如何，google 了一下，發現有幾個人對於這部動畫的現況非常了解： ...

我利用 Google Calendar，配合在台大資訊系電腦圖學組裏的 conference schedule（由陳炳宇教授維護），弄了個 Computer Graphics Conference 出來，感覺還不錯。XML , iCal 。

Wonderful to hear from you. I spent a most enjoyable 12 days in Taipei last summer. I taught a 5 day class of RenderMan at DCI. Thank you for telling me about the kind words of one of my (best) students. Very encouraging. The “RenderMan Companion” by Upstall has 3 chapters (maybe 4) devoted to shader writing. Although it is an old book, it is still very good. “Advanced RenderMan” by Apodaca and Gritz is very good although sadly it was written before the raytracing extensions were added to prman. You may like to follow some of the links on one of my class pages,https://sfdm.ca.scad.edu/vsfx/faculty/mkesson/Ca301/index.html ...

Dear Prof. Kesson, I noticed your website and your work on renderman in reading the following article by one of you students. https://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2855078&postcount=99 and then I found, wow, what a great website about renderman programming and that Cutter Text Editor. and soon, I downloaded Cutter and started to think about using it for mel programming (I am not yet familiar with renderman programming) instead of gVim although I have also retrieved a full complete function list from maya doc server and made it as syntax file for vim because Cutter seems more attractive and I was very interested in that CommandPort feature. I will dissect it and give you feedback ;) currently, I am thinking about studying renderman shader concept/programming because I am in a Taiwan company aiming for being a great 3D animation studio in Taiwan and my current position is as a Effect TD. therefore, I got lots of opportunities and equipments ( nice workstation, maya, shake, renderman and renderfarm ) to learn what I want to learn. so lucky I am. In your great website ( https://www.fundza.com/ ), I think I can ask you how to start my renderman shader/programming road. would you please suggest or instruct something by your long-term experience in this for me to learn renderman ? Oh! I forgot to tell you. my background is computer science and my major is computer graphics in graduate. therefore, I have good programming skills and it’s always not the problem for me to do coding and learn a new coding. and I have basic knowledge of computer graphics. Sincerely Yours, —- Shuen-Huei (Drake) Guan RD & TD DigimAx, Inc. https://www.digimax.com.tw/ Taipei, Taiwan

SHADERS Clearly, shaders play a crucial creative role in defining the appearance of a CG production. RenderMan has been adopted by many leading studios because it allows special purpose shaders to be added to those that already exist. Individual shaders are small sub-routines (functions) written in a specialised programming language called the Pixar Shading Language. The language enables new shaders to extend the creative possibilities of the renderer; it allows computer artists to find endless ways of controlling the appearance of a 3D scene through the use of custom shaders. The only limit is their imagination, their ability to write new, or adapt existing shaders and their creative flare at adjusting the parameters that control the visual effect of a shader. In some respects RenderMan shaders are analogous to plugins for, say, PhotoShop and AfterEffects. Plugins for those applications provide extra functionality to their host program. Likewise, shaders “work” within the environment of a renderer. ...