Why bother with 3D/CAD Design, Illustration and Animation?
Simply put, "You can present things in a way that may not be possible in real life".
- Reduce or eliminate costly physical prototypes
- Depict Impossible locations and viewpoints (i.e., pass a camera though an object that's impossible in the real world)
- Images and Animation for their pure entertainment value (including games)
- Product design and visualization, before manufacturing
- Virtual displays of things that simply don't exist
- Forensic recreations for lawyers
- Simulations
- Art - To many of us, 3D is the method we choose to express ourselves
- Animation, for entertainment, and/or mechanical visualization
- Advertising: Maintain precise control over the images your clients see.
- Kiosk-type displays for museums, galleries, and other exhibits
Three images of the same 3D model, as an example: (Click for full size.)
We've come a long way...
One of the reasons I appreciate our modern graphic capabilities so much is that I began with computers before this revolution began. I started as a hobbyist computer programmer in the late 1970's, when we had VERY slow computers, no graphics to speak of (often only 4 colors) no disks or CD's, no mouse, and very few commercial applications. Those were "the bad old days", computing-wise, but taught me a lot about hierarchy, logic, efficient use of RAM, and various tricks for reducing rendering times. These were good lessons, because in those days, we typically used every bit of RAM we had, and it was never enough. My first computer had 4K of RAM. (!)
Aside from my lifelong interest in music and aviation, I have an interest in almost everything involving 3D modeling and animation. In mid 2008, I switched to Luxology's "MODO" 3D software, and love it. Finally, I feel that the software can do anything I want to do with it, given a little time. It just keeps getting better!
Thank you for visiting!
- Mike James