Computer generated imagery is the most common term used for graphics developed in 3D. The study of the history of CGI is an important part of our educational experience in general, not necessarily to know the significance of its development but to define the evolution of our discipline.

Evolution has allowed this technology to be used in films, television programs and advertising, in printed media, video games (one of the most attractive branches that has allowed its popularity) but when or how it all began.

It begins with video games, in the 1940s when, after the end of World War II, the winning powers built the first programmable supercomputers such as the ENIAC in 1946, created to develop chess programs. Then there was another leap in the 1960s and, since then, the world of video games has not stopped developing with the only limit imposed by the creativity of the developers and the evolution of technology.

Spacewar! is undoubtedly one of the most popular false starts of video games in history, created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the club of students who shared their passion for building scale model railroads, the Tech Model Railroad Club also shared a passion for science fiction, E.E. “Doc” Smith. This is how Spacewar! was born, a space duel for two players that was released in 1962. The game occupied 9k of memory. However, the young programmers did not patent their work and they did not consider its commercialization as it required a lot of investment. Despite all this, it is one of the most copied ideas in the history of video games, it was written for Atari and Magnavox home consoles.

William Fetter is credited with first coining the term computer graphics in the 1960s to describe his work at Boeing, a multinational aerospace and defense company.

The world of video games is not the only one that is important within the environment of computer-created images, cinematography is also important.

2D CGI was first used in films such as 1973's Westworld, although the first use of 3D imagery was in its sequel, Futureworld (1976), which featured a computer-generated hand and face created by University of Utah graduates Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke.

The first two films in which CGI was involved were Tron (1982) and The Last Starfighter (1984). Both were commercial failures at the box office, which forced most directors to relegate this type of images to images that suggested they had been created by computer, although in reality they were not.

The first character truly created in computer generated images was created by the same people who would later found the Pixar company for the film The Adventures of Young Sherlock Holmes") in 1985 (not counting the simple multi-faceted character on Tron that answered in binary: yes and no). This consisted of the representation of a knight in a stained glass window, whose glass came out of the window, making the knight represented in it take on a life of its own and walk on its own.

The television series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future") from 1987, opens the doors to the thought of post-nuclear worlds conceived with high-tech elements and development of virtual elements, despite not having much reception, it became a milestone in the application of CGI technology in television productions.

These “photorealistic” computer-generated images did not persuade the film industry until 1989, when The Abyss won the Hollywood Academy Award in the Visual Effects category. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) produced photorealistic CGI visual effects, the most notable of which were those of a water creature imitating the protagonist's face: this scene is among the most memorable from the film. It was then that he had a central role in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, thanks to the evil protagonist Terminator T-1000 who surprised the audience with his composition of liquid metal, his morphological transformations and deadly effects fully integrated into the action sequences throughout the film. Later, it won an Oscar at ILM for its special effects.

In 1993 Jurassic Park "Jurassic Park (film)") radically changed the perception of the industry, as the dinosaurs in the film looked so real and the film so seamlessly integrated computer-generated images and, of course, real sequences, that it revolutionized the film industry. This film marks Hollywood's transition from frame-by-frame motion animation and conventional optical effects to digital techniques.

In 1994, the first fully computer-animated series called Reboot was created in Canada, this being the first commercial work 100% created through technology (computer).

Two-dimensional (2D) computer-generated images are increasingly appearing in traditionally animated films, complementing hand-illustrated frames. Its uses extended from "digital interpolation movement between frames" to striking pseudo-three-dimensional (3D) effects such as the ballroom scene in the Walt Disney Company's Beauty and the Beast.

Toy Story, from Pixar, and Cassiopeia&action=edit&redlink=1 "Cassiopeia (film) (not yet written)"), from NDR Filmes, were the first fully computer-generated feature films, released in 1995 and 1996 respectively. Other digital animation studios such as Twentieth Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios and Dreamworks SKG's Pacific Data Images launched CGI production, and existing animation companies, such as the Walt Disney Company, began a transition from traditional animation to computer-generated image animation.

Between 1995 and 2005, the average effects budget for a film rose considerably from about $5 million to about $40 million. According to an executive at one of the film studios, since 2005, more than half of the films have had significant effects.

In the early 2000s, computer-generated imagery dominates the field of special effects. Technology progresses to the point where it was possible to digitally replace actors with virtual actors, indistinguishable at a glance from the actors they replaced. Computer-generated extras also began to be widely used in crowd scenes because it was a way to save production costs and was also more effective in organization. The Objective of CGI in Film shows a detailed list of pioneering uses of computer generated images in film and television.

Computer generated images for movies generally have a resolution of approximately 1.4-6 megapixels (MPx). Toy Story, for example, had a format of 1536 * 922 (1.42 MPx). The time to generate a frame is about two or three hours, with ten times more time needed for the most complex scenes. This time has not changed much since then, while image quality has progressed considerably. At the same time, with the improvement of computer equipment and faster machines, it has been possible to increase the complexity of the graphics. The exponential increase in the processing capacity of central processing units, as well as massive increases in their parallel processing capacity, storage and memory speed and size, have greatly increased the potential and complexity of computer-generated images.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001, was the first attempt to create a realistic film using only computer generated images, that is, without real actors. The film was produced by Square Pictures and featured highly detailed, photo-realistic quality graphics. The film was a box office failure, however, and after creating one last film in a similar visual style (Final Flight of the Osiris), a short film that served as a prologue to the film The Matrix Reloaded, Square Pictures went out of business.

Currently we find that computer-generated images are used in a large number of areas, industries and research areas:

The development of CGI technologies is showcased each year at SIGGRAPH, an annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques. It is visited every year by tens of thousands of computer professionals in this sector. Designers of computer games and 3D video or graphics cards are increasingly striving to achieve the same visual quality for movies in computer-generated imagery and animation, on personal computers, in real time, and as much as technology allows. With the rapid progress in quality rendering or real-time rendering, artists are beginning to use rendering engines for games in non-interactive films. This art form is currently known as Machinima.

The creation of fractal landscapes is one of the most representative applications of the use of computers for the creation of images. Its use in creating special effects is also highlighted.

Computer animation combines Vector graphics with programmed movement. The starting point is often a stick figure in which the position of each physical aspect (body parts, mouth, etc.) is defined by an avatar (animation variable). CGI is another term for computer animation, but generally refers to high-definition 3D images with the heavy emphasis on movies.

There are different ways to generate Avar values ​​to obtain realistic motion. Motion capture uses lights or metal marks stuck on a real person acting and comes from movement, tracked by a video camera. The Avar can be handheld using a joystick or other input control. The movie Toy Story does not use any motion tracking, probably because the control is created by an expert animator and can produce effects not easily representable with a real human person.

While computer-generated images are static, computer animation is the technique of creating moving images, combining vector graphics with programmed movement. The starting point is often a stick figure in which the position of each feature (limb, mouth, etc.) is defined by an avar (animation variable).

But what happens in the event that an actor dies in the middle of filming? This has happened on numerous occasions.

In the case, for example, of the film The Imaginary of Doctor Parnassus, in which the main actor died in the middle of production, but the solution for this installment was not through computer generated images but, since the plot was quite fantastic, they hired various actors who represented the same character.

This problem cannot always be solved by changing the actors. There are times when production even has to be canceled or the script modified.

But sometimes this technique is used, as is the case of Fast and Furious 7, in which in the middle of filming, Paul Walker died while he was one of the protagonists. In this installment they decided to pay tribute to him by finishing the film with the help of computer images.

This technology has been used for more than two decades. In 1994, CGI was used to bring Brandon Lee, son of martial arts star Bruce Lee, who died in the middle of filming the film, back to life in "The Raven (1963)"). It was also used in 2000 to complete the scenes that actor Oliver Reed was unable to finish when he died while filming "Gladiator."

But the technique at that time was somewhat rudimentary. On the other hand, specialists point out that now the computer-generated parts are almost indistinguishable from those actually filmed.

The death of Paul Walker caused a great shock among fans of the "Fast and Furious" saga.

In addition to CGI - which in the case of "Fast & Furious 7" is the work of New Zealand director Peter Jackson's special effects studio - to recreate Paul Walker, the film's producers have used two of the actor's brothers as body doubles and have resorted to rear shots in which his face is not seen. Although the Universal studio has not yet wanted to reveal which scenes the actor filmed.

They also recycled scenes from the previous films in the saga in which Walker appeared and that had never been used, adapting the film's script to fit. Not only did they have to change the script to fit these scenes but also the direction of the film in general, giving the ending a great emotional charge dedicated to Paul Walker.

As reported some time ago by the American press, the delays in filming caused by Walker's death, added to the use of CGI, which is still a very expensive technology, caused the film's budget to increase by US$50 million, reaching US$250 million.

We call modeling "Modeling (art)") the process of creating a mathematical representation of an object, a surface or a 3D scene, with which we obtain a 3D model. Once created, it can be displayed as a 2D image through rendering or physically created with 3D printing.

The most used technique to build a three-dimensional model is modeling using polygons. It involves building polygons connected to each other to model the objects. In this way, the more polygons the model in question is made up of, the closer the object to be modeled will be to reality. To facilitate this process, you can use the technique called LowPoly"), in which two different reference images of the object you want to model are used: one that will be from the front and another that will be in profile (a third image can be added with the height view). Thus, you start with a single polygon, which is given a shape that adjusts to the reference images, alternating the different views mentioned previously, until you reach a final model with the greatest precision of detail.

For these processes we have algorithms and programs developed with the purpose of being self-sufficient in the creation of images, such as:

Not only are animated images part of computer-generated images, but they also occur in natural landscapes (such as fractal landscapes) since they are also generated through computer algorithms. A simple way to generate fractal surfaces is to use an extension of the triangular mesh method, based on the construction of some special case of a de Rham curve. Therefore, a topographic map with different elevation levels can be created using relatively simple fractal algorithms. One of the typical and easy to program fractals used in CGI is the plasma fractal.

A large number of specific techniques have been researched and developed to produce highly focused computer generated effects, such as the use of specific models to represent the chemical weathering of stones to model erosion and produce an "aged appearance" for a given stone-based surface.

Modern architects use the services of computer graphics firms to create three-dimensional models for clients and builders. These computer-generated models can be more accurate than traditional drawings. Architectural animation (providing animated films of buildings, rather than interactive images) can also be used to see the possible relationship a building will have with the environment and its surrounding buildings. The provision of architectural spaces without the use of paper and pencil tools is now a widely accepted practice with a number of computer-aided architectural design systems and with specific programs for their creation.

Architectural modeling tools allow you to visualize a space and perform "walk-throughs" interactively, thus providing "interactive environments" at both the urban and building levels. Specific applications in architecture not only include the specification of building structures, such as walls and windows, and walk-throughs, but especially the effects of light and how sunlight will affect a specific design at different times of the day.

In some applications, computer-generated images are used to "reverse engineer" historic buildings. For example, a computer-generated reconstruction of the Georgenthal Monastery in Germany was derived from the ruins of the monastery, but provides the viewer with a "look" of what the building would have looked like in its day. This also happens with the ruins of ancient Rome, thanks to programs and research a space that no longer exists can be recreated.

Computer-generated models used in skeletal animation are not always anatomically correct. However, organizations such as the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute have developed anatomically correct models based on computer creation, and they can be used for both educational and professional (operational) purposes.

In modern medical applications, patient-specific models are built in 'computer-assisted surgery'. For example, in total knee replacement, the construction of a detailed patient-specific model can be used to carefully plan the surgery. These three-dimensional models are typically extracted from multiple CT scans of the appropriate parts of the patient's own anatomy. These models can also be used for planning aortic valve implantations, one of the common procedures for the treatment of heart diseases. Since the shape, diameter, and position of coronary openings can vary greatly from patient to patient, harvesting a model that closely resembles the patient's valve anatomy can be highly beneficial in planning the procedure.

Related topics

Most of the references used to carry out this lesson are from Wikipedia in English. Additionally, other references of interest indicated below were also consulted:

Computer generated imagery is the most common term used for graphics developed in 3D. The study of the history of CGI is an important part of our educational experience in general, not necessarily to know the significance of its development but to define the evolution of our discipline.

Evolution has allowed this technology to be used in films, television programs and advertising, in printed media, video games (one of the most attractive branches that has allowed its popularity) but when or how it all began.

It begins with video games, in the 1940s when, after the end of World War II, the winning powers built the first programmable supercomputers such as the ENIAC in 1946, created to develop chess programs. Then there was another leap in the 1960s and, since then, the world of video games has not stopped developing with the only limit imposed by the creativity of the developers and the evolution of technology.

Spacewar! is undoubtedly one of the most popular false starts of video games in history, created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the club of students who shared their passion for building scale model railroads, the Tech Model Railroad Club also shared a passion for science fiction, E.E. “Doc” Smith. This is how Spacewar! was born, a space duel for two players that was released in 1962. The game occupied 9k of memory. However, the young programmers did not patent their work and they did not consider its commercialization as it required a lot of investment. Despite all this, it is one of the most copied ideas in the history of video games, it was written for Atari and Magnavox home consoles.

William Fetter is credited with first coining the term computer graphics in the 1960s to describe his work at Boeing, a multinational aerospace and defense company.

The world of video games is not the only one that is important within the environment of computer-created images, cinematography is also important.

2D CGI was first used in films such as 1973's Westworld, although the first use of 3D imagery was in its sequel, Futureworld (1976), which featured a computer-generated hand and face created by University of Utah graduates Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke.

The first two films in which CGI was involved were Tron (1982) and The Last Starfighter (1984). Both were commercial failures at the box office, which forced most directors to relegate this type of images to images that suggested they had been created by computer, although in reality they were not.

The first character truly created in computer generated images was created by the same people who would later found the Pixar company for the film The Adventures of Young Sherlock Holmes") in 1985 (not counting the simple multi-faceted character on Tron that answered in binary: yes and no). This consisted of the representation of a knight in a stained glass window, whose glass came out of the window, making the knight represented in it take on a life of its own and walk on its own.

The television series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future") from 1987, opens the doors to the thought of post-nuclear worlds conceived with high-tech elements and development of virtual elements, despite not having much reception, it became a milestone in the application of CGI technology in television productions.

These “photorealistic” computer-generated images did not persuade the film industry until 1989, when The Abyss won the Hollywood Academy Award in the Visual Effects category. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) produced photorealistic CGI visual effects, the most notable of which were those of a water creature imitating the protagonist's face: this scene is among the most memorable from the film. It was then that he had a central role in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, thanks to the evil protagonist Terminator T-1000 who surprised the audience with his composition of liquid metal, his morphological transformations and deadly effects fully integrated into the action sequences throughout the film. Later, it won an Oscar at ILM for its special effects.

In 1993 Jurassic Park "Jurassic Park (film)") radically changed the perception of the industry, as the dinosaurs in the film looked so real and the film so seamlessly integrated computer-generated images and, of course, real sequences, that it revolutionized the film industry. This film marks Hollywood's transition from frame-by-frame motion animation and conventional optical effects to digital techniques.

In 1994, the first fully computer-animated series called Reboot was created in Canada, this being the first commercial work 100% created through technology (computer).

Two-dimensional (2D) computer-generated images are increasingly appearing in traditionally animated films, complementing hand-illustrated frames. Its uses extended from "digital interpolation movement between frames" to striking pseudo-three-dimensional (3D) effects such as the ballroom scene in the Walt Disney Company's Beauty and the Beast.

Toy Story, from Pixar, and Cassiopeia&action=edit&redlink=1 "Cassiopeia (film) (not yet written)"), from NDR Filmes, were the first fully computer-generated feature films, released in 1995 and 1996 respectively. Other digital animation studios such as Twentieth Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios and Dreamworks SKG's Pacific Data Images launched CGI production, and existing animation companies, such as the Walt Disney Company, began a transition from traditional animation to computer-generated image animation.

Between 1995 and 2005, the average effects budget for a film rose considerably from about $5 million to about $40 million. According to an executive at one of the film studios, since 2005, more than half of the films have had significant effects.

In the early 2000s, computer-generated imagery dominates the field of special effects. Technology progresses to the point where it was possible to digitally replace actors with virtual actors, indistinguishable at a glance from the actors they replaced. Computer-generated extras also began to be widely used in crowd scenes because it was a way to save production costs and was also more effective in organization. The Objective of CGI in Film shows a detailed list of pioneering uses of computer generated images in film and television.

Computer generated images for movies generally have a resolution of approximately 1.4-6 megapixels (MPx). Toy Story, for example, had a format of 1536 * 922 (1.42 MPx). The time to generate a frame is about two or three hours, with ten times more time needed for the most complex scenes. This time has not changed much since then, while image quality has progressed considerably. At the same time, with the improvement of computer equipment and faster machines, it has been possible to increase the complexity of the graphics. The exponential increase in the processing capacity of central processing units, as well as massive increases in their parallel processing capacity, storage and memory speed and size, have greatly increased the potential and complexity of computer-generated images.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001, was the first attempt to create a realistic film using only computer generated images, that is, without real actors. The film was produced by Square Pictures and featured highly detailed, photo-realistic quality graphics. The film was a box office failure, however, and after creating one last film in a similar visual style (Final Flight of the Osiris), a short film that served as a prologue to the film The Matrix Reloaded, Square Pictures went out of business.

Currently we find that computer-generated images are used in a large number of areas, industries and research areas:

The development of CGI technologies is showcased each year at SIGGRAPH, an annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques. It is visited every year by tens of thousands of computer professionals in this sector. Designers of computer games and 3D video or graphics cards are increasingly striving to achieve the same visual quality for movies in computer-generated imagery and animation, on personal computers, in real time, and as much as technology allows. With the rapid progress in quality rendering or real-time rendering, artists are beginning to use rendering engines for games in non-interactive films. This art form is currently known as Machinima.

The creation of fractal landscapes is one of the most representative applications of the use of computers for the creation of images. Its use in creating special effects is also highlighted.

Computer animation combines Vector graphics with programmed movement. The starting point is often a stick figure in which the position of each physical aspect (body parts, mouth, etc.) is defined by an avatar (animation variable). CGI is another term for computer animation, but generally refers to high-definition 3D images with the heavy emphasis on movies.

There are different ways to generate Avar values ​​to obtain realistic motion. Motion capture uses lights or metal marks stuck on a real person acting and comes from movement, tracked by a video camera. The Avar can be handheld using a joystick or other input control. The movie Toy Story does not use any motion tracking, probably because the control is created by an expert animator and can produce effects not easily representable with a real human person.

While computer-generated images are static, computer animation is the technique of creating moving images, combining vector graphics with programmed movement. The starting point is often a stick figure in which the position of each feature (limb, mouth, etc.) is defined by an avar (animation variable).

But what happens in the event that an actor dies in the middle of filming? This has happened on numerous occasions.

In the case, for example, of the film The Imaginary of Doctor Parnassus, in which the main actor died in the middle of production, but the solution for this installment was not through computer generated images but, since the plot was quite fantastic, they hired various actors who represented the same character.

This problem cannot always be solved by changing the actors. There are times when production even has to be canceled or the script modified.

But sometimes this technique is used, as is the case of Fast and Furious 7, in which in the middle of filming, Paul Walker died while he was one of the protagonists. In this installment they decided to pay tribute to him by finishing the film with the help of computer images.

This technology has been used for more than two decades. In 1994, CGI was used to bring Brandon Lee, son of martial arts star Bruce Lee, who died in the middle of filming the film, back to life in "The Raven (1963)"). It was also used in 2000 to complete the scenes that actor Oliver Reed was unable to finish when he died while filming "Gladiator."

But the technique at that time was somewhat rudimentary. On the other hand, specialists point out that now the computer-generated parts are almost indistinguishable from those actually filmed.

The death of Paul Walker caused a great shock among fans of the "Fast and Furious" saga.

In addition to CGI - which in the case of "Fast & Furious 7" is the work of New Zealand director Peter Jackson's special effects studio - to recreate Paul Walker, the film's producers have used two of the actor's brothers as body doubles and have resorted to rear shots in which his face is not seen. Although the Universal studio has not yet wanted to reveal which scenes the actor filmed.

They also recycled scenes from the previous films in the saga in which Walker appeared and that had never been used, adapting the film's script to fit. Not only did they have to change the script to fit these scenes but also the direction of the film in general, giving the ending a great emotional charge dedicated to Paul Walker.

As reported some time ago by the American press, the delays in filming caused by Walker's death, added to the use of CGI, which is still a very expensive technology, caused the film's budget to increase by US$50 million, reaching US$250 million.

We call modeling "Modeling (art)") the process of creating a mathematical representation of an object, a surface or a 3D scene, with which we obtain a 3D model. Once created, it can be displayed as a 2D image through rendering or physically created with 3D printing.

The most used technique to build a three-dimensional model is modeling using polygons. It involves building polygons connected to each other to model the objects. In this way, the more polygons the model in question is made up of, the closer the object to be modeled will be to reality. To facilitate this process, you can use the technique called LowPoly"), in which two different reference images of the object you want to model are used: one that will be from the front and another that will be in profile (a third image can be added with the height view). Thus, you start with a single polygon, which is given a shape that adjusts to the reference images, alternating the different views mentioned previously, until you reach a final model with the greatest precision of detail.

For these processes we have algorithms and programs developed with the purpose of being self-sufficient in the creation of images, such as:

Not only are animated images part of computer-generated images, but they also occur in natural landscapes (such as fractal landscapes) since they are also generated through computer algorithms. A simple way to generate fractal surfaces is to use an extension of the triangular mesh method, based on the construction of some special case of a de Rham curve. Therefore, a topographic map with different elevation levels can be created using relatively simple fractal algorithms. One of the typical and easy to program fractals used in CGI is the plasma fractal.

A large number of specific techniques have been researched and developed to produce highly focused computer generated effects, such as the use of specific models to represent the chemical weathering of stones to model erosion and produce an "aged appearance" for a given stone-based surface.

Modern architects use the services of computer graphics firms to create three-dimensional models for clients and builders. These computer-generated models can be more accurate than traditional drawings. Architectural animation (providing animated films of buildings, rather than interactive images) can also be used to see the possible relationship a building will have with the environment and its surrounding buildings. The provision of architectural spaces without the use of paper and pencil tools is now a widely accepted practice with a number of computer-aided architectural design systems and with specific programs for their creation.

Architectural modeling tools allow you to visualize a space and perform "walk-throughs" interactively, thus providing "interactive environments" at both the urban and building levels. Specific applications in architecture not only include the specification of building structures, such as walls and windows, and walk-throughs, but especially the effects of light and how sunlight will affect a specific design at different times of the day.

In some applications, computer-generated images are used to "reverse engineer" historic buildings. For example, a computer-generated reconstruction of the Georgenthal Monastery in Germany was derived from the ruins of the monastery, but provides the viewer with a "look" of what the building would have looked like in its day. This also happens with the ruins of ancient Rome, thanks to programs and research a space that no longer exists can be recreated.

Computer-generated models used in skeletal animation are not always anatomically correct. However, organizations such as the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute have developed anatomically correct models based on computer creation, and they can be used for both educational and professional (operational) purposes.

In modern medical applications, patient-specific models are built in 'computer-assisted surgery'. For example, in total knee replacement, the construction of a detailed patient-specific model can be used to carefully plan the surgery. These three-dimensional models are typically extracted from multiple CT scans of the appropriate parts of the patient's own anatomy. These models can also be used for planning aortic valve implantations, one of the common procedures for the treatment of heart diseases. Since the shape, diameter, and position of coronary openings can vary greatly from patient to patient, harvesting a model that closely resembles the patient's valve anatomy can be highly beneficial in planning the procedure.

Related topics

Most of the references used to carry out this lesson are from Wikipedia in English. Additionally, other references of interest indicated below were also consulted: