Cheating Physics or
Not? Part 2
Now while there are cases in which following the rules may be good,
often times in the entertainment industry the need to break rules is
important.
Instead of trying to make everything realistic computer animators need
to deal with "visual styling, blending cartoon physics with real world
physics, using cinematography, mastering facial animation, and
optimizing user-controlled animation."(Kerlow)
In order to due this we must bend the rules of physics. For
example when animating anything on a computer they are made out of a
bunch of polygons which are made enitirely out of straight lines.
Now when using collisions between objects that are able to deform and
reform such as bouncing balls we are unable to deform the object
properly since we can't break the polygon lines. So we oftne
times smudge the equations to work properly before and after the bounce
but during the bounce smudge the image into making it look like it was
deformed but in actuality it is not.
Another big issue in computer graphics is lighting effects. If we
actually used the proper physics equations for lighting attenuation and
rays reflecting off surfaces or going through mediums, the processing
time it would take to render would freeze even some of the fastest
machines out there. So what happens is we fudge the data and have
each object appear brighter or darker based off of a simpler equation
that gives the appearance that lighting does exist.
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