3D technology has evolved significantly since its early uses in games in the 1980s. Early 3D games used basic 3D environments and graphics. By the 1990s, fully 3D games became popular due to titles like Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot. 3D is now standard in games and brings realistic worlds and narratives to life. 3D animation also advanced, starting with basic computer-generated animations in the 1970s and advancing to high quality productions from Pixar. 3D is now commonly used in both film and television through CGI and compositing.

1. 3D in Games
3D Monster Maze was the first ever game released on a commercial games machine that was in 3D.
It was developed by Malcolm Evans in 1981 for the Sinclair ZX81 platform. The game awarded points
for each step the player took without getting caught by the Tyrannosaurus Rex that hunted them in
the 16 by 16 cell, randomly generated maze.
Transition to 3D
The fifth generation is most noted for the rise of fully 3D games. While there were games prior that
had used three dimensional environments, such as Virtua Racing and Star Fox, Virtua Racing.
Star Fox
It was in this era that many game designers began to move traditionally 2D and pseudo-3D genres
into full 3D. Super Mario 64 on the N64, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon on the PlayStation
and Nights into Dreams... on the Saturn, are prime examples of this trend. Their 3D environments
were widely marketed and they steered the industry's focus away from side-scrolling and rail-style
titles, as well as opening doors to more complex games and genres. Games like Goldeneye 007, The
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Virtua Fighter were nothing like shoot-em ups, RPGs or fighting
games before them. 3D became the main focus in this era as well as a slow decline of cartridges in
favour of CDs, which allowed much greater storage capacity than what was previously possible.
Current Trends
The use of hyper-realistic 3D technology within games is now seen as a standard element, (barring
the current interest in retro styling) bringing ever more realistic worlds and narratives to life. Games
have evolved into interactive films, for example,
The Batman Franchise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQ7fTxaWPI
The Uncharted Series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJwkfwTaedY&feature=player_detailpage
The ever-increasing download speeds capable through wireless and mobile networks and the
developments made in the field of motion/gesture control, mean that 3D technology will have a big
part to play in the ways in which games are played and displayed.

2. 3D in Animation
First 3D Animation
This historical video was recently re-discovered after being lost for many years. It was produced in
1972 and is believed to be the world's first computer-generated 3D animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjbax5HYHLQ
It was created by Ed Catmull, a true pioneer of 3D technology, who was a computer scientist at the
University of Utah (birthplace of the famous Utah teapot.) If the name sounds familiar, it's because a
few years later he was one of the founders of Pixar.
Pixar's Tin Toy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtFYP4t9TG0
Tin Toy is a 1988 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar and directed by John
Lasseter. The short film, which runs five minutes, stars Tinny, a tin one-man-band toy, attempting to
escape from Billy, a destructive baby. The third short film produced by the company's small animation
division, it was a risky investment: due to low revenue produced by Pixar's main product, the
eponymous computer to manage animations, the company was under financial constraints.
Lasseter pitched the concept for Tin Toy by storyboard to Pixar owner Steve Jobs, who agreed to
finance the short despite the company's struggles, which he kept alive with annual investment. The
film was officially a test of the photo realistic render man software, and proved new challenges to the
animation team, namely the difficult task of realistically animating Billy. Tin Toy would later gain
attention from Disney, who sealed an agreement to create Toy Story, which was primarily inspired by
elements from Tin Toy.
The short premiered in a partially completed edit at the SIGGRAPH convention in August 1988 to a
standing ovation from scientists and engineers. Tin Toy went on to claim Pixar's first Oscar with the
1988 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first CGI film to win an Oscar. With
the award, Tin Toy went far to establish computer animation as a legitimate artistic medium outside
SIGGRAPH and the animation-festival film circuit. Tin Toy was selected for preservation in the United
States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant" in 2003.
Accessing the Technology
Although traditional forms of animation like cell and stop-motion are still popular (and often produced
using computer technology), the availability and affordability of high-end 3D software has allowed
individuals to access the technology and make creative animations that are of a professional quality.
Stories can be told using the freedom 3D space gives the animator. This has led to an explosion of
self-published animations and subsequent networking. Freelancers are able to develop short
animations for the children's TV market and advertising, competing on an equal footing with larger
production companies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs
Techniques
3D Animation is carried out by key-framing the camera, lights and objects within a scene. Character
movement is created by using rigging or motion capture techniques.

3. Rigging
Skeletal animation is a technique in computer animation in which a character is represented in two
parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called skin or mesh) and a hierarchical set
of interconnected bones (called the skeleton or rig) used to animate (pose and keyframe) the mesh.
While this technique is often used to animate humans or more generally for organic modelling, it only
serves to make the animation process more intuitive and the same technique can be used to control
the deformation of any object — a spoon, a building, or a galaxy.
This technique is used in virtually all animation systems where simplified user interfaces allows
animators to control often complex algorithms and a huge amount of geometry; most notably through
inverse kinematics and other "goal-oriented" techniques. In principle, however, the intention of the
technique is never to imitate real anatomy or physical processes, but only to control the deformation
of the mesh data.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg6jvHjvHGk
Motion Capture
Motion capture is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military,
entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics.
In film making and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using
that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation. When it includes
face and fingers or captures subtle expressions, it is often referred to as performance capture. In
many fields, motion capture is sometimes called motion tracking, but in film making and games,
motion tracking more usually refers to match moving.
3D in Film and TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wK1Ixr-UmM
First 3D Animation in a Film
As shown earlier, notice the rotating palm and face made of polygons. It's the world's first 3D
animation rendered in 1972 by Ed Catmull and Fred Park, at that time young scientists at the
University of Utah. Four years later this animation was eventually discovered by some Hollywood
executive and included into the 1976 sci-fi movie Future world. Today, Ed Catmull is known as a co-
founder and president of Pixar Studios.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfRAfsK5cvU
The first revolutionary use of 3D imagery in a movie was in Jurassic Park released in 1993, almost all
of the dinosaurs were created in using 3D CGI in and shown in the live-action scenes of the movie:
It is now common place for 3D composites to feature within TV and films – characters, SFX -
explosions etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc0UehYemQA

4. Pan's Labyrinth – 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5d4f1nyLgg
Batman Begins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zdFsoUF-Fg
Marvel's Avengers Assemble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hPpG4s3-O4
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to
create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for
compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,
most, though not all, compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation. Pre-digital
compositing techniques, however, go back as far as the trick films of Georges Méliès in the late 19th
century; and some are still in use. All compositing involves the replacement of selected parts of an
image with other material, usually, but not always, from another image. In the digital method of
compositing, software commands designate a narrowly defined colour as the part of an image to be
replaced. Then every pixel within the designated colour range is replaced by the software with a pixel
from another image, aligned to appear as part of the original. For example, a TV weather person is
recorded in front of a plain blue or green screen, while compositing software replaces only the
designated blue or green colour with weather maps.
3D Animation on TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3PZO_lCBkw
3D featured rarely on television until 1994 when a Canadian production company called Mainframe
Entertainment based in Vancouver released a CGI TV series called Reboot. The series was credited
to be the first ever full-length, completely computer-animated TV series. The program was unique at
the time it was released since the first fully 3D animated movie hadn’t yet been released, so it
attracted a lot of attention not only from the audience but also drew the attention of older people too
due to its originality and technical vocabulary.

5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuNY5nYo0gY
The setting is in the inner world of a computer system known by its inhabitants as Mainframe. It was
deliberately chosen due to technological constraints at the time, as the fictional computer world
allowed for blocky looking models and mechanical animation. Mainframe is divided into six sectors:
Baud way, Kits, Floating Point Park, Beverly Hills, Wall Street, and Getty Prime. The names of
Mainframe's sectors are homages to famous neighbourhoods, mostly in New York City or Los
Angeles.
As the cost of production has fallen, the use of 3D within TV has mushroomed. Production values
have started to mirror those of the film industry.
24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzYQ_gRDnnY
Primeval
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdeBxEuQieY
3D in Education
3D technology is used effectively to create educational tools and content, enhancing traditional
education methods or by providing virtual classrooms. For example, Gaia 3D Viewer:
The Gaia 3D Viewer has been designed with the classroom in mind. The simple interface requires no
training and teachers are able to start teaching lessons in 3D straight away. Different Viewer options
offer a variety of capabilities allowing maximum flexibility in the classroom. Gaia offers a variety of
lessons covering all subjects from Biology to History and Geography. Each lesson can be enhanced
by the teacher with the capability to quickly and easily embed external assets directly into the lessons
provided. The full environments, such as the Roman City and Pond Ecosystem, allow teachers and
pupils to explore and discover in a virtual environment. Using the camera function in the Viewer,
teachers may individually determine and control the path they wish to travel inside any selected 3D
environment. For instance, take the classroom on a virtual tour of ancient Giza or on an underwater
hunt for tadpoles.

6. 3D in Architecture
Architects are able to use 3D technology to plan buildings and environments and produce
visualisations of the finished designs:
Construction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qtfcNykNVYU
Fly – Through
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SX8SggAKM&feature=player_embedded
3D in Engineering
Engineers use 3D technology to design and test plant and equipment:
Kame Engineering - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZA60wVLYpM&feature=player_embedded
Net Engineering - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6AVAzGQMxEg
3D in Medicine
3D technology is used within the medical sector for training purposes, but most importantly, in the
imaging of the body:
CT - 3D Imaging - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=og3t1i9gSG0
MRI - 3D Imaging - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XwUn64d5Ddk
3D in Meteorology
3D technology is used to model weather systems to help understand upcoming patterns, particularly
in the case of extreme weather conditions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EbqVojwLo8c
3D in Product Design
3D technology is used by designers to develop and visualise new products:
3FD
Sassy Cup
This is the advert for one of the products, the Sassy Cup developed by 3FD -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PKb-eU6wAU&feature=player_embedded