Into the looking Glass

I spend a considerable amount of time every week wondering what the future has in store for us in regard to technology in general - and 3D design and animation in specific.

Where are the tools, technologies and methodologies for 3D art creation headed?

Well, I think things over the next 10 years will evolve much as they have in the past 10 years or so...

This is to say, we will have mostly evolutionary advancements mixed the an occasional revolutionary advancement or two.

I'm no soothsayer, but here are my best guesses as to where things are headed:


1. practical & effective "interactive" hardware based raytracing is being perfected for commercial use as we speak. This is no longer a toy or some fringe technology. Several companies are about to release "game changing" hybrid 3D rendering technologies that will fundamentally change the way 3D art gets made. Expect more of the same from other vendors and broad support for hardware based rendering from the ISVs such as Autodesk.

2. advances in software development approaches will make better use of multicore CPU's. More features ands tools will be better "threaded" for overall better performance on modern multi-core computers.

3. (partly because of #1 & #2 above) New pipelines, methodologies and workflows for desktop "multitasking" and content creation will continue to increase the efficiency of the individual artist. THESE NEW, YET-UNKNOWN WORKFLOWS (and resulting efficiencies) WILL BE THE FACE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGY in this space. This is always the case with technology, I suspect.

4. "Smart" modeling and animation algorithms in 3D packages will speed modeling and animation tasks. Libraries and databases detailing the concepts and design of construction and assembly of thousands of types of objects and motions will allow your software to take informed "guesses" as to the effect that the artists is trying to achieve - and will assist the artist in preparing and finishing surfaces and perhaps motion paths/cycles, etc. This could be an online "pay service" integrated into your application and connected to the database(s) via the web.

5. Stereoscopic displays in the home (and at the theatre) will be common place in 5 years. Production & post production pipelines are beginning to adapt to this reality. This certainly includes 3D production pipelines. The first generation of tools and methodologies are in place. The will see more elegant approaches being developed and put into use.

6. New human-computer interfaces such as haptic, gestural/optical eye & hand tracking, voice recognition and command, and others will continue to evolve. We will likely see some of these evolve to the point that they will be adopted into graphics, 3D and VFX design tools. If not for "finishing work", at least for ideation, conceptualization and review.

7. The "bar" for what people come to expect in "photoreal" 3D content will continue to be raised as more and more accurate lighting models/approaches are enabled and refined. The line between reality and make-believe will continue to blur. This will be more evident in the area of creating synthetic human and animal characters that are indistinguishable from the real thing -the "holy grail" of 3D VFX.

7. Finally, In general, I believe that the training and tools required to produce top quality 3D imagery and animation will continue to become more and more accessible by those with a desire to succeed in this industry.