Computer graphics have invaded the world in a big way. Computer expands on man's fantasy options. You may have a mental picture of a house that you want to build. A computer screen can show you how the house would look better if built to certain specifications, certain sizes, with certain types of tiles, gardens, bath fittings, balconies, porches and what not. It can show you several options and move a room or staircase or window here and there to show you the difference in effect to help you with the best choice.
These are options for things that are yet to be created. Computers can also help you recall and bring alive the past that is believed to have been lost forever. Photo restorers advertise how they can digitize the past so that a 19th century photograph of a great-great-grandmother may look like one that has been taken just the previous day. Once the information of an image is stored in a digitized form, it sort of becomes immortal and can even be modified as necessary. Sophisticated softwares can get a 19th century grandmother wear 21st century clothing and make her look as if she is going to walk the ramp.
When microprocessor technology has invaded and revolutionized every field of human activity and even changed the very concept of memory, it is only natural that visual arts have also come under its influence. Computer graphics can be two-dimensional drawings like a pencil sketch or a building or machine drawing, or three-dimensional solid models, or digital fine arts or a combination of all these.
A 2D drawing generated on the computer may not be much different from one drawn conventionally, though it frees an architect from his large drafting board and scales and tapes and half a dozen pencils and erasers. Further, one drawing can give him a thousand copies also. But the real magic is with the 3D models. There are computer graphics programs that can render a 2D drawing into 3D ones of different width, length and height specifications and texture. These solid models can be rotated in virtual space to be viewed from every vantage point to decide its visual appeal and modified to suit a certain position or location. The scope for the architect, engineer or artist, to experiment with and manipulate these drawings and its effects, is infinitely more than what he has with a conventional perspective drawing.
3D Studio Max, now known as 3ds Max, AC3D etc. are some of the popular programs that has been in use from the nineties, for 3d modeling and animation. Cinema 4D and its companion package BodyPaint 3D are also widely used. Maya is an integrated 3D modeling, animation, effects, and rendering' program which is used for 3D rendering of architectural and machine drawings as well as for animation in films and television programs.
Digital fine art is different from 3D modeling and is more a painter's vista and battleground. It frees him from bits of paint on his nose or clothes, from the smell of turpentine and from having to rub petroleum jelly around the lid of acrylic medium bottles so that they open quickly. This category comprises today of an ever-widening array of works like painting, photography, restorations and myriad forms of designing.
Digital fine art creations may be completely original or reproductions or modifications. Mathematically precise engineering drawings and their 3D models created by AutoCAD, 3ds Max etc. are often transferred into this medium towards the final stage to make it more impressive and natural with proper light and background effects.
Digital fine art can be a digital painting or digital photography. In digital paining, images are created directly on a computer screen using painting tools of any given software. Most of the traditional physical media that a painter uses can be simulated in this method and there are different tools that can give 2D and 3D effects. The paintings can be bitmap images or vector images. A bitmap image is made up of pixels and is resolution dependent. Its quality is based on the number pixels per inch. Vector images, on the other hand are made up of scalable objects and is resolution independent.
The graphic image editor Photoshop (of Adobe) is extremely popular with digital artists. With its endless palette choices and editing tools, this bitmap graphic editor is the market leader for image manipulation. The non-linear editing using layered techniques, where one can work on different portions separately and combine and separate them at convenience, is quite fine-tuned in it. It is this editing power of the programs that secures the position of digital arts several notches above traditional drawing and painting. Adobe Illustrator is also a useful program for digital artists where the emphasis is more on illustration techniques. An addition that can be used with Photoshop and other similar programs is India Ink which can convert color images to black and white.
In digital photography, digital technology is used to make images instead of the more conventional photographic film. Or, existing photographs or any form of images or paintings can be digitized by a scanner or similar devices and transferred to the computer milieu. Within that environment, an artist has immense freedom to modify the work by using the tools that provide for special effects, and make the end product perfect.
Photopainting is a part of digital photography. An art form as old as photography, it is now done using the computer medium, where the entire background, light effects, skin or hair color can be changed. Where necessary, even the facial features can be altered. Corel Painter is a software quite popular with those who do photopainting. With its array of digital brushes, colors, textures and animation options, this bitmap or raster-based application is a painter's delight. The delicate brush strokes it allows, the smooth flow of paint and the canvas choices it offers are an artist's imagination come alive.
Digital collages too use a layered technique. Images are gathered from various sources, scanned from books or canvases, or created using a digital camera or any digital art software. Even a radar or x-ray image can be used in a digital collage. Then one of these images is used as background and the others superimposed as subsequent layers, adding and removing portions, and resizing to create the required effect. Paint Shop Pro is popular with the makers of digital collage. This photo editing software's options of layer styles, photo merging, editing tools all aid substantially in making collages.
A fractal, in digital art, is a rough geometric shape that can be subdivided into similar shapes. A Koch snowflake is an example. Certain natural objects like clouds, mountains etc. are also considered fractals. These are used in digital arts based on the artist's ability to compute and plot data into a graphic display using the proper software. Fractals are completely computer generated. Fractint, Ultra Fractal and Fractal Explorer are some of the software programs that generate fractals.
GIMP, which can be downloaded free, is also a program that creates and manipulates graphics. Certain features like color management and animation capabilities are different in Photoshop and GMIP and the suitability of each to any given person depends on the individual's requirement. Project Dogwaffle is another free paint and animation program. A commercial version of this program is available for a price and even that is cheaper than more popular programs. The free download itself has lots of features. Both GMIP and Dogwaffle are ideal for beginners who are not very sure of their own talents or the eventual commercially viability of investing in this art form.
Since digital technology helps the artist to save different versions, he can continuously manipulate and experiment without fear of losing the original work. He can rework and revert as he chooses. This flexibility gives abundant scope for fine-tuning. And he is always free to use conventional methods wherever it helps in improving the quality of the work. The buyer too has wider options of storing soft copies or hard copies or both and using it with different backgrounds and in different sizes.
When it first originated, digital painting was not very warmly welcomed. Gallery owners and art aficionados were skeptical about its originality. But it grew phenomenally in the nineties. It infused digital photography with heavy doses of surrealism and fantasy so that the viewer could have more of what he hoped to see than as things really are.
The biggest customers for computer graphics/digital arts, from the very beginning, were the advertising media. So much is the art form's demand in the advertising industry that one can even say that it was at least in part the child of necessity like broiler chicken. Cover designs, children's story book illustrations, shopping malls, theaters, restaurants etc. are the other markets for digital arts.
In today's highly commercial, consumer-oriented world, a digital artist does not have an independent existence like the painters of yesteryears. He is just one link in the convoluted network made up of manufacturers of computers and peripherals, software programmers, advertisers, marketers and outlet agencies. He might even have to adjust his own ideas of art to suit the changing market trends. Even demand is cleverly created in today's world and products are aggressively promoted.
All forms of media also use computer graphics profusely since they can be created faster and are less location-specific. The technology that gets constantly updated may soon achieve some sort of a revolution in the field, if we presume that it has not already done so. The computer-savvy modern generation, the information storage mechanism of digitized works that makes replication and modification a cakewalk and the decreasing cost of computer and its programs may eventually pave way for complete exclusion of traditional drawing and painting methods.
It is not just the photographs of human beings, but human beings themselves that gets digitally created. CGI or Computer Generated Imagery has started creating movie actors. Jurassic Park is one well-known example where computer generated dinosaurs were the lead actors. The heroine Simone of the movie Simone' also belonged to the same category. Producers and directors may even like them better for they are cheaper than flesh and blood actors. They do not negotiate contracts or walk out after a tiff with the director, leaving him in the lurch, searching for a replacement. They do not hike their charges with every succeeding film and maybe can be reused as a different star with slight modifications.
Of course, there is another side to this changing scenario. The demands made by successful actors and their star value might become the privilege of the digital artist if more and more digital actors are created. The artist may become finicky, charge higher rates and expect better appreciation of his art.
At least for extras, may producers and directors may find it easier to have digital actors rather than regular humans. Massive' is a 3D animation software that has created crowds in movies like Lord of the Rings', Robot' etc.
With the huge cost of fine paintings, with emphasis on originals, traditional art was out of reach of the common man. Digital art, which allows inexpensive replications, and can be printed on paper or canvas or metal or glass, may reverse this trend. It has evolved rapidly, unlike time-honored art forms that have taken centuries to get streamlined. The continuing advances in microprocessor technology, and the resultant improved modeling systems augurs a very bright future for digital arts.
As of today, the best-explored branch of digital fine art appears to be digital photography. Effectively combined with other art forms, it has created a huge market for itself and appears to be very commercially viable.
Digital painting received a lot of flak in its early stages under the belief that the medium minimized the artist's involvement. It was believed that the end product had less to do with human creativity and more to do with the power of computers. This idea is changing as more and more people become familiar with computer programs and its level of human involvement. Of course, at the end of the day, nothing is possible without the brilliant human mind because, after all, hardware and software are also its creations.