Getting a grip on Optics
The art and craft of making cinema has always been a diverse scientific fusion and the abandonment of analogue systems for the flexibility and robustness of the digital landscape has only made it more so. However, what strikes me as particularly interesting is the the enormous over-lap between sciences, processes and concepts from analogue to digital. 3D and CGI environments are a prime example.
Working in these spaces, compositing, modelling, animating, rendering, largely derives its mechanics from real-world, physical and optical processes lifted right out of the analogue environment. Virtual cameras have f-stops and focal lengths, objects have weight and friction and gravity and light has radiance and refraction.
Each one of these elements is a hard science unto itself with an enormous body of knowledge informing the cinematic construction with these tools. But very often functional engagement with these tools comes form simple, clear, conceptual understandings.
This short article from ChromeSphere does exactly that as it overviews the key ideas behind the principles of Optics and Refraction. Short though it may be there is no filmmaker on earth who will fail to benefit from the knowledge.
Cinema IS light, without it there is no cinema. So understanding cinema and how to make it demands you understand how light behaves and how to control it.
Posted at 01:00AM Sep 24, 2007
by Mike Jones in motion graphics |
CS
Posted by chromesphere on January 07, 2008 at 02:24 PM EST #