Glossary of Terms
Glossary
The following is a glossary of terms used in SOFTIMAGE.
3D Three dimensional. A concept used in modelling and animation in which shapes are defined in terms of three axes (x, y, and z) used to represent width, height, and depth, respectively.
3D textures See Procedural textures.
Actor A term often used for an animated character.
Actor is also the module in SOFTIMAGE|3D that lets you create characters made from articulated chains. See Articulated chains and Inverse kinematics.
Adaptive supersampling A way of antialiasing the surface of an object by decreasing the oversampling rate for those pixels that do not require the oversampling. Compare to Barlett filter. The results of adaptive supersampling are slightly more localized than a Barlett filter, and the computing time is often shorter.
Algorithm A rule or procedure for solving a mathematical problem that usually involves repeating an operation.
Aliasing “Jagged” images created by unfiltered angled lines being presented upon the raster lines. These effects include staircasing along diagonal lines, moire effects in checkerboards, and temporal aliasing (strobing) in animated scenes. Aliasing is caused by limited display resolution.
Alpha channel The alpha channel is one of the four channels (or components) of information with each pixel of an image. It specifies the transparency of each pixel, allowing portions of one image to show through another when they are overlaid. The alpha component is typically output as a separate component signal. Other channels or components are Red, Green, and Blue.
Ambient A term used to describe the lighting or illumination in a scene which is assumed to come from any direction and is thus independent of the presence of objects, the viewer position, or the actual light sources in the scene.
Amplitude Typically describes the strength of an electronic signal, measured by its waveform’s height. Also used to describe the strength of deformation (envelope) in the Actor module.
Animatics Preliminary animated versions of a final video or film presentation.
Animation The movement of elements through time and space. Also, the process of creating and recording images that change over time. In SOFTIMAGE|3D, almost any element or parameter can be animated.
Antialiasing A method of smoothing out and sharpening rough or fuzzy edges of graphics to produce a more polished look. This is done by a mathematical process that subsamples pixels.
Articulated chain A hierarchy composed of a chain root, a number of joints, and an end effector. It is also called a kinematic chain because it uses inverse kinematics. Articulated chains are used to animate objects and are invisible to the renderer.
Aspect ratio The ratio of height to width of a rectangular area such as a screen, window, or pixels. Images become distorted if forced into a different aspect ratio during enlargement, reduction, or transfers.
Axis, axes A straight line indicating the origin and direction of an object in space. By using two axes, a plane is determined: for example, the xy plane is defined by placing the x and y axes so that they intersect at the global centre (point of origin). Three dimensions are determined by using three axes: x, y, and z.
Background image In compositing, the background image is the one on top of which other images are placed. In 3D environments, this is an image, colour, or environment rendered behind all objects in a scene.
Bartlett filter A way of antialiasing the surface of an object using a static oversampling algorithm based on a variable width box filter. As you increase the filter level, more of the adjacent subpixels samples are taken into account while filtering a pixel. Compare with Adaptive supersampling. The results of a Bartlett filter is a slightly softer looking image than adaptive supersampling.
Bitmap A computerized picture made up of dots (pixels). The images are mapped onto the screen directly from the corresponding bits in memory (hence the name). Each pixel in a bitmap is converted into data representing the xy position of the pixel, as well as its colour.
Blending The amount that the materials and 2D or 3D textures are combined together on an image to change its surface appearance.
Blinn shading A method of computing the shading of three-dimensional surfaces developed by James Blinn. It uses four characteristics: diffusion, specularity, eccentricity, and refractive index. It is similar to Phong shading, except that it creates a slightly different highlight that is useful for rough or sharp edges. See also Lambert and Phong shading.
Blurring Image manipulation effect which smooths the appearance of an image by decreasing its sharp edges. You can also create motion blur for a moving object in SOFTIMAGE|3D, in which it is blurred to create the appearance of movement.
Brightness The degree of overall visual intensity provided by a reproduced visual image.
B-Spline A particularly smooth class of approximating curves. B-Splines are fully approximating: such a curve generally passes through its control points if several of them are in the same location.
BSP tree Binary Space Partitioning tree. A technique for subdividing 3D space to reduce the number of computations required for intersection computation during rendering.
Buffer A memory area in which information is stored and then retrieved later.
Bump mapping The process of creating and displaying a texture during modelling or animation where the values of the texture are used to simulate the bumpiness of an objects’ surface. You can also change the actual geometry of an object by using displacement mapping if you render with the mental ray renderer.
Camera The position from which a scene is viewed and rendered. A camera is a combination of its position, direction, rotation, and field of view. The camera’s point of view is represented in the Perspective window.
Cartesian space A two-dimensional grid used to represent three-dimensional space. It is the Euclidean/Cartesian mathematical representation of space using a coordinate system based on three perpendicular axes (x, y, z) intersecting at one point. This point is called the origin. See also XYZ Axes.
CD-ROM Compact Disc-Read Only Memory. A format for storing and distributing digital media.
Channels The drivers that allow you translate the movement created with connected input devices (such as a mouse, joystick, or receptors attached to somebody’s body) to function curves in SOFTIMAGE|3D.
Chapters Directories within a database in which your files are stored. In SOFTIMAGE|3D, these are predefined chapters sorted by the types of elements in a scene, such as MODELS, PICTURES, RENDERED_PICTURES, LIGHTS, CAMERA, etc.
Clicking The act of quickly pressing and releasing a mouse button.
Cluster A defined group of points for the purpose of being manipulated. A cluster has no geometry of its own, but refers to other geometry. It can have a centre to make for easier manipulation.
Colour A property of light defined by the frequency of the radiation detected by the eye. The magnitude of each frequency component of the light determines the exact hue detected by the eye.
Colour value The relative lightness or darkness of a colour.
Composite To form an image by combining two or more images.
Compression A process where information content is reduced to a smaller quantity of information for processing and storage. The information must be decompressed or expanded in order to be recovered. Data that has been compressed suffers some loss or degradation from the original source.
Constant shading This type of shading considers the object as being evenly lit. Only the diffuse shading area is used to colour the object. Reflectivity, transparency, refraction, and texture can be applied to an object shaded with Constant.
Constraints A way of animating one object by using the animation of another to which it is constrained. There are predefined constraints in SOFTIMAGE|3D, such as to constrain by position, direction, rotation, tangent, up vector, etc. You can also create your own constraints between object’s using mathematical expressions.
Contiguous Being in contact with or adjacent to one another. For example, a surface is contiguous with another surface when it shares an edge.
Contrast The degree of definition between lit and shadowed areas in a visual image.
Coordinate system A way of describing the placement of a point in space. In SOFTIMAGE|3D, this system defines placement using three intersecting axes. See Cartesian space.
Cursor An arrow, I-beam, cross-hair, or other shape on the screen showing the current location of the mouse cursor.
Curve A collection of straight or curved line segments attached by their ends, or knots, to make a curve. The look of the resulting curve varies depending on the manner of interpolating the control points. In this document, the term curve refers to Linear, Bezier, Cardinal,
B-Spline, and NURBS curves.
Cycle A short series of frames which may be played over and over to create the illusion of continuing, repeated action.
Database A large directory in which subdirectories called chapters are stored. Chapters contain files. Databases typically contain similar types of information, such as a database of textures, materials, rendered pictures, or scenes.
Data rate The speed at which a device can provide information (measured in kilobytes per second). Faster data rates permit larger frames of information and more frames per second.
Decompression Restoration of an image to its original size after it has been compressed.
Default The initial setting of a menu command or dialogue box parameter: the setting you get when you first start using the system.
Deformation A way of deforming objects by associating another object (curve, surface, lattice, shape) with it that is used as a deforming tool. The deformation depends on two factors: the shape of the deforming tool and the scaling, rotation, or translation of the deformed object.
Depth cueing The process of reducing the apparent sharpness of an object the further away it is from the viewer. This often enhances the perception of depth.
Depth fading The process of varying colours in a scene depending on the distance from the camera.
Dialogue box A box containing options (parameters) that can be set to perform a specific action.
Diffusion A modelling term to describe light which is reflected equally in all directions from a point on the surface of an object. It does not depend on the observer’s position relative to the surface point. This can be thought of as the “unshiny” property of a surface. The diffuse component carries the colour of the surface; the specular component appears as a highlight.
The decreasing of the sharpness of an image without changing its focus. Diffused images seem softer, less clearly defined, and farther away. Diffusion is often used to create a better blending of images.
Directory A “folder” for grouping files. In SOFTIMAGE|3D, these are known as chapters within a larger directory called a database. In operating systems, directories are presented as file folders in which files are stored.
Dodecahedron An 3D object having 12 plane faces. A regular dodecahedron has pentagon faces, and a rhombic dodecahedron has rhombus faces.
Dolly To move the camera forward (dolly in) or backward (dolly out).
DopeSheet Similar to an exposure sheet in traditional animation, it is used to manage animation sequences. Frames are displayed as a sequence of “cells” with keyframes marked in a different colour for easy identification. The DopeSheet makes it simple to cut, copy, and paste sequences of animation, play only a section of an animation sequence, and activate or deactivate an animation sequence.
Dragging To click and hold down the mouse button while moving the mouse. A common use for dragging is moving an object from one location to another.
Easing (Ease-in, Ease-out) The reduction in the acceleration or deceleration of motion to present a smoother, more continuous movement. The shape of a function curve can reflect this when it is set to a Spline interpolation type.
Effector The last point in an articulated chain displayed as a null. When effectors are moved on inverse kinematics chains, the orientation of joints are automatically adjusted.
Envelope An object or hierarchy that is assigned as a “skin” to one or more articulated chains to create a model that can be rendered. Envelopes can be flexible or rigid; they can be the parent or the child of the chain (or a joint of a chain); they may or may not be weighted to specified joint according to a percentage weighting.
Expressions Mathematical expressions which allow you to change the animation of an object. You can also create constraints between objects using expressions, or create conditional animation. Expressions are very powerful for creating precise animations.
Extrude To make a three-dimensional surface or shape by giving a two-dimensional object depth in space. The extrusion will have the curve or face as its cross-section.
Face A planar object made from a closed curve. Faces can be any shape and can contain holes.
Faceted In modelling, the appearance of roughness or texture to an otherwise smooth surface. More specifically, the use of line segments to represent the model boundaries of curved objects. This saves time in modelling, but reduces image quality when flat or Phong shading is used. Advanced rendering techniques can usually overcome these problems.
File Information stored on with a name in a chapter (directory). A file can contain any sort of information, such as text, or information about a scene, textures, or animation.
Flexible envelope. See Envelope.
Flipbook A utility that displays a rendered frame or sequence of rendered frames on the screen.
Font type Characters (letters, numbers and symbols) belonging to a specific type face in a given weight, style, and size (for example, Helvetica bold).
Foreground image The image closest to the camera.
Fractals A type of shapes that are created by fractal geometry, which applies recursive subdivisions to a basic form while introducing a random factor at each subdivision.
Frame A single complete picture of animation. A frame is a static image which, when combined with other static images sequentially, gives the illusion of motion. For example, two video fields make up one video frame, and one film frame is 1/24th of a film second.
Frame buffer The memory a computer uses to hold one or more frames for later use.
Function curve A graphic representation of the relationship between time and the parameter values. Function curves are represented as a curve with points in an xy grid and allow you to edit different parameters, such as animation.
Global coordinates A coordinate system that is used to locate an object in relation to a world origin. See also Cartesian space.
Hidden Any element that is not shown in the current rendering of the scene, but still exists.
Hierarchy A graphical way of defining the elements in relationship to each other (usually using a parent-child or tree analogy). For example, this relationship means that the movement of a “parent” affects the movement of the “child,” but you can move the child by itself as well.
HLS Hue, Luminance, Saturation, three components of the HLS colour model. Hue describes the tint of the colour (red, yellow, etc.), saturation describes the amount of pigment in a hue (red vs. pink), and luminance describes the brightness of the colour (cherry red vs. burgundy).
HSV Hue, Saturation, Value. Same as HLS, except Value describes the brightness, or amount of white included.
Hue One component of colour. Hue describes the tone or tint of a colour (red, yellow, blue, etc.).
Icon A graphical element or image used to represent an object or action.
Icosahedron A 3D object that has 20 sides whose faces are triangular.
Image resolution The number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions.
In-betweening See Interpolation and Keyframe.
Instance A “virtual replicate” of an object or hierarchy which references the master from any location on the screen. Modifications to the master are immediately reflected in all its instances. Contrast with a duplicate of an object.
Interpolation Generally, the process used to estimate an unknown value bracketed by two or more known values. In animation, interpolation is the process of synthesizing frames between two keyframes of a sequence.
Inverse kinematics The movement and rotation of an articulated chain in accordance to the location of the end-effector of a chain. See Articulated chains.
Joint A link in an articulated chain. It is composed of a point of articulation and a stretched octahedron. Joints are connected end to end with the local x-axis pointing toward the next joint. They can be rotated at the point of articulation about the three axes. See Articulated chains and Inverse kinematics.
Joint model An object that is parented to a single joint of an articulated chain. Once assigned to a joint, the joint model follows the movement of the joint.
Keyframe A particular frame used as a guide for creating subsequent actions. The state (size, location, etc.) of an item at a point in time is specified by a keyframe in an animation. In-between frames are then created by the system by interpolation. See also Interpolation.
Lambert shading One of the first shading models used in computer graphics, based on the application Lambert’s cosine law, which deals with the intensity of reflected light, discovered in the 16th century by Johann Lambert, a physicist and astronomer. This shading type shades the object smoothly, creating a matte surface with no specular highlights. Two illumination areas are defined on the object’s surface: ambient and diffuse. Lambert allows reflectivity, transparency, refraction and texture to be applied to the object. See also Blinn and Phong shading.
Lattice A bounding box made up of points. Lattices let you deform an object or a group of objects linked in a hierarchy when the lattice surrounds the object. Every point on a lattice is associated with a number of points on the object: when a point on the lattice is moved, the points on the object are also moved thus changing the object’s shape.
Light A source of illumination in a scene. A light can be assigned an intensity, colour, position, etc. These are the different types of light: infinite, point, spot, and sun.
Local coordinates An object’s own reference point or origin, which is its own centre, as compared to global coordinates which includes an origin for all objects in the world space. See also World.
Loop A continuous playback of an animation segment.
Luminance The black and white information (brightness, sharpness, and contrast) encoded in a colour. The amount of luminance contained in a colour is directly proportional to the amount of light intensity.
Manipulation modes Allow you to perform transformation on different types of elements in a scene: objects (OBJ), tagged points (TAG), centres (CTR), 2D texture supports (TXT), or polygons on a polygon mesh object (POL). These modes are found in the lower-right corner of the SOFTIMAGE|3D display.
Map Making one image conform to the size, shape, and/or texture of another image.
Material Attributes of the object that define its surface qualities, such as colour, areas of illumination, transparency, reflectivity, refraction, etc. You can add a 2D or 3D texture “on top” of the object’s material and blend them together.
mental ray A renderer type that allows you to do sophisticated rendering of a scene. Many attributes of a scene can be defined during the rendering process with mental ray. See also Shaders.
Menu bar Located on either side of the display windows, the menu bars contain the menu cells.
Menu cell A menu cell contains different commands for actions which can be performed in the software.
Message box A box generated by SOFTIMAGE|3D that appears when a choice must be made, or an error or other condition must be acknowledged. A message box contains an explanatory message and one or more selections.
Meta-clay An object defined by density. It is a field of matter that comprises a solid core surrounded by a semi-solid influence zone that decreases in density with distance from the centre until it reaches a defined edge.
Modelling Geometric representation in three dimensions.
Module Different parts of the SOFTIMAGE|3D interface that reflect certain types of actions that you perform, such as modelling, animating, creating characters, defining and rendering the surface, and using tools related to the animation process. The modules available are Model, Motion, Actor, Matter, and Tools.
Monochrome An image with a single hue. All variation in the image is based on the value, or luminosity. Typically, a monochrome image is in grey-scale only.
Normals Vectors at right angles to the plane or surface of an object. Normals indicate the visible side of the object, its orientation to the viewer. In SOFTIMAGE|3D, an object’s normals are represented by thin blue lines. By default, the renderer shows only the side with the normals.
NTSC National Television Standards Committee. The organization that originally defined what a standard video signal is. It is now usually used in reference to a video signal that conforms to the NTSC guidelines. The NTSC signal is a composite video signal of 525 scan lines, interlaced, 60 fields per second (30 frames per second) with a bandwidth limited to 4.2MHz so that it will fit into a 6MHz broadcast television channel without interfering with adjacent channels. This standard is used in North America and some countries abroad. See also PAL and SECAM.
Null An object with only a centre and no geometry (control points), meaning that it is invisible in a rendered scene. Typically it is used as a “dummy” object, such as a parent of a hierarchy, or as a constraint. By default, a null is displayed in the windows as three intersecting lines.
NURBS Non-Uniform Rational B-spline. A type of curve for which the delta (difference) between successive knots need not be expressed in uniform increments of one. This non-uniformity, and the presence of an extra parameter “weight” for each control point, distinguish NURBS from other curve types.
Object Basic building block in modelling. An object is a mathematical description of a two- or three-dimensional shape, such as a sphere, cone, cube, torus, circle, curve, etc. Primitive objects are predefined objects that you can use to adapt and manipulate.
Octahedron A 3D object with eight sides.
Origin In Cartesian coordinates, this is the point in which the x, y, and z axes intersect. See also Cartesian Space and XYZ Axes.
Orthographic window A parallel projection window to show a scene from any plane. The Ortho window in SOFTIMAGE|3D lets you orbit the camera to see a scene from any angle while maintaining its parallel projection view so that depth is not perceived.
PAL Phase Alternate Line. The video signal standard used in Western Europe and the United Kingdom. Video products destined for that area must be compatible with this standard as opposed to NTSC standards. PAL is based on the 50Hz power system and displays 625 scan lines interlaced at 50 fields per second (25 frames per second). Conversion between PAL and NTSC or SECAM is possible, but the standards are incompatible. See also NTSC and SECAM.
Palette A collection of colours available for materials and textures. You can use predefined palettes or create your own.
Pan A camera technique in which the focal point is adjusted by pivoting the camera direction, usually slowly across a scene.
Parameter A property whose values determine the behaviour of something. Parameters are set in dialogue boxes in SOFTIMAGE|3D.
Patch An object made of parametric cubic curves. A patch is formed by joining points using curves to create a curved, free-form surface.
Path The prescribed path along which an object is animated.
The directory path to a certain file in the operating system’s directory structure. Path names begin with a slash character (/) to signify the top or root of the file system.
Penumbra The secondary “fringe” area of a shadow. See Shadow.
Perspective A traditional art method of creating the illusion of three-dimensional form and distance on a two-dimensional surface. The Perspective window is a window type that provides a three-dimensional view of the scene that indicates depth.
Phong shading A method of shading used in modelling the surfaces of three-dimensional objects developed by Phong Biu-Tuong. The Phong model uses three characteristics – diffusion, specularity, and ambience – to create a smoothly curving surface with light-reflecting highlights. See also Blinn shading and Lambert shading.
Picking A way of selecting an object when in a certain mode of action. You click on an element without using the space bar as you do for selecting.
Pixel A discrete unit of picture information meaning picture element, the smallest unit of raster graphics. The resolution in a computer-generated digital image is directly related to the density of the pixels that make up the image.
Point A fundamental building element of an object in 3D space with an xyz location. Point coordinates are the minimum information from which the geometry of an object can be calculated.
Polygon A modelling term describing a planar, non-intersecting set of contiguous line segments.
Polygon mesh An object made of polygons, which are closed planar surfaces. Polygon mesh objects are versatile because polygons can be added to the shape and manipulate its points. They are also less “costly” in terms of rendering time.
Primitive One of several predefined 2D or 3D objects available in SOFTIMAGE|3D in the Get menu cell. These include the 2D arc, circle and square, and the 3D sphere, cube, tetrahedron, torus, and so on. Primitives can be used “as is”, or modified.
Procedural texture A texture created by a computer procedure with a set of parameters instead of a picture file. This can be either a 2D or 3D texture, but in SOFTIMAGE|3D, these are always 3D textures.
Quick Stretch A method of deforming an object’s shape by using its velocity or acceleration. This method of deformation is especially useful to created cartoon-like actions, such as squash-and-stretch actions.
RAM Random Access Memory. A computer’s source of accessible memory to run applications and process data. Not to be confused with ROM (Read Only Memory) which is a computer’s storage space, such as a hard disk or CD-ROM.
Raytracing A computation-intensive rendering method that plots a view of every pixel in a scene through a virtual camera’s lens. It takes into account the location, strength, and quality of all light sources, along with the surface characteristics of each object in the scene. Shiny objects reflect other objects, and realistic shadows are cast. Raytracing bounces the light through the model rather than terminating light values when they first intersect an object. The colour and direction of light is changed by the reflective and spectral properties of the object.
Reflected light Light which strikes an object and is thrown back instead of being absorbed by a surface.
Reflection map A method of mapping an image onto an object in which the image is a rendering of the object’s environment. The resulting mirror effect adds realism and takes much less time to calculate than ray tracing.
Reflectivity A surface characteristic used to determine colour intensity in lighting models which therefore helps determine how the surface looks.
Refraction The bending of light as it passes through a transparent or translucent object.
Refractive index The degree to which light bends when passing through a transparent or translucent object. For reference, the refractive index of a vacuum is 0.0, and water is 1.0.
Refresh To update information shown on the monitor.
Rendering The process of creating a final image or sequence of images from a scene description. The process of taking a geometric model, a lighting model, a camera view, and other image generation parameters such as maps and computing an image in raster. Rendering techniques such as shading, light source, or depth cueing are sometimes used to make the image look realistic. There are various types of renderers in SOFTIMAGE|3D including the default SOFTIMAGE renderer, mental ray, depth cue, wireframe, hidden line, ghost, hardware, and rotoscoping.
Resolution The number or horizontal versus the number of vertical pixels (as in 640 x 480 or 1024 x 768) that can be displayed on a monitor. In analog video (such as NTSC), resolution is described as the number of scan lines that can be displayed on a monitor. Horizontal and vertical resolution are not always equal.
RGB The abbreviation for red, green, and blue, the three additive colour components used to create any colour by mixing them. Computer monitors use this concept to create the various colours they display. The number of colours displayable is limited only by the number of graduations possible in each primary colour. In digital systems, there is a finite number limited by the bit depth of the image and the ability of the graphics adapter and monitor to differentiate the different colours.
Rolloff The rate at which apparent light intensity decreases as a function of angle away from a spotlight’s direction. A value of zero means that the light intensity is constant over the area illuminated. See also Specular Rolloff.
Root The parent node of any articulated chain. Action affecting the root affects the rest of the chain. See also Inverse kinematics.
The root directory in the operating system’s directory structure. Path names begin with a slash character (/) to signify the top or root of the file system.
Rotate A transformation turning an object around an axis (x, y, z, or any combination of them) to change its orientation.
Rotoscoping A technique in which individual frames of a video or film are imported into SOFTIMAGE|3D and “traced.”
Saturation The degree to which a colour is diluted by luminance, or white light (for example, red is more saturated than pink). A colour that is 100 percent saturated contains no white light.
Scaling Changing of the size of an object without changing its location or orientation.
Scene A collection of objects, animation, lights, materials, a camera, etc. When you save a scene, you also save the particular attributes of each of these elements.
Schematic window Shows objects in a scene in their hierarchical structure. It also shows the relationship between elements such as lights, cameras, material, animation, etc. See Hierarchy.
SCSI Small Computer System Interface. The standard interface for computers and peripheral devices.
SECAM Sequential Couleur a Memoire. The television broadcast standard for France, the former USSR, and various eastern European countries. Like PAL, SECAM is based on 50Hz power system, but uses a different encoding process and displays 819 lines interlaced at 50 fields per second. SECAM is not compatible with NTSC or PAL, but conversion between the standards is possible. See also NTSC and PAL.
Segment A portion of a curve or an animation sequence.
Selecting A way of making a certain element in the scene an active one so that all subsequent actions are performed on it. More than one element can be active at the same time. You can select an element by holding down the space bar and then clicking on it.
Sequence A series of images, usually in an animation.
Server Bar The horizontal bar located at the top of the display naming SOFTIMAGE|3D and the different modules: Model, Actor, Motion, Matter, and Tools.
Set A selection of objects that are grouped together, but do not have a hierarchy relationship.
Shader A set of parameters grouped together to define a surface in a certain way. These are to create effects during the rendering process using the mental ray renderer. There are different types of shaders for different things: light, lens, material, 2D texture, 3D texture, volume, and output.
Shading The difference in colour across a surface is due to different surface characteristics and lighting. This process gives objects a sense of depth. Most sophisticated shading techniques provide smooth transitions on curved objects and let objects cast shadows.
Shading model The method used to create the intensity and colour of objects in a scene. These are related to the areas of illumination on a surface: ambient, diffuse, and specular. The different shading models in SOFTIMAGE|3D include Phong, Blinn, Constant, and Shadow Object.
Shadow An area that is totally or partially obscured from light by an object. A shadow is composed of an umbra area (the main shadow when an object completely blocks the light) and a fringe penumbra area (when the object only partially blocks the light).
Skeleton A group of articulated chains grouped together in a hierarchy. See Articulated chains.
Skin A surface that fits or “envelopes” any number of articulated chains. See Envelope.
Smoothing The process of eliminating the “jaggies.” Also known as antialiasing.
Solid texture Also called a 3D texture. A texture that gives the appearance of an object that has been carved from a block of a substance. Solid textures have no edges, but provide a continuous-looking appearance.
Specular The area of reflection of light off a shiny surface. Specular reflection depends on the position of the camera, whereas diffuse light does not.
Spreadsheet window A way of visualizing elements in a scene using rows and columns as in a spreadsheet. You can perform queries and sort elements in the Spreadsheet window. Queries help you sort through a scene’s many elements because a query only displays the element type you requested.
Status bar The line at the bottom of the screen where mouse information, prompts, warnings, and the time line are displayed.
Supra keys These are keyboard shortcuts equivalent to specific operations in SOFTIMAGE|3D.
Surface A 2D parametric shape that defines the boundary or skin of an object in three dimensions. Examples of surfaces are patches and NURBS surface objects.
Surface of revolution A modelling term defining an object made by rotating a polygon or other shape around an axis. Also known as a sweep.
Swift keys These are keyboard shortcuts that you define to be equivalent to specific operations in SOFTIMAGE|3D.
Tangent A vector that determines the slope of a curve or a surface at a given point.
Tessellation The way that the surface of an object is divided into triangles for the purpose of rendering.
Tetrahedron A 3D object with four sides.
Texture A modelling term describing a 2D pattern that is applied to the object surface during the shading computation. The advantage to texture is that the complexity of appearance does not have to be modelled in the object geometry. In SOFTIMAGE|3D, these are called 2D textures.
Texture mapping The way a picture file is mapped onto an object to be used as a 2D texture. When a picture is mapped onto an object, the correspondence between the picture’s pixels and points on the object’s surface is calculated. You can map a picture file to the object’s xy, yx, or yz coordinates. You can also map cylindrically, spherically, or by an object’s uv coordinates.
Toggle A command or option that is active or inactive. Each time you select it, it inverses the current state.
Torus A doughnut-shaped 3D object. It is the locus of all points on a circle swept around a larger orthogonal circle.
Tracking To pan the camera to follow the movement of an object.
Transform To rotate, scale, and/or translate an object to transform its orientation, size, and location, respectively.
Transformation modes Allow you to transform (scale, rotate, or translate) different elements in different ways, such as uniformly, on each axis, locally, globally, etc. Depending on the manipulation mode you select, you can transform objects, tagged points, centres, 2D texture supports, or polygons on a polygon mesh object. Transformation modes are found above the manipulation modes in the lower-right corner of the SOFTIMAGE|3D interface.
Translation The changing position of an object without changing its shape, size, or orientation.
Transparency The amount of light that travels through a surface. Complete transparency allows all light through; no transparency makes the surface completely opaque.
Transparency map A texture map that varies the transparency and transparent colour across a surface.
Trimming Using any closed curve to “trim” a NURBS surface, an effect similar to using a cookie-cutter to cut out shapes. The trim region(s) can be kept or removed.
Umbra The main area of a shadow. See Shadow.
Value Lightness or darkness of a colour. A component of the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) colour model.
Vertex, vertices The point (or points) of a network that serves as a connection for another line. This is how polygon mesh object surfaces are described.
Viewing area This is the workspace of SOFTIMAGE|3D which uses four viewing windows. By default, three of the windows are parallel projection windows (Top, Right, and Front windows) and one window is a Perspective window. You can also change these windows to be Schematic, Fcurve, Ortho, Spreadsheet, or Dopesheet.
Wireframe An image made up of the edges of objects, and drawn as lines resembling a model made of wire. This image displays tracing features such as edges or contour lines without attempting to remove invisible or hidden parts, or to fill surfaces.
XYZ axes In Cartesian space, these are the three axes which represent three-dimensional space. The x-axis is horizontal space, the y-axis is vertical space, and the z-axis is depth. The point at which these three axes intersect is called the origin. All three axes have positive and negative values, depending on which side of the origin they are.
Zoom A zoom increases the length of the camera lens, magnifying an aspect of a scene. The results of a zoom and a dolly are different. A dolly physically moves the camera closer to the point of interest without changing the length of the lens; perspective distortions peculiar to the lens length may result at the edges of the scene. Zoom increases the size of the point of interest by increasing the lens length; depth is not as well perceived as with a shorter lens.
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