The clock said 23h00 but at least I finished my bike. I got the materials, the lighting and the set ready. I clicked “render” and went home. I suspected it would take Alias a few hours to calculate the 1280 x 1024 image I asked for. I came back to the Tinkertoy building the next morning. In the computer lab I was greeted with evil stares and for good reason. When I turned on the monitor the computer was still rendering 12 hours later, completely hogging the machine.
A generation later, the same image is rendered in seconds. Welcome to the crux of the battle. Along with Hollywood and gaming, the automotive industry is one of the biggest spenders in computer graphics, a never-ending arms race in hardware and software. It costs billions to put a car on the road. Modelling a vehicle is only a small part of the battle. It is essential to visualise the design as fast and as accurately as possible, all along the design process. This process can be divided in three categories: real time, calculated images and animation.
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