Musings about how far 3D has come in 20-years

I’ve always been fond of a project I did back in 1997-1998. It represented the apex of what 3D Visualization could achieve. To be able to create an Architectural Interior that looked pretty darn real was exciting. It was one of the first interiors I ever did as well, as I was mainly a product visualizer when I started out in 1996.

Unfortunately, I’ve lost the project over the years and only small renders survived but I decided to see what I could do now, with all the incredible tools we have, with the same room. They are already plastered on other pages of this site…lol… But I felt they deserved an explanation as to why they even exist.

I mean, the 1998 renders do hold up on some level if you have nothing to compare them to. But upon deeper inspection you realize their limitations. There is no GI light bouncing around to fill in the scene. That was all faked with invisible lights placed around. Bump and Normal maps were not a prevalent, so materials were always flatter or shinier than in reality. Modeling was not as easy to do so objects had faceted or sharp edges. Polygon smoothing and mesh-smoothing was not as powerful as it is now. You see on the forward corner of the table that it’s really not radiused but is small straight sections. The same poly count model today would not look like that.

So, compare the good old days to the new exciting days. It’s a wonderful time to be 3D Visualizer/Artist. Our tools are only becoming more powerful, friendly and amazing. Combine what we can now do in real-time with 3ds Max and V-Ray and combine that with the emerging world of Unreal Engine everything, and the excitement just boils over…

I look forward to the next 20 years of development.