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# 13 21-06-2003 , 03:48 PM
adldesigner's Avatar
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: CCS, Venezuela
Posts: 3,363

Originally posted by adldesigner
In Graphic Design -and imagery in general- you have two types of images, bitmaps and vector graphics.

  • Bitmaps are images composed of a pixel reticule, in which each pixel has a RGB value, thus creating a big mosaic of pixels. This mosaic when seen from a distance -In reality this is resolution dependant- form an image. If you resample a bitmap image to a higher size, since you can´t invent information from nothing you´ll notice the mosaic nature of these images.
    A perfect example of bitmaps imagery is found here in SM, as all the images are bitmap-type.
    Bitmaps editing applications are your common photo image editors, such as PhotoImpact, MS Paint, and the industry standard Adobe Photoshop.
  • Vector Graphics are images created by the use of mathematical formulas -thus the vector name, as they are governed by these mathematical principles-, which is why these are resolution independant. At whatever resolution you see them, they´ll look the same.
    These images can be seen in almost all the articles you have in your kitchen, house, car ... etc. They offer versatility in almost all aplications, they´re even used throughout the web -Flash images are vector based animations compressed for delivery on the Web-. Editing these images is quite similar to playing with curves in Maya, since the Bezier principles are almost the same -I say almost since I don´t know if Maya uses another type of mathematical curve-*
    Most common vector editing applications are CorelDraw, Freehand, Flash ... and again an industry standard, Adobe´s Illustrator.
When you render an image in Maya, you´re actually rendering a bitmap image. Although this works perfectly for screen-delivered ads, movies etc, it starts to get cumbersome when used in printing industry -Since vector delivered images are easier to work with when printing and offer generally better results-. With all this said, you can see why vector rendering in Maya is spreading some ripples throughout the industry. This would make Maya work more or less for everybody, including ... us. Graphic Designers.

Some resources:
InfoNotes: Raster vs. Vector Images
Project Cool´s Graphic Zone

This should help some, user added image

By the way sjuric:
Try this tip from BulletProof. Save as *AI (version 8)
Illustrator eps?

*EDIT: NURBS are different from Beziers. Entirely different equations.


adldesigner
Caracas, Venezuela
Hell .. not gone perse, but with a certainly lower post count per day.


Last edited by adldesigner; 21-06-2003 at 03:55 PM.