s like them you’ll need to understand physics.
Even more important than Physics to digital art is Mathematics. If you aren’t doing game design or virtual reality simulations physics might not be quite as important to you, but there’s no escaping the importance of math. Digital art is math, literally. You might use software to paint a picture, but the software itself is using some complex math to make it happen. What is more important to the digital artist is how math can be directly utilized to create amazing results. Perhaps the best example of this are what are known as procedural textures. When you create digital art, whether it be a virtual avatar or just a 2D web graphic you’ll be using various images called “textures” to paint with, and these are made up of repeating patterns. It might be a cloth texture applied to a virtual pair of blue jeans, or it might be a Victorian wallpaper print in an art piece, or it might be a subtle skin texture applied to a virtual avatar. In some cases rather than using a source image it is easier and faster to use a procedural texture, and procedural textures are made using math. By using various math formula you can create remarkably complex patterns of color and shapes. One good example is software called Filter Forge, which is an application specifically for creating procedural textures. Using math and software like Filter Forge you can create patterns of brick and cobblestone, or fish scales, or chain mail, or walls of thorny vines and many other shapes. These are not made from pictures, but rather they are pictures made with math that can be amazingly realistic. Digital artist use them to quickly “skin” or “texture” a virtual brick building with bricks an mortar and a variety of other uses. The formula’s to create these textures are mostly algebra.
If you want to create 3D models you will also use math in doing so. Geometry in particular will end up being very important because that’s exactly what a 3D mesh is, geometry. Educators should be aware that future digital artists will need more than just the math of geometry, they’ll need to know how to apply it. For example, can you use geometry to help you figure out how to subdivide a sphere into nothing but four sided quads? This is currently an important skill for any 3D modeller to have when creating polygon meshes. You’ll also need the logic you learn from things like Algebra which will help you figure out how to solve problems like connecting a 16 sided polygon to the inside of a four sided polygon using nothing but quadrilateral polygons (here’s a hint, diamonds and trapezoids are both quadrilateral shapes and you’ll need both to do it).
So as you can see, math and science are important to digital art. But digital art is also becoming important to math and science. Researchers in molecular biology and particle physics both deal with things that we cannot see directly (and in the case of sub atomic particles, not at all); but a digital artist using math and physics can produce accurate visual representations that we can all see. The old saying is true, a picture is worth a thousand words and digital artists are helping both biologist and physicist share their discoveries with the world through virtual images and animations. But all of this requires a good eduction in science and math, and it also requires lots of imagination. This will only become more true in the future as digital art continues to become a part of our games, music, TV and movies, as well as even helping our scientists and researchers do their jobs. If we want to be ready for that future, education in math and science is critical.
I hope this article is helpful to both students and teachers in understanding the relationship between art and science. Its an old relationship well personified by Leonardo da Vinci who was both artist, scientist and inventor. Perhaps the age of digital art, in blending the sciences with art, will help produce more like da Vinci.