Congratulations to Ken Perlin for his 1997 Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science Board of Governors, given in recognition of the development of "e;Turbulence"e;, Perlin Noise, a technique discussed in this book which is used to produce natural appearing textures on computer-generated surfaces for motion picture visual effects. Dr. Perlin joins Darwyn Peachey (co-developer of RenderMan(R), also discussed in the book) in being honored with this prestigious award.* * Written at a usable level by the developers of the techniques* Serves as a source book for those writing rendering systems, shaders, and animations.* Discusses the design and implementation of noise functions.* Contains procedural modeling of gases, hypertextures, mountains, and landscapes.* Provides a toolbox of specific procedures and basic primitive functions for producing realistic images.* Procedures are presented in C code segments or in Renderman shading language. * 3.5"e; disk contains the code from within the book for easy implementation