Eli5: How does cgi go from a grey ball to something hyper realistic

Question

Eli5: How does cgi go from a grey ball to something hyper realistic

In: Technology

Answer 1

If you’re starting from a grey ball you’re probably using virtual sculpting tools, and those are made to work in the same way that clay sculpting works. So the answer is the same as how you’d make a realistic clay sculpture.

You don’t need to do it that way of course, if you’re modeling something like a car you might do something more like cad where you define various straight lines and curves then fill them in to make the 3D object.