Overview
Computer graphics (CG) is mainly divided into 3DCG (three-dimensional computer graphics) and
2DCG (two-dimensional computer graphics). However, the term is now often used to mean 3DCG, including within pixiv.
3DCG
3DCG is fundamentally different in principle from 2DCG, and can be described as a three-dimensional model assembled virtually in a computer and photographed.
Around the 1980s, research on expression progressed in parallel with technological development, but at that time, expression was feasible only on expensive workstations and was not something that the general public could afford. Starting with Winning Run, which went into operation in 1988, the use of 3DCG in arcade games began to become common. After the PlayStation and Sega Saturn were released in 1994, 3D became the rage for video game consoles, but 3DCG at that time was extremely simple and poor.
In 1995, the movie Toy Story was released as the first theatrical feature film created in full 3DCG, and since the 2000s, 3D animation has become the mainstream for American animated films.
In addition, GPUs in game consoles and PCs have become explosively more powerful since the late 1990s, and by the 2010s it was possible to produce graphics in real time that could be mistaken for live-action video.
Today, it has become a common method used for all kinds of image and video production, not only for games and movies, but also for TV commercials, illustrations, cartoons, etc.
It is not uncommon for live-action images to be adjusted by computer. Although live-action images have many advantages, unlike 2D pictures, it is difficult for the creator to express thier own style of art.
2DCG
In layman's terms, 2DCG is "a picture created by reproducing art materials on a computer". There are few expressions unique to 2DCG (and even if there are, they have long since fallen into disuse due to their peculiar cheapness). In other words, it is a form of expression in which the artist's own taste comes out as it is, just as it does with traditional drawing materials.
Early PCs such as the MSX and PC-9801 were extremely poor in terms of resolution, memory capacity, and number of colors, and dot-picture-like expressions were the best they could do. It was not until 1987, when the first color-specification Macintosh II was introduced, that it became possible to create computer graphics at a level beyond pixel art. Inevitably, the Macintosh penetrated the field of computer graphics.
Full-scale dissemination began in the early 1990s, when the price of color-compatible Macintosh computers dropped and peripheral devices such as color image scanners and color printers began to become more plentiful. Many of the software tools developed by companies that lived through this period of history originated on the Macintosh and were later developed into Windows versions (Adobe and Corel are prime examples).
Until around the end of the 1990s, when the internet was in its early stages of popularization, the term "CG site" was often used to refer to computer-generated/painted images in general, and "illustration sites" such as pixiv and Pixa are now commonly referred to as CG sites. In addition, 3DCG at that time was far away from the general public, and as a result, it mostly referred to 2D drawings.
Since then, computer-generated illustrations have become the norm, and it has become difficult to distinguish between digital and traditional pictures, so it is no longer necessary to use the term CG to refer to 2DCG. However, it is not uncommon for artists who are mainly engaged in traditional art to use this tag for their digitally colored pictures.
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