Cinematic trailers have always been a showcase of great computer animation, talented directing and skillfull storytelling. World of Warcraft provides some truly excellent cinematics, rivaling with movie visual effects wizardry.
This section will deal quite briefly with the most basic issues in three dimensional computer graphics, and is aimed to all the WoW players who are fascinated by the stunning visuals provided by the in game cinematics, yet have no experience of 3D graphics themselves.
This is not meant to be a complete introduction to 3D animation, as it's such a large and complex field even a brief explaination can easily require many pages. However, it should be enough to clarify the most basic terms and procedures.
3D Computer Graphics, or 3D Animation, is the ensemble of techniques that allow the production of so called "photorealistic images". That is, computer generated imagery that closely resembles the photograph of a real world object.
Basic shapes, such as triangles and quadrangles are defined in three dimensional space, as a mathematical blueprint of real world objects. Those objects, or models, are then textured and shaded. That is, real world properties are assigned to them such as color, reflectance and specularity.
Once the basic shape (thats to say the object's geometry) has been defined, 3D softwares can do a lot more than simply computing coordinates. They can make the objects look solid, lit from different directions, and apply to the surfaces different textures. From the real world picture of a marble slab or a worn helmet, to synthetic simulations of cracking ice derived from mathematical formulaes.
The process of turning coordinates and numerical properties into beautiful images is called rendering. World of Warcraft does real time rendering, but the quality is not the same as the cinematic trailers. Quality rendering usually requires a lot of time, but the hard work is done by the computer, not the artist.
That's why one of the most exciting things that can be done in 3D is to animate the images. Not only it's easier and faster than cartoon drawing: the mathematical nature of 3D objects allows to compute physically realistic simulations of items falling, cracking, or being bent by forces. An ideal situation for the Visual Effects artists that look for that elusive property bound to bring life to a world of magic and adventure.