Motion blur can both remove the jerkiness from a computer-generated animation and create the illusion of enhanced speed and motion. Have you ever noticed that there is no jerkiness in a movie, but there is plenty of jerkiness in a computer animation? Computer animation and movies are created in completely different ways. When shooting a movie, the camera's shutter opens, stays open for 1/24th of a second, then closes instantaneously before opening again to capture the next frame. All of the motion that happens in that 24th of a second is captured on the film. In fact, if you were to look at fast-moving objects in a single frame of a movie film you'd see that they are actually blurred because they are moving while the shutter is open. The result when you string together a series of such frames is the appearance of very smooth, continuous motion from frame to frame.
Now with regard to creating computer animation, suppose you're running at a frame rate of 60 frames per second (fps). A single "frame" of computer animation is displayed on the computer screen, held there for 1/60th of a second, then instantaneously the next frame of animation, which occurs 1/60th of a second in time later, is displayed. In virtually all of today's computer-generated animation, the objects in each frame are sharply rendered, motionless in the frame. When the next frame is displayed and an object, such as a vehicle or ball, has moved in the 60th of a second that has elapsed between the two frames, the object suddenly appears in a new location. Our eyes are so sensitive to motion that no matter how high the frame rate, even 100fps (frames per second), most people will notice the jerky motion.
3dfx's motion blur feature simulates an object's motion during the period of time that each frame is displayed on the screen. Moving objects are blurred, just as they are in real film, to enable very smooth and continuous motion. But we can do even more! By exaggerating an object's motion blur, T-Buffer can create the illusion of tremendous speed and make a scene much more visually appealing. To learn more about the T-Buffer and motion blur, take a look at our