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P

PAL
Phrase Alternation by Line. A standard for colour television found in many European, African, and Asian countries. It carries 625 lines of resolution, played back at a rate of 25 frames per second.

Particle System
A technique that is used to create a large number of objects that obey well-defined behavioural rules. Useful not only for controlling multitudes of discrete objects such as asteroids or flocks of birds, but also as a tool for creating natural phenomena such as fire or smoke.

Perspective
A term relating to the size and depth relationship of the objects in a scene.

Pipeline
A well-defined set of processes for achieving a certain results.

Pixel
Originally an abbreviation for “picture element”, although the term “pixel” is generally considered to be a true word nowadays. A digital image is composed of a rectangular array of individual coloured points. Each one of these points is referred as a pixel.

Pixel Aspect Ratio
The width of a given pixel divided by its height. A number of image representation methods do not use pixels that have an equivalent width and height. The pixel aspect ratio is independent of a particular image’s aspect ratio. See also Nonsquare Pixels.

Plate
A piece of original photography that is intended to be used as an element in a composite.

Pixels Per Inch (PPI)
A common method for measuring spatial resolution of an image e.g. an 1024 x 2048 image.

Polygonal Object
A surface made up of three or more edges and points. Also called a Mesh.

Practical Effects
Effects that are accomplished “live”, without any postproduction. Practical effects include explosions, artificial rain, smoke, puppeteering, animatronics, etc.

Permultiplied Image
An image whose red, green, and blue channels have been multiplied by a matte. Usually this matte is stored as the alpha channel of this image.

Preproduction
Any planning, testing, or initial design that is done before actual production begins.

Proxy
A scaled-down image or model that is used as a stand-in for a higher resolution original.