🚀 go-pugleaf

alan@xserver.uts.amdahl.com (Alan Bomberger) writes:
> I was disappointed by Babylon 5.
>   1) The show was totally dull and poorly written
>   2) The graphics were rendered excellently, however...
> 
Unfortunately, being a Brit, I haven't seen Babylon 5. However:

> It LOOKED like a computer animation.  The surfaces were
> unnatural and the physics of the motion was competely
> wrong.  My feeling after watching it was that neither
> NewTek nor C= wanted to be connected with the show.

This is one thing which really bugs me. People have spent hundreds/thousands
of pounds/dollars and man-years on developing hardware and software that can 
produce excellent renderings that, as still-lifes would look _real_.
Unfortunately, due to the 'forefront of technology' nature of these systems,
the people who get to do the artwork are usually techies with a slightly artistic
bent. Subsequently the pictures do not look real enough because the artist has
not chosen the correct surfaces or most realistic lighting conditions. Not only 
this but as alan says the physics of the motion is completely wrong. The artist
has obviously set a few points along the timeline and set up the position of
the objects, then told the computer to fill in the rest with linear interpolations.
Even some sort of 3d Bezier interpolation would be a vast improvement. If 3D 
modelling artists did what Disney did in the 50s&60s and studied the real life
motion of the objects he or she was trying to model, the result would be 
astonishing.
Perhaps if the modelling systems were not just '3d picture' modelling systems,
but could simulate newtonian laws of physics, simple animations would be
infinitely more realistic. It shouldn't be difficult to tell a computer
that a=f/m and that solid objects can't intersect. As I mentioned, I haven't
seen the show, but judging by the comments it's a space-age type show.
Do you realise how easy it is to simulate gravity, forces from rocket motors
and the like. I definitely see a gap in the market if somone wants to write
some software for this.

On the last point, I doubt very much that Newtek or C= had anything to do
with it, except the manufacture of the soft/hardware used.

> Boy I know I am going to get flamed for that but someone
> had to say it!

too true, it doesn't deserve flamings, tho. 

> The renderings were awesome, however!

Hmm, I'd like to see them, if anyone can get hold of a PAL VHS copy.
Please direct any replies to email, if possible.
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/  \     |     Peter Simon Lindsey, 3rd year BEng  _    __   640K should
| _/_  _ |_   Software Engineer, UMIST, Manchester  \/\/  \   be enough
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