🚀 go-pugleaf

+-- lindsey@sna.co.umist.ac.uk (Peter S Lindsey) writes:
>alan@xserver.uts.amdahl.com (Alan Bomberger) writes:
>> 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.

NewTek supported the EFX efforts with money and manpower.  They have a
well deserved credit at the end of the show (in my own biased opinion).

>This is one thing which really bugs me.
>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.

Actually, Ron Thornton comes from a traditional film background.  I
quote him (from Cinefantastique interview):

	"A computer person can't do this," said Thornton, "That's one
	of the reasons I'm here, because of my film background.
	Computer people don't understand how film works.  They'll
	fly in and zoom around something and fly in and out of its
	ear.  That kind of razzle dazzle blows the pacing of a show."

>[...] told the computer to fill in the rest with linear interpolations.
>Even some sort of 3d Bezier interpolation would be a vast improvement.

LightWave 3D uses cubic spline interpolation for motions.

>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 [...]

Perhaps you should see it before flaming then.  And if you think it's
easy to teach computers about physics in a way useful to filmmakers,
then please do so.  You could easily get a PhD out of it.
-- 
		Stuart Ferguson		(shf@well.sf.ca.us)
			Prepare to Surge to Sublight Speed!