Has any one else seen the new blockbuster commercials? The ones with the hampster and the rabbit. I just finished watching one of them and I am blown away by how real they look. I can’t imagine how someone could have made them. It makes me wonder if anything like that will ever be made with Blender. I’d love to see it’s development go that far.
If you haven’t seen these commercials, then you can’t possibly understand what I’m talking about. I mean, those two things are the most amazing pieces of CG work I ever seen. They blow all the CG movies I’ve ever seen away. I would love to see a free, or practically free, computer graphics program (i.e. Blender) that could realisticaly compete with this type of animation.
they’re not that good…
kinda cartoony/…
hehe - i believe that’s rhythm and hues (of cats and dogs) and their very own special renderer. i’m not impressed either though. check http://www.rhythm.com/~ivan/index.html for one of the software engineers
You haven’t seen alot of cg have you… It’s talent that makes a great cg artist, not the program they use.
schock is quite right
And for me, it´s the movements that make an impressive movie. In ten or fifteen years, photorealism will be a standard. A good example is Final Fantasy. The images are great, but you can see the bezier curves (or whatever they used in the wrong way) behind many of the motions. In my opinion, no motion capture today can substitute an experienced selfcritic (and therefore growing) animator. Serious CGA should at least partly be an art form, so just copying life isn´t enough.
A good example is drawing animation. If you watch Miyazaki´s Films (I highly recommend “Tonari no totoro” or “Mononoke Hime” with subtitles), you´ll realize two things: Photorealism isn´t necessary and drawing animation CAN be used to tell a deep and rich storyline. YOU HEAR THAT, WALT DISNEY?
Why isn´t there a really howling mad looking Smiley?
But I admit that photorealism is impressive though…
HH
P.S.: If photorealism ever gets standard, better don´t trust any TV News. On the other hand, the things following the 11th September showed again, that you already shouldn´t trust it. So who cares…
P.S.: If photorealism ever gets standard, better don´t trust any TV News. On the other hand, the things following the 11th September showed again, that you already shouldn´t trust it. So who cares…
Ummm, sorry, gotta ask, … What things happend post Sept 11th? am I forgetting so soon?
Ingie :-?
At least here, they showed dancing and celebrating people in the near east all throughout television. But as far as I am informed: Those people didn´t have a clue about the scale of destruction. When they got informed, they were pretty shocked like the rest of earths human inhabitants. But television let it appear as if monsters lived down there.
No media is free of manipulation. Compare online papers from different countries. It´s fun. Photorealistic CGA (to return to the topic) will widen the range of manipulation quite a bit
HH
haunt_house i agree (i love the tree spirirts in mononoke btw - can’t wait for Spirited Away to get a general release in the UK, lucky americans . . .) i do like the rhythm and hues renderer (looking at the guys page i linked to it is truly an impressive lump of code especially the fur) but i don’t like what they did with it. I agree photo-realism may not be “necessary” in all circumstances (its a stylistic choice), but there is a place for it. In the UK at least we’ve had these AERO commercials with realistic dancing mice etc. Its integrated into live action and so needs photo realism for the illusion to work. As an example of CGI integrated into 2d animation (aside from the works of Ghibli) Blood: the last Vampire is stunning (technically, there is no story to speak of, but its all done in just Lightwave). i agree FF animation was pretty poor.
As an example of media manipulation of truth (less serious than the Sep. 11th bits) every year the Queen of England gives a speech at christmas. It’s been common practise from some years now amongst UK newspapers to change the colours of what she wears to better go with the colour scheme of their page.
one last thing - disney obviously know about ghibli cos they own the rights to their output. They just choose to claim that markets outside Japan are “unreceptive” to animation with a deep plot. I have to admit some of the people i live with are prejudiced against any kind of animation that isn’t supposed to be just funny, i choose not to respect their tastes!
Yes, they definitely know about it. And if I hear about releasing Mononoke at “small scale” that means for example to have 35 Copies throughout germany with nearly no advertisement, I… GO… NUTS. I´ve got the DVD and you can do real missionary work with it. Tie a person to a chair and let him watch it (maybe with better subtitles than the USA/UK version) and all Disney voodoo chants will be gone.
I don´t think there is no market in the western world. We are stupid, okay, but not that stupid. To let Disney handle the thing is a bad choice. They won´t let a rival into their territory. When they were asked to distribute Ghibli, they surely layed laughing on the floor with aching bellies for DAYS. It´s the only rival Disney can get. When I watched this movie on the big screen, there were up to staggering 15 People in the cinema (in words: fifteen). And not because there is no market, but because simply nobody knew about it. I was lucky to hear about it. Most of the lucky ones watched it a second time.
I mentioned Disney, because I think he (also the company) is very much responsible for the prejudices against Animation. He ruined drawing animations reputation a good deal.
Well, I truly think, animation IS for children, if it has the quality of Hayao Miyazaki or Yoshifumi Kondo. Children don´t need limitation of Disney´s kind.
Oh Photorealism is, as I said, impressive. Combining it with real shots is exciting. I really admire the T-rex in Jurassic Park as well as The T-1000 in some shots. Or the removed legs in Forrest Gump. Or Sebulba. There´s a long list. But I also like Tron (laugh, if you want) This film is more creative than some high Tech movies. Reminds me of old marvel comics.
Hey Kid, Congratulations for being groupie 
i’m only a groupie cos i come here whenever i’m trying to avoid work!
thats a helluva lot
I understand that talent makes a great cg artist, not the program, but last time I checked Blender can’t get fur or physics effects, both of which I saw in the comercial. I was simply saying I would like to see Blender developed to the point where many cg artists would use it in comercials and movies. I know it’s been used some, but I don’t think it’s ever been used for something like that. I would like it to be used for things like that. And you are right about me not having seen much CG.
Goo
yeah i see what you mean goo.
OK let me try some metaphores for a sec. The program is like the paintbrush to the painter, but you can also get better paint brushes then some, this can make your painting a bit better, but 95% is the artist.
another thread in trouble, saved thanx to metaphores. Thank god for english
metaphor btw
thank god for correct english!!!
hehe 
lets have some similes!
OK let me try some metaphores for a sec. The program is like the paintbrush to the painter, but you can also get better paint brushes then some, this can make your painting a bit better, but 95% is the artist.
A ‘bit’ better? try a whole lot
This metaphor is wholly unsuitable because it fails to recognize that the program is not only the ‘paintbrush’ but also the ‘paint’. This distinction may seem minimal, however it is essential to the discussion. If you read up on the history of painting you will see that many times the introduction of a new medium made things possible for the artist that were not before because of TECHNICAL limitations imposed by the medium ITSELF. Compare side by side fresco paintings by Giotto and oils by the Van Eyck brothers and you will see what I mean.
Now compare side by side a nicely animated, (bald) dancing hamster rendered in blender and the blockbuster commercials. More than a 5% difference I would think, WAY more.