Ken wrote:

> Holy Matt droppings Robin,

	While I am nothing if not arrogant, obnoxious and opinionated, I
do have some negative qualities also. 

>   The point you are missing is that it is not just computational speed
> as much as it is the marrige of film and computer generated graphics.
> The two are becoming mutualy inclusive and the talent to do so in a
> convincing manner is not something left to amateurs. ILM has paid
> their dues, experience wise, and so earns them the recognition that
> the industry and the public pays them.

	I have a minor document on that subject that I may post before
verifying and footnoting. My general conclusion is that existing
parallel machines could render a two hour HDTV movie in less than
48 hours. 

	I will give ILM all the credit for creativity they could ask for
but with the above, procuding a two hour movie is a touch more
than the processing power. 

	I have otherwise noted Star Wars I, everything but the central
character in a scene is out of focus and the characters in focus
are  movie so much you can't tell if they are properly animated
or not. 

>   That the producers of Babylon 5 were able to do this in a weekly
> production is a phenominal feather in their respective caps but
> there were sacrifices in quality that had to be made to do so. I
> stand by what I said that if superior quality was their goal, and
> time and money were of no importance, they would have hired a firm
> like ILM or Pixar to do their production work for them, and it would
> have been a much more impressive presentation.

	Having watched B5 from ep 1 and having managed to see every ep
on its first airing I can say my critisms are long considered. I
mean, did you notice that two eps a year were graphics
spectaculars? 

	As to what they did, yes, the producers get the credit. But look
at how many of the outside scenes were generic creations. There
were so many where clearly the plot and script made the creation
fit. Open a jumpgate? There are at least a dozen identical ones
rendered from slightly different perspectives. That is something
from the comps to do over night and weekends. The same with ships
moving. It was production managment, not great CGI. 

	I frankly do not think ILM or Pixar could have done any better.
Nor do I see these folks are really doing that good. 

	What they did was save us from matte shots and animated models.
It is faster but not necessarily more creative. 

	And what started all of this, finally seeing it on a state of
the art TV is what ruined my impression of what they were
accomplishing. 

>   You may now barf if you like... that is your prerogative.

	If I had bought a Trinitron I just might have already. 

	But when everyone updates to a TV of 1999 quality, B5 is going
to look a cut above the original Star Trek but not much. 

-- 
<blink>-------please--don't-----------------</blink>

http://www.giwersworld.org/artii/
http://www.giwersworld.org/artiii/

Finally up on 99/06/22 updated 07/13

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