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Dan Byers wrote:
> Cool as the graphics were, the storytelling was even better. This is why Pixar
> is still head-and-shoulders above just about everyone else. They don't assume
> their audiences are either complete morons or are all under age six. My two
> cents.
Dreamworks, for pretty much its whole time in the business, has resorted
either to fairly predictable stories, or filling the flick with one gag
after the next. When the gags are good, like they were in Shrek and
Shrek II, the results are good, but when the gags are no longer funny
the film loses its appeal.
Regards,
John
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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmail com> wrote:
> Dreamworks, for pretty much its whole time in the business, has resorted
> either to fairly predictable stories, or filling the flick with one gag
> after the next. When the gags are good, like they were in Shrek and
> Shrek II, the results are good, but when the gags are no longer funny
> the film loses its appeal.
Indeed. Pixar movies are true to the Disney tradition of long play movies with
strong stories. Dreamworks went for the Warner Looney Tunes style of quick
gags, which really just works for short movies.
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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > And speaking of Pixar, I read recently that Cars was entirely raytraced :)
> Not sure. Renderman is capable of raytracing, but its main pipeline is a kind
> of scanline: REYES. Besides, I think in the DVD they said the reflections on
> the cars were limited to 2 or 3 bounces, not to bog it down indefinitely. And
> all those desert scenaries surely don't require raytracing...
It was one of the major technological points in Cars: They wanted it
raytraced, and they had to use advanced technology for that to be possible,
one example being using volumetric rays (ie. cones instead of line segments).
(The reason to use cones instead of lines when tracing is that many effects,
such as mip-mapping, require knowing not only the location of the intersection
on the texture, but the area of the visible portion of the texture at that
place.)
--
- Warp
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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> the ray-tracing algorithm requires that all of the scene geometry exist
> in memory all at once.
I don't think that's true. You can have bounding boxes for objects loaded
into memory instead of the objects themselves, and test against those boxes.
Only if the box is hit you load the object itself into memory and test the
ray against it. This process can be cached so that least used objects can
be dropped from memory.
Other optimizations can be used as well: For example, if an object is
far enough (looks very small from the point of view of the origin of the
current ray being traced), a billboard graphic can be used instead of the
object itself. (Or, in some cases, the object could be ignored completely.)
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> the ray-tracing algorithm requires that all of the scene geometry exist
>> in memory all at once.
>
> I don't think that's true. You can have bounding boxes for objects loaded
> into memory instead of the objects themselves, and test against those boxes.
> Only if the box is hit you load the object itself into memory and test the
> ray against it. This process can be cached so that least used objects can
> be dropped from memory.
They used a combination of this with procedural geometry in Monsters,
Inc, I believe. If I understand their comments correctly, then each of
the children's doors was basically a single flat polygon and a random
seed. If that door needed to be drawn (rays striking it or something),
then the geometry and texturing for that door would be generated from
the seed, used, and then discarded when not needed anymore. It was the
only way they could keep millions of doors in memory at once.
> Other optimizations can be used as well: For example, if an object is
> far enough (looks very small from the point of view of the origin of the
> current ray being traced), a billboard graphic can be used instead of the
> object itself. (Or, in some cases, the object could be ignored completely.)
Progressive LOD - coming soon to a theatre near you! ;)
--
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
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Warp wrote:
> Very cool graphics, IMO. Fur and water effects, especially.
>
> Also, throughout the movie I noticed that the rendering style resembled
> a lot Gilles Tran's works. That kind of warm smooth (often yellowish)
> lighting which makes everything look realistic, yet not photorealistic.
> Like for example:
>
> http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=727&mode=info§ion=2004&lang=en
> http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=491&mode=info§ion=1999&lang=en
>
>
My understanding is that it would have been up for the Best Picture
Oscar, except there is a specific category for animated films - Best
Animated Feature Film.
Tom
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> Very cool graphics, IMO. Fur and water effects, especially.
I bought it on Blu-Ray the day it was released (not on purpose, I just
happened to see it at the airport that day and thought "oh i didn't realise
it was out yet").
Yes, the graphics and animation are really impressive, even my non-tech gf
commented on how cool it looked when he was going down the sewer water. The
level of detail is amazing, often you don't notice until you pause the film
then start looking around. As always, numerous references are included to
previous pixar films and shorts, I always enjoy looking for them!
There are several papers on the pixar website that explain the techniques
used in this film.
http://graphics.pixar.com/
(link posted again incase you missed the previous 32423432 times it was
posted here)
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Yes, loved that film. Got it on DVD, might need to watch it again this
week. The CG work was incredible on it - especially, as you say, the
water and the hair effects.
Jim
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On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:23:36 -0500, Dan Byers wrote:
> Cool as the graphics were, the storytelling was even better.
100% agreed. They do a good job of not using the technology for the sake
of using the technology, but for telling a story. In some respects,
similar to what Roddenberry did with Star Trek - he used the technology
to tell the story - the story was rarely about the technology, but more
about the characters and the interactions between them.
Jim
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On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:27:33 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Btw, there's a short animation in the DVD called "Lifted" which is
> graphically perhaps even more impressive. And funny too.
Yes, loved Lifted. Have you seen the Pixar Shorts DVD?
Jim
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