I saw Avatar on IMAX this weekend. It definitely was the most beautiful  
and realistic computer graphics I've ever seen! It was a choice between  
IMAX and 3d. Since 3d hurts my eyes and I've never been in an IMAX theatre  
before, I went for IMAX.

Anybody seen it in 3d yet?

It would be interesting to see if anyone could render anything remotely  
similar on Pov-Ray =)

-Nekar Xenos

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On 21-12-2009 9:06, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> I saw Avatar on IMAX this weekend. It definitely was the most beautiful 
> and realistic computer graphics I've ever seen! It was a choice between 
> IMAX and 3d. Since 3d hurts my eyes and I've never been in an IMAX 
> theatre before, I went for IMAX.
> 
> Anybody seen it in 3d yet?

No, but I intend to. I have seen some short scenes on TV, they look 
interesting, but I had the impression that realistic physics was not a 
goal. Big flapping animals where only the wings moved and the body just 
went straight ahead. I would assume that flapping would have an effect 
of the direction of movement, otherwise, why flap at all? Also some 
curves in the path that did not seem to match the orientation of the wings.
Anyway, that is based on 30s fragments on a small 2D screen. I know that 
is a case of YKYHBRTL and other forms of obsessive behaviour, and I 
might be totally wrong.

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"Nekar Xenos" <nek### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message 
news:op.u493g4klufxv4h@xena...
>I saw Avatar on IMAX this weekend. It definitely was the most beautiful 
>and realistic computer graphics I've ever seen! It was a choice between 
>IMAX and 3d. Since 3d hurts my eyes and I've never been in an IMAX theatre 
>before, I went for IMAX.
>
> Anybody seen it in 3d yet?

I've just seen it in 3D... I would have chosen 2D, but they only showed it 
in 3D...
At the beginning, they showed an introduction explaining 3D-cinema, telling 
us that technology has advanced to the point where they can give us 
3D-cinema without any loss in image quality, yet during the movie I was 
wondering why, if they really have that kind of technology, they didn't use 
it... this *certainly* was not the same image quality as a normal movie: 
brightness and contrast didn't even come close to that :(

All lies, I tell ya!

As for the movie itself: stunning visual effects, extremely predictable 
'story', lousy acting.

cu!
-- 
#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*C/50#end#macro _(b,e,k,l)#local C=0;#while(C<50)
sphere{G(b,e)+3*z.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1;
#end#end _(y-x,y,x,x+y)_(y,-x-y,x+y,y)_(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)_(-y,y,y+z,x+y)
_(0x+y.5+y/2x)_(0x-y.5+y/2x)            // ZK http://www.povplace.com

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On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:14:07 +0200, Zeger Knaepen  
<zeg### [at] povplacecom> wrote:

> "Nekar Xenos" <nek### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message
> news:op.u493g4klufxv4h@xena...
>> I saw Avatar on IMAX this weekend. It definitely was the most beautiful
>> and realistic computer graphics I've ever seen! It was a choice between
>> IMAX and 3d. Since 3d hurts my eyes and I've never been in an IMAX  
>> theatre
>> before, I went for IMAX.
>>
>> Anybody seen it in 3d yet?
>
> I've just seen it in 3D... I would have chosen 2D, but they only showed  
> it
> in 3D...
> At the beginning, they showed an introduction explaining 3D-cinema,  
> telling
> us that technology has advanced to the point where they can give us
> 3D-cinema without any loss in image quality, yet during the movie I was
> wondering why, if they really have that kind of technology, they didn't  
> use
> it... this *certainly* was not the same image quality as a normal movie:
> brightness and contrast didn't even come close to that :(
>
> All lies, I tell ya!
>
> As for the movie itself: stunning visual effects, extremely predictable
> 'story', lousy acting.
>

I just went to enjoy the scenery :)

BTW want kind of 3d technology did they use? If they went to great lengths  
to explain it, I suppose it wasn't red/cyan glasses. Did you have to wear  
3d glasses?


-- 
-Nekar Xenos-
"The spoon is not real"

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>> I've just seen it in 3D... I would have chosen 2D, but they only 
>> showed it
>> in 3D...
>> At the beginning, they showed an introduction explaining 3D-cinema, 
>> telling
>> us that technology has advanced to the point where they can give us
>> 3D-cinema without any loss in image quality, yet during the movie I was
>> wondering why, if they really have that kind of technology, they 
>> didn't use
>> it... this *certainly* was not the same image quality as a normal movie:
>> brightness and contrast didn't even come close to that :(
>>
>> All lies, I tell ya!
> 
> BTW want kind of 3d technology did they use? If they went to great 
> lengths to explain it, I suppose it wasn't red/cyan glasses. Did you 
> have to wear 3d glasses?

The last 3D film I saw used polarised light and glasses with polarising 
lenses to deliver stereo images.

Oddly, this didn't work especially well. The scenes were [mostly] 
real-world scenes filmed with real stereo cameras, and yet scenes with a 
lot of 3D depth were kind of difficult to look at. I don't know if the 
eye seperation was wrong or what, but it didn't work fantastically well.

(Obviously we had the inevitable stuff jumping out of the screen at your 
face trick...)

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"andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:4B2### [at] hotmailcom...

> No, but I intend to. I have seen some short scenes on TV, they look
> interesting, but I had the impression that realistic physics was not a
> goal.

I don't think realistic *anything* was the goal. CGI (the too much in your
face variety) looks awkward to me even from the trailers, for such a big
budget movie, from character design (why didn' they just use old Star Trek
masks and save a few bucks? For the end result is the same) to
animation/physics, like you mention. I guess the vastness/grandeur and
immersion and camerawork is what impresses most people. Storyline reads like
another cookie cutter Disney fantasy flick about evil white man vs naive and
innocent natives. Overall, it looks like Battle for Terra with a bigger
budget but same cheesiness. Excellent marketing, though.

All this work on CGI is being wasted. Cannot someone, anyone, come up with a
decent, semi-original, somewhat plausible sci-fi movie idea anymore?

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Nekar Xenos <nek### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I suppose it wasn't red/cyan glasses.

  Nobody uses that anymore. Unless they want to effectively see a B&W movie.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> I suppose it wasn't red/cyan glasses.
> 
>   Nobody uses that anymore. Unless they want to effectively see a B&W movie.

 From what's I've seen red/green was always more popular than red/cyan. 
I don't know why...

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somebody wrote:
> All this work on CGI is being wasted. Cannot someone, anyone, come up with a
> decent, semi-original, somewhat plausible sci-fi movie idea anymore?

We're in the dark age of CGI right now.

As has been said recently in other threads, effects used to be *hard* to 
do.  As such, they required a very serious commitment from all 
involved... a commitment that would NOT be wasted on sub-par talent.  As 
a result, only the biggest names got to be in the big FX movies, and 
even those used the FX to support everything else in the movie (story, 
characters, pacing, etc).

Nowadays, anyone can put anything on the screen... so they do.  Give it 
another 10 years, when audiences have gotten tired of the "wow" factor 
and have been completely disillusioned about big FX movies*, and we'll 
start to climb out of the cesspool we're currently in.

*When was the last time you were impressed by the FX in a movie?  There 
were a few shots in 2012 that wowed me, but other than that...  Mostly, 
it seems like I'll see something on the screen, yawn, and go "Yay, more 
CGI."

Unfortunately, movies like Avatar still stand out enough from the crowd 
that they can wow audiences despite being rubbish.  I predict that 
Avatar will be to Cameron's career what the prequel trilogy was to 
Lucas'... he was given complete freedom, spent years pursuing his vision 
of perfection, and  ended up turning out a golden turd.

No matter how shiny it is, no matter how much you polish it, it's still 
just a turd.

...Chambers

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> The scenes were [mostly]
> real-world scenes filmed with real stereo cameras ...

Are you sure? I suppose that there was more cg going on than you might have
noticed. I read a interview with Cameron where he stated that "not one single
real plant has been used in the film".

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