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Kaydara Announces FiLMBOX Support For Linux
Chicken can run writes: "Kaydara announced Thursday in a press release the port of FilmBox to Red Hat Linux V6.2. FilmBox is a real-time character animation and motion capture system and was the software behind the groovy slow-motion camera fx in The Matrix. What is interesting is that it is the first such system to be available on Red Hat Linux, opening further the door to major 3D production oportunities on the OS."
Does this mean that we will see dirty, bearded, smelly, GNU hippies doing impossible feats like kung fu fighting, bullet dodging and absorbing, and jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper?
and the most important thing to me in production will not be the actors, nor the script, nor locations, talent, creativity, or anything else. I'm just excited that I can do rip-off Matrix-like visual effects under LINUX.
Uh, did SLASHDOT read this article?
We'll see impossible feats like dirty, bearded, smelly, GNU hippies avoiding caffeine and moving teir eyes away from the screen. If the special FX budget can stretch to it, we'll see them eat food that isn't Pizza.
Just to straighten the record a bit- saying that this was *THE* software behind the Matrix is not telling the whole story. The BulletTime sequences were shot using a large number of stills cameras, fired electronically. Unfortunately, each camera had its own trigger to shutter delay, resulting in hugely jerky images. Before anything could be done with them, they had to be smoothed, and extra frames inserted. This job was done by UK based Snell & Wilcox (for whom I worked at the time), with their technology called FloMo, which can very precisely measure the motion between frames and allow very sharp temporal interpolation. It was this that made the motion smooth, before any other effects, backgrounds, etc. were added. For the geeks amongst us, it is notable that Mr. Reeves' leg would pass through one of the pillars in the subway station if it was on screen at the time.... EtF.