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Report From The Land of SFX

Posted by Hemos on from the well-not-duh dept.

prostoalex writes "MIT's Technology Review takes a look at the world of digital special effects, the industry worth half a billion dollars per year, according to the authors. It talks about the role of SFX in movie production nowadays and comes to the connclusion that while might not 100% computer-created in the future, we'll see more of realistic-looking special effects in future titles."

1 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That's not the half of it... by malducin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ohh I did read it, and actually I re-read your link in case I didn't remember something right. I'm not saying that it will never happen. I just have an issue with those saying that it'll happen in a few years. Besides Carmack was pretty bold, saying they are all wrong. Do you think someone like Tom Duff or Larry Gritz are plain worng and don't know their stuff. These are also pretty smart guys who work in CG for movies, with PhDs and actual practical knowledge of what it takes. The parent post implied that a graphics card would be able to do the work of a dedicated 1000 CPU render farm. Not in a couple of years. And besides CG and VFX studios will be doing even more complex stuff also, it's not like it's a stagnant industry, a quick look around SIGGRAPH would convince anyone.

    But you had quotes here are some in response, which I put in the previous Slashdot article about real time graphics, plus someone elses:

    Wjat does the GSCube do
    Playstation 2 and Toy Story
    Real-Time RenderMan?

    Toy Story Graphics

    So yes one day it'll probably be true but I don't think my next computer/video card would be able to do it. The hardware papers at SIGGRAOPH doesn't seem to imply that it's almost upon us that hardware will match VFX quality graphics, which is another field in CG.

    Also he brings some points but there are a little bit off. The waves for the Perfetc Storm were simulated first, Origin 2000 I think. After the data was generated, then it was rendered. Still it took hours just to render one frame each. Carmack seemed to only concentrate on the simulation step, when actually you can think of it as a 2 step process. Then again at AWGUA, Bill Buxton showed the fluid effcts from inside Maya 4.5 and in a video about Jos Stam he had a fluid simulator running in a PDA. Granted it was coarse and simple but it was really impressive.

    I'm all for more realistic games but I'll just wait for it.