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Dreamworks and Carmack Discuss 3D and Threading At IDF
MojoKid writes "At the Intel Developer Forum, VP and GM of Intel's Software and Solutions group, Renee James, wheeled out a few celebrities of the 3D world, namely Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks and John Carmack of id Software. According to Katzenberg, film directors Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas are all 'working in 3D now.' Katzenberg specifically showcased the Dreamworks film Kung Fu Panda, which was rendered in 3D, and then spoke of the first 3D, CG animated film they'll be releasing in March '09, titled Monsters vs. Aliens. Then came John Carmack, co-owner and Technical Director of id Software, who ran a demo of their still-in-development, post-apocalyptic game, Rage. Carmack talked briefly about the different ways that the game utilizes threading and multi-core support."
A webcast of the full 50+ minute presentation is available at the IDF page. Renee James' presentation is on day two. A full transcript (PDF) is also available.
I would really like to see ID focus on team based play a bit more than they have. Most of their games you can easily win with one very good player on your team. I really like the "forced" teamwork that is in the Enemy Territory Series, as they split up into different classes. (both for Quake Wars and Return to Castle Wolfenstein). I'd like to see them expand it a bit more.. Man, ID software's graphics, with the Battlefield series of gameplay (I like the "commander" feature) would be sweet!
Oh, and in case your reading this ID guys, thanks for your linux support, I'm an Ubuntu user, and your one of the few publishers whose games I can play!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I don't understand how Monsters vs. Aliens is the first 3D, CG animated film. Hasn't every CG animated film for the last decade been 3D?
The latest trend is for films to make use of those circular polarized imax glasses, to give you a true 3D stereo optical experience. I presume this will be this companies first such film.
What? Do you think Id Software makes UT?
Id Software does NOT make UT, and that suggestion in itself is highly offensive.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/12/15/
Id has ported all (?) of their games natively to linux.
Length, Width, Depth - only? What about the fourth dimension: Time? Are these going to be just static screens? It should be 4D.
With the notable exception of Myst, every video game has a concept of time.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Last week's SIGGRAPH had almost two days of sessions about 3D in Hollywood- both animation and live action. The recent revival of 3D movies is not just a marketing gimic, but involves a new understanding and implentation of technical details learned since the last 3D fad in the 1950s.
One of the more interesting presentations was In-Three's talk "Dimensionalization: Creating 3D Movies from 2D Images" in the 3D Cinema session. They showed a space battle clip from Revenge of Sith which had been "Dimensionalized" which is their term for 3D-conversion. They showed dimensionalized clips from other movies with people and nature scenes, the latter which can be challenging. Overall, I thought they were pretty good- just a bit short of have filmed in 3D in the first place.
Dimensionalization involves includes volumizing individual objects and positioning them in a 3D depth-of-field. Some is this is done automatically by the software, and some of it is interative. The interative part includes outlining objects to improve efficiency and quality. It also includes fixing flaws like how to filling in missing "around the edge pieces", and erasing "eye discomfort artifacts" where the the stereo view doesnt quite work right. The director also adds "artistic control" such as highlighting portions of depth of view. In-three showed various examples from a complex Sith space battle scene where the director might want to highlight the action of subset of spaceships. My perception was movie-dimensionalization operated in a similar fashion to movie-colorization 15 years ago with both computer and artistic components.
As of last week the In-Three presenter said that LucasFilm had not commited to dimensionalization of the six movies yet. They also did not mention names of other clients and movies when asked, but I think they are definately doing some.