Freenet is technically superior and very cool. The last time I tried it though it had a cgi web page based UI. That and nothing worked. It was a while ago, but I had and still have a lot of hope for freenet, but it just does not need to be that complicated. The idea of dedicating space that is separate from the actual files is a cool idea and opens a lot of doors but most people will just see it as wasted space. If I want to share 1000 oggs I am not going to want to dedicate a duplicate 5 gigs just to share them on Freenet, and that made me cringe because it is a weekness to getting content out there. I am off right now to check if changes have been made, like I said those were the problems I saw a long time ago.
I agree, people really dig the 'technology as furniture' idea. I have seen some beautiful home theater rooms because not only are the rosenut speakers useful they look very nice. Style and function, it doesn't come in high doses.
Go make some 3D animation at film quality on a bunch of 286's and we'll see if it turns out 'Lame'. The people who worked on tron were some of the pioneers of the CGI industry and are the same people that are producing the things you have seen that makes their own old work seem lame. You need a lesson in history.
With DVD Audio you get 24 bit 96 Khz in full uncompressed 5.1 99.9% of people have never heard anything comming close to that. Dolby Digital, DTS, and the rest are compressed formats and are not even near the sample rate. DVD Audio is about as good as it gets. And in pure stero mode it does a wopping 192 Khz at 24 bit which is an absolutly incredible resolution. It also has an optional compression scheme called Meridian lossless packing which provides lossless compression if needed. DVD Audio should last at least another 20 years and if it changes it will probably only be the physical media. It carries such resolution that it is really all that should be needed. Don't knock it until you try it, it is pretty incredible.
Sony is one of the only people who don't make DVD players that play mp3's. Panasonic, JVC, Philips, Zenith, GE(yuck), and Apex all do, but Sony hold out. So I don't think the good guys did win. And the copy-protection scheme is Reed-Soloman I believe which has been around forever, so I don't know how much Sony would have had to do in that respect. Sorry to sound so harsh.
Yep, same thing with DVD's. But if they can sell it for $20.00, they will sell it for $20.00. But they might be undercut by their competition, which is no one, because the RIAA and MPAA is one big fucking monopoly.
That would be great and all (I would welcome it for a multitude of reasons) but there are a whole bunch of problems, not to mention the big one: DVD players won't play DVD-Audio disks. You have to have a DVD-Movie/DVD-Audio player and they start at $400 for crappy ones. I wish DVDA would take over but it won't for a while.
What does.NET change about anything and why hasn't this already happened? Because VB is a toy language and is not useful is most of the areas that programming is very powerful. Complex IO, plugins and extensions, very complex apps, server side programs, and portable applications. Try doing that with.NET. Maybe you will have portable applications, but probably only between MS OS's. Nothing is going to change and Java jobs are not going to disappear. The new JDK 1.4 is extremely useful. Very very fast, and you can even do executable.jar files that can be double clicked, and don't bring up a command line.
But that isn't what they are talking about. The posted comments are about the use of computers to achieve hand drawn looks, not the use of CG-looking CG and 3D in animated films.
What Thagg didn't mention (yet I am positive he/she knows) is that not only was Jimmy Neutron made with an off the shelf package, it was made with a very inexpensive ($2500) one called Lightwave 3D. That, and an $800 plugin called Messiah were the backbone of the entire movie. It was bound to happen eventually and proves that if a large group of people got together who were talented enough, and had enough money to live off of for a year or two, the first "basement" movie could be produced. I see this as a step closer to that dream.
I guess I should mention that Final Fantasy was made mostly with Maya and Photorealistic renderman, (two programs that can be purchased) but it really isn't in the same league as Jimmy Neutron.
Before you discount ogg too much more you should do some research on it, it sounds like exactly what you want. Ogg is only VBR, it competes well already with Lame's VBR and now it probably blows Lame, and any other mp3 encoding away.
So if you did the website, then why when I direct ship through the DPS does it not tell me if something is out of stock until I tender it and I have already wasted a lot of time getting information. I found out the hard way the first time I tried and now I know who to blame.
There are much easier ways to steal from Circuit City like shoulder surfing a 2 digit.
I figure I will put this out there because it needs to be said. For anyone getting into 3D, this is the process that you need to take.
You need a computer, make it a x86 PC running windows 2000 Professional, this is the best way to go right now. Linux, Mac, SGI, are not options for you in terms of money and ease of use. A PC will be low cost and dynamic. If you already have a computer, there is nothing wrong with using that, unless you can't put more than 128 MB of RAM in it.
Put as much RAM in it as you can 128 will work, 256 will be comfortable and let you get into more complex projects, 512 will probably be more than you will use, but it isn't a bad thing.
Your processor speed matters, but if it can run windows 2000 you will be fine. Renders may turn out to be slow on a slow computer, but with enough RAM they will be slow and steady, and still allow you to get work done. If you can get a fast processor, good, if not, don't sweat it.
Get a good gaming graphics card. Go for a Geforce 2 MX or Radeon or a Geforce 3 if you can afford it. They will all work very very well. It will increase interactivity and minimize frustration.
Get access to broadband and use morpheus to pirate all the goddamned software you can find. Look for Lightwave 6.5b or 7.0, 3DS Max R4, Maya 4, Softimage 3D (rare), Softimage XSI 1.5 (rare), or Houdini (super mega rare). - (The magic five, 95% of studios will own at least on of these programs) Finding good 3D software for the Mac is very difficult, Lightwave and Maya are the two programs you should be concerned with, and Maya for MacOSX was just recently released and will be extremely difficult to find, if not impossible.
Look for Photoshop 6.0, After effects 5.0, and Painter (rare) to compliment your 3D software.
Get Sound Forge 5.0 and Cool Edit to mess around with any sound you might want.
Take the time to click every button in every program you have and figure out what it does. After you know the features pretty well start a project, if you are enthusiastic about 3D you will certainly have something you want to achieve.
Try to make it look good, but don't get frustrated if it doesn't. Completing something is much better than keeping your standards so high, you freak out and don't progress.
Reading is good, experience is better, make sure you have both read about animation and do as much as possible.
While you are doing all this, save up to actually buy the educational, or full version of the software, it is worth it. I am not just saying this so I don't look like an ungrateful pirate, I truly mean it, all of that software is worth every penny.
Don't believe any nay-sayers or egotists, this is the way to go. I know about Blender and other free projects, just avoid them, pirate, and save up for the real version of what you like best. The free projects won't be ready for at least 2.5 years, probably more. Blue Moon Rendering Tools is a very good renderer and is free, but works off of the Renderman standard, and it will be very difficult to get anything to interface with it.
And lastly, remember, take it further, take it further, take it further!
If you want to get into 3D, save this comment and make it a check list. Flame me if you like, but I know that this is the best path to take to enter the world of 3D and computer animation, it will take you where you want to go.
Not quite. BMRT was used as a backend to run raytracing functions for the shots that required it, but Photorealistic Renderman was the workhorse and rendered the vast majority of what you see. Its cost is $5000 from pixar. BMRT is also just a renderer. Blender is free but is not worth investing the time to learn, it just isn't very powerful at all, and if anything will discourage someone getting into 3D.
This is a unspoken truth. They don't really want you to pirate their programs, but they do want mindshare, and this is a good way to get it. Adobe and Discreet and I am sure Alias|Wavefront know this.
Someone somewhere must have come off as very elitest to you, but don't let that make you look like an idiot. I can build a $500 computer that someone could get started on 3D with. Will they be able to make a movie with it? Hell no, that would require a $100K rackmount SMP renderfarm. The expensive part of 3D for the individual is software. In that case, any program under $2k is not a serious program and is basically a toy. A $2000 - $4000 computer should do great for anyone to work on. I started on a 486 100 Mhz with 40 MB of RAM. You desperatly need balance and experience.
First I will start by saying that you obviously don't know what the fuck you are talking about, and I can't believe that you got moderated up.
I realize that your newly pirated copy of Maya and 3DS max run great on your quake playin' computer, but if you tried to do anything complex you would know that interactivity is key, especially in animation, especially in complex animation.
I would love to see a computer generate hi-res, 30 fps proofs of so much as a lambertian shaded sphere.
Where do you think rendering is done, on another computer? When working, interactivity is key, and stills need to be rendered. Faster computers means more interativity, which means more complex things will happen easier.
You need to read, and gain some experience before you will be at all qualified. On this subject I can tell you that nothing will ever be enough. Trust me, you will not live to see the day when a computer is overkill for 3D animation.
Slashdot Mirror
Well done, I wish I had mod points, I think you just nailed it.
Freenet is technically superior and very cool. The last time I tried it though it had a cgi web page based UI. That and nothing worked. It was a while ago, but I had and still have a lot of hope for freenet, but it just does not need to be that complicated. The idea of dedicating space that is separate from the actual files is a cool idea and opens a lot of doors but most people will just see it as wasted space. If I want to share 1000 oggs I am not going to want to dedicate a duplicate 5 gigs just to share them on Freenet, and that made me cringe because it is a weekness to getting content out there. I am off right now to check if changes have been made, like I said those were the problems I saw a long time ago.
I agree, people really dig the 'technology as furniture' idea. I have seen some beautiful home theater rooms because not only are the rosenut speakers useful they look very nice. Style and function, it doesn't come in high doses.
Go make some 3D animation at film quality on a bunch of 286's and we'll see if it turns out 'Lame'. The people who worked on tron were some of the pioneers of the CGI industry and are the same people that are producing the things you have seen that makes their own old work seem lame. You need a lesson in history.
Woops, I didn't mean to put copy protection, Reed-Solomon is an error correcting scheme. My mistake.
Maybe you can't or don't want to hear the difference in resolution, but you can't tell me that full 5.1 uncompressed surround sound has no apeal.
With DVD Audio you get 24 bit 96 Khz in full uncompressed 5.1 99.9% of people have never heard anything comming close to that. Dolby Digital, DTS, and the rest are compressed formats and are not even near the sample rate. DVD Audio is about as good as it gets. And in pure stero mode it does a wopping 192 Khz at 24 bit which is an absolutly incredible resolution. It also has an optional compression scheme called Meridian lossless packing which provides lossless compression if needed. DVD Audio should last at least another 20 years and if it changes it will probably only be the physical media. It carries such resolution that it is really all that should be needed. Don't knock it until you try it, it is pretty incredible.
Sony is one of the only people who don't make DVD players that play mp3's. Panasonic, JVC, Philips, Zenith, GE(yuck), and Apex all do, but Sony hold out. So I don't think the good guys did win. And the copy-protection scheme is Reed-Soloman I believe which has been around forever, so I don't know how much Sony would have had to do in that respect. Sorry to sound so harsh.
Yep, same thing with DVD's. But if they can sell it for $20.00, they will sell it for $20.00. But they might be undercut by their competition, which is no one, because the RIAA and MPAA is one big fucking monopoly.
That would be great and all (I would welcome it for a multitude of reasons) but there are a whole bunch of problems, not to mention the big one: DVD players won't play DVD-Audio disks. You have to have a DVD-Movie/DVD-Audio player and they start at $400 for crappy ones. I wish DVDA would take over but it won't for a while.
What does .NET change about anything and why hasn't this already happened? Because VB is a toy language and is not useful is most of the areas that programming is very powerful. Complex IO, plugins and extensions, very complex apps, server side programs, and portable applications. Try doing that with .NET. Maybe you will have portable applications, but probably only between MS OS's. Nothing is going to change and Java jobs are not going to disappear. The new JDK 1.4 is extremely useful. Very very fast, and you can even do executable .jar files that can be double clicked, and don't bring up a command line.
I could, but I am not going to. Thanks for trolling.
But I liked True Lies.
But that isn't what they are talking about. The posted comments are about the use of computers to achieve hand drawn looks, not the use of CG-looking CG and 3D in animated films.
What Thagg didn't mention (yet I am positive he/she knows) is that not only was Jimmy Neutron made with an off the shelf package, it was made with a very inexpensive ($2500) one called Lightwave 3D. That, and an $800 plugin called Messiah were the backbone of the entire movie. It was bound to happen eventually and proves that if a large group of people got together who were talented enough, and had enough money to live off of for a year or two, the first "basement" movie could be produced. I see this as a step closer to that dream.
I guess I should mention that Final Fantasy was made mostly with Maya and Photorealistic renderman, (two programs that can be purchased) but it really isn't in the same league as Jimmy Neutron.
P.S.
All hail Edwin Catmull!
Before you discount ogg too much more you should do some research on it, it sounds like exactly what you want. Ogg is only VBR, it competes well already with Lame's VBR and now it probably blows Lame, and any other mp3 encoding away.
And after that there is SACD (Sony proprietary crap), HDCD, and DVDA. That last one is the one to watch.
So if you did the website, then why when I direct ship through the DPS does it not tell me if something is out of stock until I tender it and I have already wasted a lot of time getting information. I found out the hard way the first time I tried and now I know who to blame.
There are much easier ways to steal from Circuit City like shoulder surfing a 2 digit.
Too esoteric, and not everyone buys Sony recivers, cause they kind of suck.
This argument has been brought many times, and for a counter argument I sugest your read up on world governments' history for the past 500 years.
I figure I will put this out there because it needs to be said. For anyone getting into 3D, this is the process that you need to take.
You need a computer, make it a x86 PC running windows 2000 Professional, this is the best way to go right now. Linux, Mac, SGI, are not options for you in terms of money and ease of use. A PC will be low cost and dynamic. If you already have a computer, there is nothing wrong with using that, unless you can't put more than 128 MB of RAM in it.
Put as much RAM in it as you can 128 will work, 256 will be comfortable and let you get into more complex projects, 512 will probably be more than you will use, but it isn't a bad thing.
Your processor speed matters, but if it can run windows 2000 you will be fine. Renders may turn out to be slow on a slow computer, but with enough RAM they will be slow and steady, and still allow you to get work done. If you can get a fast processor, good, if not, don't sweat it.
Get a good gaming graphics card. Go for a Geforce 2 MX or Radeon or a Geforce 3 if you can afford it. They will all work very very well. It will increase interactivity and minimize frustration.
Get access to broadband and use morpheus to pirate all the goddamned software you can find. Look for Lightwave 6.5b or 7.0, 3DS Max R4, Maya 4, Softimage 3D (rare), Softimage XSI 1.5 (rare), or Houdini (super mega rare). - (The magic five, 95% of studios will own at least on of these programs) Finding good 3D software for the Mac is very difficult, Lightwave and Maya are the two programs you should be concerned with, and Maya for MacOSX was just recently released and will be extremely difficult to find, if not impossible.
Look for Photoshop 6.0, After effects 5.0, and Painter (rare) to compliment your 3D software.
Get Sound Forge 5.0 and Cool Edit to mess around with any sound you might want.
Take the time to click every button in every program you have and figure out what it does. After you know the features pretty well start a project, if you are enthusiastic about 3D you will certainly have something you want to achieve.
Try to make it look good, but don't get frustrated if it doesn't. Completing something is much better than keeping your standards so high, you freak out and don't progress.
Reading is good, experience is better, make sure you have both read about animation and do as much as possible.
While you are doing all this, save up to actually buy the educational, or full version of the software, it is worth it. I am not just saying this so I don't look like an ungrateful pirate, I truly mean it, all of that software is worth every penny.
Don't believe any nay-sayers or egotists, this is the way to go. I know about Blender and other free projects, just avoid them, pirate, and save up for the real version of what you like best. The free projects won't be ready for at least 2.5 years, probably more. Blue Moon Rendering Tools is a very good renderer and is free, but works off of the Renderman standard, and it will be very difficult to get anything to interface with it.
And lastly, remember, take it further, take it further, take it further!
If you want to get into 3D, save this comment and make it a check list. Flame me if you like, but I know that this is the best path to take to enter the world of 3D and computer animation, it will take you where you want to go.
Not quite. BMRT was used as a backend to run raytracing functions for the shots that required it, but Photorealistic Renderman was the workhorse and rendered the vast majority of what you see. Its cost is $5000 from pixar. BMRT is also just a renderer. Blender is free but is not worth investing the time to learn, it just isn't very powerful at all, and if anything will discourage someone getting into 3D.
This is a unspoken truth. They don't really want you to pirate their programs, but they do want mindshare, and this is a good way to get it. Adobe and Discreet and I am sure Alias|Wavefront know this.
Someone somewhere must have come off as very elitest to you, but don't let that make you look like an idiot. I can build a $500 computer that someone could get started on 3D with. Will they be able to make a movie with it? Hell no, that would require a $100K rackmount SMP renderfarm. The expensive part of 3D for the individual is software. In that case, any program under $2k is not a serious program and is basically a toy. A $2000 - $4000 computer should do great for anyone to work on. I started on a 486 100 Mhz with 40 MB of RAM. You desperatly need balance and experience.
First I will start by saying that you obviously don't know what the fuck you are talking about, and I can't believe that you got moderated up.
I realize that your newly pirated copy of Maya and 3DS max run great on your quake playin' computer, but if you tried to do anything complex you would know that interactivity is key, especially in animation, especially in complex animation.
I would love to see a computer generate hi-res, 30 fps proofs of so much as a lambertian shaded sphere.
Where do you think rendering is done, on another computer? When working, interactivity is key, and stills need to be rendered. Faster computers means more interativity, which means more complex things will happen easier.
You need to read, and gain some experience before you will be at all qualified. On this subject I can tell you that nothing will ever be enough. Trust me, you will not live to see the day when a computer is overkill for 3D animation.