This has been floating around for a little while now, but it seems that dealers of performance cars (porsche, BMW, etc.) are using these sorts of systems to tell if you've taken the car onto a track, or used it in competition. Most of the time, it entirely voids your warranty.
Pretty scary to think that the police is using more and more advanced technology to tell if you're speeding on the roads, and the car makers are using technology to tell if you've been speeding on the track!
but the hollywood infrastructure is such that writers are almost at the bottom of the food chain. Effects studios are definitely at the bottom, but once a script is sold the writer has very little, if any, control over it.
Next time you go see a movie, try and think about what was stupid and what might have worked if X or Y was different about it. You'll see that there are many promising scripts out there that get ruined by bad actors, directors, etc.
I'm not a screenwriter or an insider or anything, but I've had ambitions for a while, but decided that it was probably the most frustrating job in the world, to have your ideas taken and twisted around until they're an unrecognizable pile of steaming crap, for basically peanuts.
So I decided to go into CGI. God knows what I was smoking when I decided that one.
Consider implementing the Renderman interface. It's a widely accepted standard for renderers, and it's not difficult to write code that will export Renderman-ready files. The best part, I think, is that there are a diverse group of renderman renderers out there, some even GPL'ed. That way, you can focus on writing a good modeling/animation package, without having to worry about the renderer, or vice-versa.
As computers get more powerful, our demands on them get greater. The time it takes to render a single frame of a animated feature has stayed pretty much constant over the last few years.
I mean, come on people, it's apples and oranges here. Two similar tools for two VERY different purposes. Rendering 80 FPS at 1600x1200 makes good games, but I doubt there will ever be a day when film frames are rendered in real-time. There's just no reason to!
That's not to say that yesterday's movies couldn't be rendered on today's technology. Absolutely! But tommorow's movies are a different story.
- CG came around long before exluna was bought by Nvidia. I overheard Tony Apodaca (the co-author author of Advanced Renderman with Larry Gritz, the founder of exluna, at siggraph this week saying how CG was pioneered by a bunch of renderman users who wanted to bring that technology to real-time hardware. Since renderman is almost 15 years old now, the user base that CG could reach is vast.
- PIxar's lawsuit with exluna over trade secrets was settled, and the company was subsequently bought out by Nvidia. There is no guanantee that any of exluna's work will be continued. It's not uncommon in these situations to never see anything come of it. It's a nice idea that maybe nvidia will make renderman-supported hardware, but don't hold your breath. Nvidia wants to be the next intel, or microsoft, and you don't get there by support other people's software, you get there by eating competitors alive and flushing their work down the toilet.
- Best-case scenario: Larry Gritz re-releases BMRT, his free (as in beer) renderman ray-tracer, and at least we don't have to pay thousands for a production-quality renderman implementation. Or (even better) someone writes and releases another free (as in freedom) renderer that actually works.
I've followed your company's work over the past few years with great interest. It seems to me that the effects you do are pretty much on par with big studios like digital domain, etc.
Have you purposefully stayed a small studio, with a few dedicated individuals? And what advantages has that given you?
Maybe, maybe not. It's my impression that studios like this put tremendous amounts of capital into individual projects. They may very well not do another movie after the third LotR. Case in point: digital domain hired over 1000(!) animators to work on titanic - just imagine the amount of hardware they got. I could be wrong, but they haven't done a project nearly like that since.
Plus, with moore's law, those machines they bought won't be worth the electric bill in a few years. -Milinar
This has been around for a while on Wildcat cards - you know, the ones that cost many thousands of dollars. If you're talking about the "industry", though, you can't leave them out.
Mr Gates argued that the proposals allowed rivals to strip out anything they wanted and still call it Windows. "What Windows is loses any meaning," claimed Mr Gates. He said the proposals were "fantasies" that gave his business rivals "everything they ever dreamed of".
Fanatasies that would be easily realized by, oh, a company illegally maintaining a monopoly.
One of the strangest I saw in japan was the local video rental place, where you could rent CDs. Right next to the rack of CDs was a display of blank Minidiscs. Of course, the MD only allows 2nd generation digital copies, but at least they were wise enough to realize that people were going to make copies whether they liked it or not, so they might as well make it easy. Mind you, CD burners weren't popular then (99ish) but it just seemed to me like the fundamental assumptions about people's music habits concerning digital technology was very different.
What drives me crazy about these stupid "copy protection" mechanisms that simply prevent playing on a computer is that it is COMPLETELY USELESS! Come on people, it's DIGITAL. It only takes one person with a good quality sound card, or the means of circumventing the "protection" and the world can be flooded with MP3s. It solves NOTHING, except that nagging problem you had with satisfied customers.
I highly disagree. Square made some decisions about the kind of movie they wanted to make, and didn't realize it wouldn't make any money. It's a serious, relflective movie without a happy ending. The art direction was amazing. The designs, the sound, everything was very, very amazing. Go see it again, and don't pay attention to the half-translated dialogue, or the plotline that was crammed into a 2-hour format awkwardly. Jimmy Neutron will be a happily forgotten memory in 10 years, but Final Fantasy will be a part of CG history forever.
I've been guided through my college career by the story of my parents.
My dad nearly got his PhD in Physics/Astronomy, but hated being a grad student, so he left.
My mom got a degree in Home Economics and fashion desgin.
Now, they run a fairly successful fiber optics test equipment company.
The moral of the story: do what you love in college, and make sure you learn *social* skills that will help you suceed, because who knows where you'll be in 20 years.
This seems to be becoming a trend. Out here in western mass, a local theatre ran a print of "Spriggan" for less than a week, and I think very few people showed up. I hope more anime films come out this week (and all over, too) but I can't blame theatre owners for looking at the numbers and deciding that another theatre for Riding In Cars with Boys would make more money.
Apparently apple is releasing (no joke) an MP3 player. Runs over firewire (even recharges that way!) 5 gig ultra-tiny drive, the whole thing is the size of a deck of cards. Stainless steel construction.
At Hampshire College we have a system by which the student is encouraged to branch out and take some courses outside his 'major' but they can be in any area.
For example, an english lit major needs to complete a science requirement. He or she can do this by taking classes, or by an independent project - like making a website about shakespeare, or something totally non-related, like genetically modifying mealworms. It's all up to you, and whatever faculty member you choose to work with.
Granted, this is isn't the best possible system, and many people hate it, but it works very well for people, like the poster, who know exactly what they want to do and want to explore it further. I know a few people who did social science projects by researching the benefits of open-source for non-profit groups, or the "digital divide" - bringing IT to inner-city youth.
Ok, so it doesn't really help you, but it's an alternative system that has some great advantages.
Almost a year ago now, I was over there when they ran a commercial features a 40s actress (from Gone with the Wind, i can't remember her name) drinking what I believe was Iced tea. It was quite well done, actually, from what I could tell they used a stand-in for the close ups, and in the long shots just replaced something else that was in her hand.
As I recall, this seems like the first and perhaps only commercial I've seen where the person is made to directly endorse something.
I remember seeing these on CNET television a long, long time ago. They had footage of them scaling sand dunes. Very neat stuff. Expanding the territory of obnoxious pickup truck drivers. (I wonder if they'll fit on my Neon...)
Slashdot Mirror
No more of a threat than everyone having to buy a new cell phone every freakin' year.
-Milinar
This has been floating around for a little while now, but it seems that dealers of performance cars (porsche, BMW, etc.) are using these sorts of systems to tell if you've taken the car onto a track, or used it in competition. Most of the time, it entirely voids your warranty.
Pretty scary to think that the police is using more and more advanced technology to tell if you're speeding on the roads, and the car makers are using technology to tell if you've been speeding on the track!
The reasons for owning a fast car are dwindling.
-Milinar
but the hollywood infrastructure is such that writers are almost at the bottom of the food chain. Effects studios are definitely at the bottom, but once a script is sold the writer has very little, if any, control over it.
Next time you go see a movie, try and think about what was stupid and what might have worked if X or Y was different about it. You'll see that there are many promising scripts out there that get ruined by bad actors, directors, etc.
I'm not a screenwriter or an insider or anything, but I've had ambitions for a while, but decided that it was probably the most frustrating job in the world, to have your ideas taken and twisted around until they're an unrecognizable pile of steaming crap, for basically peanuts.
So I decided to go into CGI. God knows what I was smoking when I decided that one.
Since the founder of bose works for MIT.
It's even less exciting, because Maya already ships with a Renderman exporter.
I'd like to see more work done getting Blender to Renderman.
"Microsoft Word cannot edit the unknown."
Consider implementing the Renderman interface. It's a widely accepted standard for renderers, and it's not difficult to write code that will export Renderman-ready files. The best part, I think, is that there are a diverse group of renderman renderers out there, some even GPL'ed. That way, you can focus on writing a good modeling/animation package, without having to worry about the renderer, or vice-versa.
Dan
Ha Ha Ha.
As computers get more powerful, our demands on them get greater. The time it takes to render a single frame of a animated feature has stayed pretty much constant over the last few years.
I mean, come on people, it's apples and oranges here. Two similar tools for two VERY different purposes. Rendering 80 FPS at 1600x1200 makes good games, but I doubt there will ever be a day when film frames are rendered in real-time. There's just no reason to!
That's not to say that yesterday's movies couldn't be rendered on today's technology. Absolutely! But tommorow's movies are a different story.
A couples notes about the above:
- CG came around long before exluna was bought by Nvidia. I overheard Tony Apodaca (the co-author author of Advanced Renderman with Larry Gritz, the founder of exluna, at siggraph this week saying how CG was pioneered by a bunch of renderman users who wanted to bring that technology to real-time hardware. Since renderman is almost 15 years old now, the user base that CG could reach is vast.
- PIxar's lawsuit with exluna over trade secrets was settled, and the company was subsequently bought out by Nvidia. There is no guanantee that any of exluna's work will be continued. It's not uncommon in these situations to never see anything come of it. It's a nice idea that maybe nvidia will make renderman-supported hardware, but don't hold your breath. Nvidia wants to be the next intel, or microsoft, and you don't get there by support other people's software, you get there by eating competitors alive and flushing their work down the toilet.
- Best-case scenario: Larry Gritz re-releases BMRT, his free (as in beer) renderman ray-tracer, and at least we don't have to pay thousands for a production-quality renderman implementation. Or (even better) someone writes and releases another free (as in freedom) renderer that actually works.
Dan
Have you purposefully stayed a small studio, with a few dedicated individuals? And what advantages has that given you?
Plus, with moore's law, those machines they bought won't be worth the electric bill in a few years.
-Milinar
This has been around for a while on Wildcat cards - you know, the ones that cost many thousands of dollars. If you're talking about the "industry", though, you can't leave them out.
Here's a URL:
Mr Gates argued that the proposals allowed rivals to strip out anything they wanted and still call it Windows. "What Windows is loses any meaning," claimed Mr Gates. He said the proposals were "fantasies" that gave his business rivals "everything they ever dreamed of".
Fanatasies that would be easily realized by, oh, a company illegally maintaining a monopoly.
DoS for dummies
What drives me crazy about these stupid "copy protection" mechanisms that simply prevent playing on a computer is that it is COMPLETELY USELESS! Come on people, it's DIGITAL. It only takes one person with a good quality sound card, or the means of circumventing the "protection" and the world can be flooded with MP3s. It solves NOTHING, except that nagging problem you had with satisfied customers.
They're trying to target the new "walking, flesh-eating zombie" audience. I'm sensing commercial tie-ins with Resident Evil.
I highly disagree. Square made some decisions about the kind of movie they wanted to make, and didn't realize it wouldn't make any money. It's a serious, relflective movie without a happy ending. The art direction was amazing. The designs, the sound, everything was very, very amazing. Go see it again, and don't pay attention to the half-translated dialogue, or the plotline that was crammed into a 2-hour format awkwardly. Jimmy Neutron will be a happily forgotten memory in 10 years, but Final Fantasy will be a part of CG history forever.
My dad nearly got his PhD in Physics/Astronomy, but hated being a grad student, so he left.
My mom got a degree in Home Economics and fashion desgin.
Now, they run a fairly successful fiber optics test equipment company.
The moral of the story: do what you love in college, and make sure you learn *social* skills that will help you suceed, because who knows where you'll be in 20 years.
This seems to be becoming a trend. Out here in western mass, a local theatre ran a print of "Spriggan" for less than a week, and I think very few people showed up. I hope more anime films come out this week (and all over, too) but I can't blame theatre owners for looking at the numbers and deciding that another theatre for Riding In Cars with Boys would make more money.
Seems slashdotted... try:
M :w ww.farces.com/farces/999462920/index_html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:R7VWyB6BrG
Apparently apple is releasing (no joke) an MP3 player. Runs over firewire (even recharges that way!) 5 gig ultra-tiny drive, the whole thing is the size of a deck of cards. Stainless steel construction.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0110/23.event. php
No pictures yet, unfortunately.
For example, an english lit major needs to complete a science requirement. He or she can do this by taking classes, or by an independent project - like making a website about shakespeare, or something totally non-related, like genetically modifying mealworms. It's all up to you, and whatever faculty member you choose to work with.
Granted, this is isn't the best possible system, and many people hate it, but it works very well for people, like the poster, who know exactly what they want to do and want to explore it further. I know a few people who did social science projects by researching the benefits of open-source for non-profit groups, or the "digital divide" - bringing IT to inner-city youth.
Ok, so it doesn't really help you, but it's an alternative system that has some great advantages.
-Milinar
As I recall, this seems like the first and perhaps only commercial I've seen where the person is made to directly endorse something.
Milinar
Milinar