Blizzard makes all-cgi cutscenes that are better than 99% of all movies out there. The infusion of character into their creation is unbelievable. Blizzard games are worth buying just for their cinematics. It seems more realistic, because they've created a whole new world, and have made that world vibrant with life.
Yep. In fact the real big deal about Cg is that it optimizes your code for many different possible configurations. This could actually mean that we could see software mode again in games. But for most of us, it means that Nvidia's programming language will work just fine in your ATI card, provided ATI comes up with a Cg compiler for their card that's less buggy than their drivers.
Right now the problem with movies is that they're costing more and more to make. Studios looking to pop out more movies for less money will probably do it. A studio generally doesn't like putting a bunch of money into a computer-animated movie, only for it to come out terribly (see Final Fantasy movie). So pushing out more movies will help them to hedge their bets.
The immediate advantage in Cg is allowing independent film makers to make special effects more easily and faster than before. It helps the push towards giving computer animating power to the masses. But this doesn't mean that computers will replace actors anytime soon. Think of what will happen to Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood!
Not everything has changed in the last 50 years...
on
Minority Report
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The biggest failure of the movie may be the set design and the look. At one moment, we see computers to inspire the next generation from Apple, in another moment we're in a mall that isn't as fancy or as new as the mall around the corner from my house. The logos for the Gap and Pepsi haven't changed since they were faxed over from the product-placement department. Many of the scenes look contemporary with minimal set dressing, but then along comes a great car chase tricked out like the wet dream from some 19 year old in an art school in Southern California.
In the 1950s we were all promised flying cars through the amazing miracle that was atomic energy. But we're still driving plain old cars that run on gas. Not everything will change in the future. And also, I could see malls like the ones today being set up because of nostalgia.
Also, did anyone else notice that Spielberg switched camera lenses or something during some of those past-looking scenes? Everything looked fuzzier, like from glare or something.
I'm still waiting for him to make a movie about the dystopia known as the RIAA. I'm sure if it was in a Philip K. Dick novel, directors would be leaping over eachother at the chance to make it.
Speaking of cracking those codes, the NSA would love to get their hands on this, and I wouldn't be suprised if they're either leasing some time on it or have something up their sleeves just as powerful.
Actually this is happening. However, it's more from modified user software than anything else. For example, if you search for anything, and don't have your gnutella client filter the results based on your original search, then you get a lot of junk files. What's happening is that certain corrupt clients are sending back that result for every search, even though they never meet any of the search criteria.
While your client is able to filter these erronous results out, the traffic reporting back the results is still being sent over the network. And that's the problem. This technique, taken to an extreme, could crash any network with an open protocol. And that's what the major problem, aside from being able to handle future growth, is for widely-available P2P networks.
It just makes you sentimental for the good old days when all de-centralized networks had to worry about was Soviet nuclear attack.
My guess would be that Nvidia originally started looking into this as a tool to help developers use the full power of the Xbox. Being that the Xbox was a partnership with Microsoft, this would be too.
The sleaze has gotten out of hand; it's time to roast a group of 20 or so companies whose profits are directly linked to creating fear in their customers, who have to keep discovering new sources of fear to improve their bottom line - or in the absence of new discoveries, keep inventing new sources of fear. Yes, it's time to take on the anti-virus software vendors.
Oh, until that last sentence there, I thought you were going to talk about John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration.
Sounds great. Of course, just the visual of a fly-through probably won't be enough for climatic battle sequence. They'll probably have Neo and Agent Smith duking it out mid-air or something like that. Certainly worth shutting Sydney down for.:)
I'd really like to see an expanded version of this type of idea. It would be patterned like the ethics group formed for the Human Genome project and would explore what is and isn't ethical to use a computer for. Hopefully it would prevent some of the worst Phillip K. Dick futures from coming to fruition.
It has a standardized timedemo, is more CPU-intensive than some of the newer games, has been around forever, and outputs easy to understand, real results. Benchmarking-only programs, like 3dmark 2001, output more abstract numbers. Games, being the only reason many people upgrade their hardware, are the only programs that are used by many to tax their computers to the limits. Although, starting up Mozilla taxes my hardware to the limits rather nicely.:)
We did it too, against the wishes of the policy, but we had an OK from the teacher. See, once they installed a new Security program on the network after winter break, it wouldn't let us complile anything. So we hacked it.
George Lucas changing the originals to fit the prequels is like Peter Jackson taking out Tom Bombadil in the LotR book to fit the movie. It's just plain stupid.
Frankly, Blizzard's movies have improved immensely since WCII. Now they're better than most movies that come out in theaters. And if you played Starcraft, the cutscenes and the story were part of what made it memorable.
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard makes all-cgi cutscenes that are better than 99% of all movies out there. The infusion of character into their creation is unbelievable. Blizzard games are worth buying just for their cinematics. It seems more realistic, because they've created a whole new world, and have made that world vibrant with life.
Nvidia makes changes to their hardware-based rendering all the time. It's called new Detonator drivers.
Yep. In fact the real big deal about Cg is that it optimizes your code for many different possible configurations. This could actually mean that we could see software mode again in games. But for most of us, it means that Nvidia's programming language will work just fine in your ATI card, provided ATI comes up with a Cg compiler for their card that's less buggy than their drivers.
Right now the problem with movies is that they're costing more and more to make. Studios looking to pop out more movies for less money will probably do it. A studio generally doesn't like putting a bunch of money into a computer-animated movie, only for it to come out terribly (see Final Fantasy movie). So pushing out more movies will help them to hedge their bets.
The immediate advantage in Cg is allowing independent film makers to make special effects more easily and faster than before. It helps the push towards giving computer animating power to the masses. But this doesn't mean that computers will replace actors anytime soon. Think of what will happen to Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood!
The biggest failure of the movie may be the set design and the look. At one moment, we see computers to inspire the next generation from Apple, in another moment we're in a mall that isn't as fancy or as new as the mall around the corner from my house. The logos for the Gap and Pepsi haven't changed since they were faxed over from the product-placement department. Many of the scenes look contemporary with minimal set dressing, but then along comes a great car chase tricked out like the wet dream from some 19 year old in an art school in Southern California.
In the 1950s we were all promised flying cars through the amazing miracle that was atomic energy. But we're still driving plain old cars that run on gas. Not everything will change in the future. And also, I could see malls like the ones today being set up because of nostalgia.
Also, did anyone else notice that Spielberg switched camera lenses or something during some of those past-looking scenes? Everything looked fuzzier, like from glare or something.
From the article:
He told reporters that plans are firming up for the next Indiana Jones movie, and that he'll be re-teaming with George Lucas and Harrison Ford.
I hope Steven Spielberg keeps Lucas locked up in a box for the duration of the writing, filming, and editing process. Please, not the Ewoks!
That did happen in an Invader Zim episode.
I'm still waiting for him to make a movie about the dystopia known as the RIAA. I'm sure if it was in a Philip K. Dick novel, directors would be leaping over eachother at the chance to make it.
Speaking of cracking those codes, the NSA would love to get their hands on this, and I wouldn't be suprised if they're either leasing some time on it or have something up their sleeves just as powerful.
..because it gives us four different ways to slashdot them!
Actually this is happening. However, it's more from modified user software than anything else. For example, if you search for anything, and don't have your gnutella client filter the results based on your original search, then you get a lot of junk files. What's happening is that certain corrupt clients are sending back that result for every search, even though they never meet any of the search criteria.
While your client is able to filter these erronous results out, the traffic reporting back the results is still being sent over the network. And that's the problem. This technique, taken to an extreme, could crash any network with an open protocol. And that's what the major problem, aside from being able to handle future growth, is for widely-available P2P networks.
It just makes you sentimental for the good old days when all de-centralized networks had to worry about was Soviet nuclear attack.
VHS will always be big, as long as Walmart sells the Godfather Trilogy for $26 on VHS but at around $75 on DVD.
My guess would be that Nvidia originally started looking into this as a tool to help developers use the full power of the Xbox. Being that the Xbox was a partnership with Microsoft, this would be too.
The sleaze has gotten out of hand; it's time to roast a group of 20 or so companies whose profits are directly linked to creating fear in their customers, who have to keep discovering new sources of fear to improve their bottom line - or in the absence of new discoveries, keep inventing new sources of fear. Yes, it's time to take on the anti-virus software vendors.
Oh, until that last sentence there, I thought you were going to talk about John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration.
"Microsoft Creates Proprietary, OS-Specific Version of Ones & Zeros.
Sounds great. Of course, just the visual of a fly-through probably won't be enough for climatic battle sequence. They'll probably have Neo and Agent Smith duking it out mid-air or something like that. Certainly worth shutting Sydney down for. :)
I'd really like to see an expanded version of this type of idea. It would be patterned like the ethics group formed for the Human Genome project and would explore what is and isn't ethical to use a computer for. Hopefully it would prevent some of the worst Phillip K. Dick futures from coming to fruition.
It has a standardized timedemo, is more CPU-intensive than some of the newer games, has been around forever, and outputs easy to understand, real results. Benchmarking-only programs, like 3dmark 2001, output more abstract numbers. Games, being the only reason many people upgrade their hardware, are the only programs that are used by many to tax their computers to the limits. Although, starting up Mozilla taxes my hardware to the limits rather nicely. :)
Being the AOL default brower won't hurt, either.
We did it too, against the wishes of the policy, but we had an OK from the teacher. See, once they installed a new Security program on the network after winter break, it wouldn't let us complile anything. So we hacked it.
Scientists have pinpointed the rate of the Universe expansion down to it doubling exactly every 18 earth months. Hubble would be proud!
It would also work quite well for google whacking.
George Lucas changing the originals to fit the prequels is like Peter Jackson taking out Tom Bombadil in the LotR book to fit the movie. It's just plain stupid.
Frankly, Blizzard's movies have improved immensely since WCII. Now they're better than most movies that come out in theaters. And if you played Starcraft, the cutscenes and the story were part of what made it memorable.
Actually, I use Opera 5 as when I tried out Opera 6, it didn't like my POS DSL.