From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 02:21:46 MST
On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Regina Pancake wrote:
> No it wouldn't end but... ??? Come on! you'd not have future
> productions equal to say, 2001 or Blade Runner or Aliens or The Matrix
> or Star Wars or Contact or Minority Report, all of which required the
> big budgets and all the bells and whistles of their time. We'd be
My point is, that we're within touching distance of photorealistic
rendering on very affordable systems (a bunch of Wal Mart boxes on the
wire shelf). It's basically a question of sufficient crunch (give it
another decade), and the right software to combine reality with synthetic
reality. I'm looking forward to LOTR part II, which apparently has some
serious rendering with AI in it.
> relegated to the likes of things like "Relationship movies" not one of
> which I can remember its name at the moment. I *hate* that crap! I
> mean some of its ok, but its a far cry in my book.
Speaking about Tarkovsky, Stalker is another biggie, and while I don't
know the dirt on it it doesn't look at all expensive.
> You are kidding right?
Nope. Footage was the expensive factor, people were dirt cheap. People can
be dirt cheap if you don't pay their wages. Do you know how much it costs
to make professional quality music? It's dirt cheap, especially if you buy
hardware used. Lots of people with dayjobs own professional quality
studios.
> >High-resolution footing is fundamentally cheap, and so is special fx if
> >rendered.
>
> The hell it is.
Have you seen the Foveon stuff? It heralds the end of silver halide. Once
you mass-produce the sensors the only expensive part of a hires camera is
the optics. Oh, and robotic booms if you want to make it expensive. Which
can be substituted with airborne robotic platforms for a fraction for the
price. If you can't render the whole scene, that is.
I agree that the expensive part of computer fx rendering is the software
which needs to be developed.
>
> >Talent is not cheap, but I assume they're not in for the money
> >(no more than 99.99% of all musicians are), and everything else is pretty
> >much zero cost.
>
> Tell me your not serious. I just can't tell if I should freak on these
> statements or just exclaim you a funny guy.
Well, you can do both. All I'm saying that you can do great art if you're
in it for art's sake, and have a dayjob to pay for it. It sure makes some
things Hollywood does now impossible (but then, no one has nuked Hollywood
with P2P yet), and it kills the high-$$$ glamour around it. Does it kill
the movie as we know it? Hell, no.
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