Just wanted to close my paranthesis about the do's of computer generated imagery for movies. I found a neat article on the movie Transformers.
http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=371827B02DD040BD997F56DA5D4AE927
For rendering, ILM used Mental Images’ Mental Ray for raytracing and Pixar’s RenderMan for scan-line rendering and raytracing. Lighters could switch from raytracing to scan-line rendering using an environment map within a shot.
“We could turn raytracing off and get a decent robot because we had environments that existed as 8k texture maps,” Koch says, “which is far, far higher resolution than anything we’ve done before. Typically we do half a k, so this was 16 times the information. And we needed it for the shiny surfaces.”
When lighters see something in the shot that needs raytracing, they can select that piece, click a button, and it’s raytraced. “Everything else uses the environment maps,” says Koch. “They’re compatible.”
Autobot Totals: Pieces: 35,592 Polygons: 7,435,478 Rig nodes: 95,247 Texture maps: 20,258 Total miles if pieces placed end to end: 3.11
Total for all Robots: Pieces of geometry: 60,217 Polygons: 12,509,502 Rigging nodes: 144,341 Texture maps: 34,215
And for the sake of getting real on the subject, here's a high definition video review of Project Gotham racing 4 on the XBOX 360, which some claim it to have cinematic hollywood like imagery:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/25840.html
http://www.cgw.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=371827B02DD040BD997F56DA5D4AE927
For rendering, ILM used Mental Images’ Mental Ray for raytracing and Pixar’s RenderMan for scan-line rendering and raytracing. Lighters could switch from raytracing to scan-line rendering using an environment map within a shot.
“We could turn raytracing off and get a decent robot because we had environments that existed as 8k texture maps,” Koch says, “which is far, far higher resolution than anything we’ve done before. Typically we do half a k, so this was 16 times the information. And we needed it for the shiny surfaces.”
When lighters see something in the shot that needs raytracing, they can select that piece, click a button, and it’s raytraced. “Everything else uses the environment maps,” says Koch. “They’re compatible.”
Autobot Totals: Pieces: 35,592 Polygons: 7,435,478 Rig nodes: 95,247 Texture maps: 20,258 Total miles if pieces placed end to end: 3.11
Total for all Robots: Pieces of geometry: 60,217 Polygons: 12,509,502 Rigging nodes: 144,341 Texture maps: 34,215
And for the sake of getting real on the subject, here's a high definition video review of Project Gotham racing 4 on the XBOX 360, which some claim it to have cinematic hollywood like imagery:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/25840.html