Re: Pixar rendered Toy Story

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Erig Goldstein writes:

>As Greg W. and others have pointed out, there are special effects which
>are not "modeled" in the traditional sense by the animation software,
>and these would not be renderable in stereo as in the above. We are
>however, talking about a _very_ small amount of film here when compared
>with the work as a whole.

True enough.  But my point was, that there are a lot of effects that
are used routinely in modern films that would be useless in stereo,
because they depend on being able to 'fool' the single-camera 'eye',
like forced-perspective shots and even matte paintings do.  Hardly
a film is made these days without one or more matte shots to establish
a (non-existant) location or to create a fantasy background behind a
'real' set.  None of this would be possible in stereo; the matte
illusion doesn't work.  These types of effects are *far* more common
than completely computer-rendered effects.

3D would automatically take away a huge number of standard effects from
a production.  New techniques would have to be developed from scratch
to replace them, or else the filmmakers would have to confine themselves
to non-F/X subjects, which I believe would mean box-office death.  I
don't think the movie-going public would tolerate a giant step backward
in effects, "just" to get 3D.

I believe this is a major obstacle facing any proposed major 3D film.

        -Greg


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