Re: Is it composited... was(Lent...detailed description)

[P3D Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 08:41:52 -0600
>From: P3D Bob Wier writes:
>
>|As to the Coors Beer truck, that must have happened before some of the new
>|technology came out. I've seen some commercials lately that had to have been
>|composited and can place trucks, people, or products anywhere you like
>
>
>Ah, yes indeed. This was supposedly some years ago. And of course today
>you could well do it via computer graphics. I was somewhat astonished 
>to learn that the puppies in "101 Dalmations" are computer generated 
>(but I've only seen the commercials on TV, not the actual movie). 
>Thus CG has basically met the Turing test for realism. I've seen a 
>similar thing in a Dairy commercial with the cows doing a (cow) bell
>ringing gig. It opens an interesting question that if you composite
>"real" stereo images with CG images in stereo how difficult getting 
>reasonable looking stuff might be (especially in motion). And of course
>I'd guess a beer truck would be simple to generate as opposed to puppies
>and cows :-)

**********  Based on a show about the making of the Disney film, they did
indeed use real live puppies. Thousands of them. They had to hire a lot of
trainers because every six weeks required a new batch since they grow so
fast. It was mind boggling to hear about. That doesn't rule out the use of
computer generated puppies for one or more scenes though!

The difficulty of getting reasonable looking stuff by compositing has to do
with various levels of realism as well as skill at compositing. It also
would take one of the larger work stations with some really great accessory
systems to do. They do have this equipment though so it's a matter of
choosing to use it for stereo instead of 2D. Now, if everyone would go out
and buy a set of VRex VR Surfers, they would have a huge incentive to make
these scenes in 3D. One clue that I've noticed I both like and yet it
clearly says *computer composited*, is the starry skies in many commercials
and some virtual sets on shows.

There are a number of commercials and program intro's that I've seen
recently that were done in a computer 3D environment and only lack a second
virtual camera to have gotten spectacular 3D results. They should do that
and put them out on collector's edition video tapes. Then they'd be
literally selling their commercials as a product and I for one would enjoy
watching. Unless like in other products, they choose the worst ones to show
and ignore the ones that would have been most spectacular. They seem to need
a lot of help sometimes!

Maybe we'll actually see a 3D commercial sometime this year on TV??? Is
Burger King working up to something with their current *Double Double*
song/commercial? It would be an ideal lead in to using a 3D set of *double*
anything.



Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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