James Cameron's 'Avatar' - The next gen of cinema

Soldato
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Supposedly they're busy doing the original Star Wars films (& T2?). I still just don't understand how that can 3D a 2D film. If you imagine the existing single bit of film they have is say your right eye's view, then they need to go away and render your left eyes view. Well, this may involved, in somes frames having objects, people, scenery that isn't there in the existing (right) footage. So they'd have to cut and paste it in from other frames, or literally render it from nothing...

Baffled how they can take on that amount of work...

I guess they'll only use it for CGI scenes. And for non-CGI characters they will probably just make them into a curved sprite.

So a sort of pseudo-3D?
 
Soldato
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I guess they'll only use it for CGI scenes. And for non-CGI characters they will probably just make them into a curved sprite.

So a sort of pseudo-3D?

Can't really see that working. Put your hand 1ft infront of you, and then alternate between your left and right eye. See how the objects/view behind your hand changes. If you only have one filmed copy/view, somehow you'll need to completely render that other view. You'll have to copy bits out of other frames where you can see the objects/view, or CGI them completely...

Seems very very difficult...
 
Soldato
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Well, I suppose you could make a 3D movie out of a 2D original and it would look like Paper Mario!

Did anyone take note of the way Cameron used a kind of documentary-footage style to some of the action sequences? Fast zooming in kind of effect. I found it a little stylistically jarring but I guess it was done to demonstrate how 'solid' the 3D was. It works, too - I remained 'immersed' instead of being 'thrown off the ride' by it.
 
Soldato
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Well, I suppose you could make a 3D movie out of a 2D original and it would look like Paper Mario!
Don't believe it's that straight forward. Imagine in a scene our hero is standing in front of a car that's 20ft behind him. He's blocking the license plate for example.

Now that image/view will form say out right eyes view. What they have to now do it render a whole new views of the film, as if the camera was a few inches to the left during the entire filming procedure.

Now, a camera to the left could (from the different angle) see around our hero and see the license plate. But no where in that scene do we have the front of the car and its license plate? So do we CGI it in completely? Do we find the car else where in the film and reside it and paste it in?

It's a mind blowing issue, for every frame of the film...

The amount of work involved must be ridiculous!!
 
Soldato
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Well, I suppose you could make a 3D movie out of a 2D original and it would look like Paper Mario!
Don't believe it's that straight forward. Imagine in a scene our hero is standing in front of a car that's 20ft behind him. He's blocking the license plate for example.

Now that image/view will form say our right eyes view. What they have to now do it render a whole new views of the film, as if the camera was a few inches to the left during the entire filming procedure.

Now, a camera to the left could (from the different angle) see around our hero and see the license plate. But no where in that scene do we have the front of the car and its license plate? So do we CGI it in completely? Do we find the car else where in the film and resize it and paste it in to that scene (but maybe the lighting is different)?

It's a mind blowing issue, for every frame of the film...

The amount of work involved must be ridiculous!! Yet they talk about the process as if it's straight forward. They're even talking about doing the original Dawn of the Dead for example, which won't exactly bring in mega bucks, so the process can't be that expensive. So I'm confused!
 
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Soldato
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Quite correct, a huge amount of work even if all they do is: (for each scene and then frame by frame) decide what is background, and what are foreground objects, erase those objects and creatively fill in the missing background, then make two background images with the reinstated foreground objects in the correct places for 3D viewing according to distance...Paper Mario I say!
 
Soldato
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Watched this last night, bit of a mistake as it was Orange Wednesday so had a mullet sat in front of me!

All things aside an awesome film in 3D having only just seen animations in 3D before (Bolt, Ice Age 3). CGI was amazing, film plot very predictable.

Not sure about this whole human porking a Smurf lark, but each to their own.

10/10 for the actual film

6/10 for the story
 
Soldato
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Went to see this for a second time last weekend. Took the girlfriend who seemed to love it. For me it was almost as good the second time.
I was in Wimbledon IMAX Experience which was a dissapointing sized screen but excellent image quality
 
Caporegime
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Saw Avatard 3D today at Birmingham and the effects blew my mind to be frank, I was MEGA impressed and at times it felt like you were really there.

Film was so so but enjoyable enough with some expected cheesy bits but competent acting, but the 3D was a revelation for me. I greatly enjoyed the beautiful art of the forest with flies floating about your face, flying through the air with the dragon type things, even little things like looking into the cell where they were holding Jake etc. - you really felt like you were standing there. I found it incredibly immersive and enjoyable.
 
Caporegime
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Saw this last night.

The effects and 3D are quite simply stunning. I haven't been in such awe since seeing The Matrix a decade ago.

The entire planet was brilliantly stylized, really reminded me of some of the locations in FFX.

Some of the shots that really stood out for me were looking down from the top of the Tree of Souls, and when they first go up to show him about getting a big birdy to ride, the latter actually induced mild vertigo in me, it was THAT good.

For all this though, the acting was particularly meh, and the story/plot couldn't me more cookie-cutter without infringing on Millies copyright. :p

Bizarrely, there was something eerily attractive about Neytiri, lol!
 
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