CompuServe Messages

Gary, I saw the advanced screening and the CG was pretty impressive, although I'm too polite to say what I thought of the acting, and I did like the book. Dolph Lundgren was probably the most appealing character as the assassin priest. Kudos to Brumbaer, the Sony animator, who was largely responsible for the excellent colour and lighting. Most of the rest of the crew has left Sony though. Interestingly, many of the Alias animation crew are/were big time 3ds users. I believe Virtuosity will be a more appealing film from the standpoint of the actors involved. A great leading man (Denzel Washington) who can deliver a mean line or two, and a very charismatic villain (newcomer Russell Crowe). I don't think the CGI will be quite as impressive since it is more low-key work, IOW film-resolution effects only occupying a portion of the frame rather its entirety OR video resolution backgrounds for compositing with bluescreen shots of the actors. There is certainly a great deal of quantity of 3ds effects, possibly 10-15 minutes, but lots of it is composited atop live action. On the positive side this does allow you to render at full 2k resolution with no interpolation required, because your objects only take up part of the frame. Now all I need is for somebody to right a 10-bit (or higher) file format .bxp for film. Any volunteers??? Martin