Autodesk/XAOS Agreement
12 messages in this thread
>>For anyone who hasn't seen XAOS' effects…
I believe their stuff is very prominent in "Lawnmower Man" and the video
"Beyond the Mind's Eye".
I'm not so sure about Lawnmower man. Doesn't at all look like their
style. They tend to favour a "gaseous" feel to all their
animations. They did a lot of stuff for Liquid MTV (the opening
sequence, the moving lips, etc…), and a cool Grateful Dead inspired
animation that was on Spike and Mike's last animation tourney.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
I missed the beginning of this but Lawnmower Man was done by Angel Studios here
in San Diego on Wavefront. Nothing that couldn't have been done with 3DS IMHO
-JE
Actually, both Xaos and Angel studios did the majority of that film.
That's what I thought. As a matter of fact, it had a Toasterish feel
to it (not necessarily a cut down…). XAOS is very unique in their
approach to CGI, they're sort of anti-computer as far as the look
goes, and it really works for them. I've rarely seen XAOS
animations with that clean, hard look to it that seems to be the
hallmark of CGI.
John – What is your preference in "look" for CGI? I personally don't
care for the Plastic look which I think Wavefront epitomized several
years ago. Alias seems colder, although maybe its more style as
opposed to the shaders. I'm sitting here thinking its rather
difficult to describe the "look" of different renderers without over
generalizing. I was thinking I like it cleaner and warmer, but warmer
doesn't really fit, even though it is warmer like what Gamma
correction does. Its softer but that has conotations too, like being
blurry which is not it either. Hmmmm… What do you think? We should
get Ana/Krazy images in on this one, she's really good at
distinguishing these subtle artistic differences and able to express
them with words.
-JE
For me it always depends on the content and purpose of the animation.
I prefer animations that move away from the general CGI look, but
sometimes that can work for the animation.
I think Wavefront renders quite nicely these days, and can really take
the edge off. Stuff I've seen lately looks more like film than
video. I haven't seen any Alias renderings that I can recognize, or
SoftImage.
I do like image processed stuff, but it seems that often the best
animations had renderers written specifically for them, not a general
renderer plus image plug in. This is impossible for me, 'cause I
can't program my way out of a wet kleenex.
I think its interesting the different "look" different renderers have,
its kind of a subjective quality like audio speakers. If we were
talking about speakers we could talk about "brightness" and "color"
ironically. <g> I think rather than portray Wavefront as looking
"Plastic", there was a period when high gloss was "in" which made
Wavefront look Plastic. I don't care for the High Gloss look although
some gloss is fine used appropriately. I really like the quality of
3DS when pixel size is 2.0 but of course this isn't appropriate or
even practical all the time. But that is my favorite look. And as I
raved awhile back, the colors are vibrant. (No pun intended) I've
never seen colors like this with Alias. They seem more subdued and
muted more defuse even. And Wavefront seems to be somewhere in the
middle. I also like what I've seen done with Lightwave. I think each
package has a certain bias towards a certain look. I've seen work
done with Lightwave that looks very similar to 3DS and other work
that looks like what you described as "toasterish." I've worked with
Topas, DGS and 3DS primarily, with a limited amount of experience with
Alias. Topas has what I call that Plastic quality to it, DGS was
soft with detail, and 3DS has changed alot from R1 to R3. R3 seems to
have the full range but not so plasticky as Topas and not so soft as
DGS. The look of Wavefront in Lawnmower Man is similar to R3 but
there's a subtle undefined quality about R3 I like better. Maybe it
still comes back to the richness of color. That's my guess. -JE
>> Stuff I've seen lately looks more like film than video.<< That's
probably because it is.<g> Wouldn't you love to see 3DS on Film!
I'd especially love to see MY 3DS stuff on film<g>!
(And get paid for it, too…)
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
The cover image (the eye) for the latest (Jan) CGW was terrific – done with
XAOS's Paint Alchemy effects plug-ins for the Mac – Makes me really steamed
that last time I spoke with them (shortly after SIGGRAPH) that they had no
plans to port those to the PC. I am very happy to hear they are developing for
3DS!
Dave
I recall seeing somewhere that Xaos was responsible for some of the particle
systems – in particular, the mapped floating person globules.
I guess you're right. David Stinnet mentioned it, too. I don't
remember the film too well, and I remember thinking Toaster a lot
during the film. Some of the CGI was really cool, but I thought the
movie was weak on its own.