cwr@WHITE.SWW.Symbolics.COM (12/27/85)
From: Craig W. Reynolds <cwr@WHITE.SWW.Symbolics.COM>
From: ISM780B!jimb@caip.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: Spielberg movies: Bah! Humbug!
Date: 17 Dec 85 16:27:00 GMT
>(Well, I also liked the "glass man". :-)
... If you mean the glass man special-effect, I agree. It was the
one most consistent with the plot. ...
This sequence was the most recent tour de force of the gang from what
used to be "the computer division of Lucasfilm" and is now (or about to
be) a seperate company called "Pixar" (that being the name of their
graphics hardware product line).
Alvy Ray Smith, speaking in LA at a recent program of computer animation
sponsored by the Director's Guild of America, mentioned the amzing
statistic that there were about 50 texture maps involved in the
calculation of each pixel in the animation.
It went by before I could look closely, but I belive that at least in
one of the scenes, there is simulation of depth-of-focus. The glass man
is holding his sword toward the "camera" and it can be seen to be sharp
at the tip, but appropriately fuzzy back at the hilt end. Yow!