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- Lightwave can make very realistic renderings. I rendered a "Snapple"
- bottle that looked VERY realistic. I converted it to an optimized pallette
- 256 color bitmap and show it on my PC with my screen saver. Everybody is
- fooled into thinking it is a photograph. The bottle is not raytraced and is
- empty. I used shadowcasting instead instead of tracing shadows. The "trick"
- was a good model so polygon edges didn't show, a good use of texture and
- color mapping, careful selection of reflection/transparency/color
- characteristics of the glass and appropriate lighting.
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- One of the keys to realism in JP was the MOTION. My understanding was that
- they did extensive analysis of live animals to see how skin moved etc. I also
- understand that they wrote custom software to solve particular problems. They
- were not running stuff "off the shelf".
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- BTW - while I am no expert in the field, I understand that raytracing is in
- itself a pretty crude representation of reality. There are a number of
- affects it does not account for. Radiosity stands out as one of them.
- Someone who understands what this is and how to "fake" it can induce even more
- realism out of a rendering.
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- Of course, realism isn't even my main focus anyway. Eventually, I put bones
- in my "Snapple" bottle and made him walk like a penguin. The result wasn't
- exactly realistic, but was effective.
-
- Jay
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