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- From: rblewitt@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Richard Blewitt)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
- Subject: Babylon 5 animation - commentary
- Keywords: A3000-T-040 A3640
- Message-ID: <37003@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>
- Date: 19 Aug 92 07:31:46 GMT
- References: <8187@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au> <kdarling.714031609@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu> <haley.714204013@unixg.ubc.ca>
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- Organization: University of California, San Diego
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-
- I saw a short preview of Babylon 5, which included about 2 minutes
- worth of the Toaster generated animation, at the Comic Con Saturday.
- First, I'd like to say it was indeed impressive, and definately
- state of the art. However, the clip was mostly designed to stun
- people not used to the Amiga/toaster. For instance, one shot was of
- the Vorlon ship coming out of the stargate, which looked normal at
- the begining, but then the top of the ship opened like an umbrella,
- revealing a glowing animated texture map underneath. Another shot
- had a different ship doing some sort of docking manuvers, when one
- section opens up to look like crab or insect leggs. While these are
- not run of the mill things in 3D animations, they are not that
- mindblowing. What is really impressive is the quality, which is as
- good as anything done with models, but having all the advantages of
- computer rendering. I might add though, there had been claims that
- even industry insiders could not tell that it was done with
- computers rather than models; well, I was with an artist friend of
- mine who said she could definately tell the difference, because of
- the lighting. While I don't disagree with her, IMHO, these are just
- minor differences, not something that could be used to say that
- models are better than what the toaster puts out. One final note,
- JMS did point out that these were seens he felt were "safe", and the
- real top secret stuff will be kept under wraps untill Feb.
-
- Rick
-
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