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Topic: Which is your favorite Pixar feature film?

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-04-2007 05:17 AM

I agree, Cars was dogshit. If it weren't, I would have enjoyed it.

Also the last few Pixar films have obviously been rendered at a MUCH lower resolution. I could see aliasing in many scenes on the Incredibles.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-04-2007 12:29 PM

I'm pretty sure every Pixar movie has been rendered at 2K. As to aliasing in The Incredibles I didn't notice any. Is this problem something that appears on the DVD? It could be an encoding error.

Speaking of the time it takes to render frames in movies, none of it has ever happened in real time. Depending on the type of rendering used some sequences can still take months to produce. This is one of the reasons why so many live action movie productions divide up CGI effects work between many different firms.

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Carey Barber
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 143
From: Newport News, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 07-04-2007 01:50 PM

What is "aliasing"?

What does it look like on screen?

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Tristan Lane
Master Film Handler

Posts: 444
From: Nampa, Idaho
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 07-04-2007 02:15 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Depending on the type of rendering used some sequences can still take months to produce.

While on a tour at Pixar, We were told that generally one frame takes 6 hours to render through. They also mentioned that some frames have taken up to 90 hours to render.
I figure sooner or later render time will be reduced, but not until life-like quality is first achieved on a broad scale. I remember the Final Fantasy movie was pretty good with textures, but left a lot to be desired with facial movement. Pixar excels with their facial expression and body movement animation.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 07-04-2007 02:24 PM

quote: Carey Barber
What is "aliasing"?

What does it look like on screen?

Wikipedia has a good report on this topic.

since pixels are square shaped and squares cannot draw a true diagonal line, alaising is the results - imaging with jagged edges. Anti-aliasing "soften" the edges to give the illusion of a smooth diagonal line.

(look closely at your laptop screen and look at any words that has a diagonal outer surface. See how the "y" in the topic header is actually a letter drawn with jagged diagonal edges-looks like blocks stacked on one another to make a letter. Anti-alaising would soften up the edges of the "y" to look more hand drawn).

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-04-2007 09:31 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Sadly, I think the days of studios like Disney funding big budget hand drawn animated projects are finished -at least for now.

There is a hand-drawn film in preproduction right now. I forget the title, but it will star Disney's first African American princess.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-05-2007 12:16 AM

quote: Carey
What is "aliasing"?

What Monte said...

quote: Carey
What does it look like on screen?

Like ass.

Bobby, I saw the aliasing on every print of the Incredibles all at the same parts when I had to do the annoying screen-check thing for Dolby (getting reimbursed and paid sure was a pain in the ass). All screens were running film. It was clear as day. I have never seen any aliasing in any other Pixar movie before that. Maybe Incredibles was rendered at 1280x720. Pretty soon they'll be rendering at Youtube resolution and also applying the fine Youtube compression to their films.

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Damien Taylor
Master Film Handler

Posts: 493
From: Perth, Western Australia
Registered: Apr 2007

posted 07-05-2007 12:58 AM

Didn't you hear Joe? They are going to be delivering prints on floppies now.

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Matt Fields
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 545
From: Ohio, United States
Registered: Jun 2005

posted 07-05-2007 08:01 AM

The Disney hand-drawn movie will be called "The Princess and the Frog", according to IMDB.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-05-2007 03:47 PM

quote: Tristan Lane
I figure sooner or later render time will be reduced, but not until life-like quality is first achieved on a broad scale. I remember the Final Fantasy movie was pretty good with textures, but left a lot to be desired with facial movement. Pixar excels with their facial expression and body movement animation.

The problems of facial movements in Final Fantasy had nothing with rendering time or type of rendering used (such as very compute-intensive radiosity-based rendering). The problem lies in the animation itself.

It is very difficult to simulate life like facial expressions in a 3D computer model to where it actually stands up as any kind of believable acting performance. The human face is very complex in its structure and is capable of showing lots of subtle changes. One single facial expression is a balance of hundreds of different things happening in the underlying structure.

Movies like Final Fantasy have attempted at great effort to depict the human face and its expressions realistically. Unfortunately, most of those attempts failed at various levels. I was really kind of creeped out by how "dead" the CGI people looked in The Polar Express.

Studios like Pixar and PDI/Dreamworks have avoided the pitfalls of depicting people realistically. Instead, they have made caricatures and abstractions of people and did a lot to simplify the facial features. This allows the animators to get more dynamic facial expressions and performances from the characters (also with the added benefit of being able to animate performances faster). A character like Anton Ego in Ratatouille would be nowhere as interesting if he had been modeled realistically.

quote: Joe Redifer
Maybe Incredibles was rendered at 1280x720. Pretty soon they'll be rendering at Youtube resolution and also applying the fine Youtube compression to their films.

I guess we'll see whenever The Incredibles gets released on Blu-Ray. I shudder to think of how movies would look if Hollywood output their digital intermediates at even lower resolutions and encode Flash Video at low quality settings. I'm sure there's at least a few dopey bean counters in Hollywood pondering the idea and trying to convince themselves that it is "good enough" since it is still "digital."

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Scott Norwood
Film God

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From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-08-2007 08:56 AM

I've enjoyed most of the Pixar titles, but I'd say that both Toy Stories and the Incredibles stand above the rest.

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Phil Blake
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 558
From: esperance western australia
Registered: Nov 2003

posted 07-12-2007 05:23 AM

my personal choices would be

Bugs Life
Monsters Inc
Cars
Nemo

and the Rat is yet to be screened

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