From: MarkLFischer at aol.com
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:48:12 EDT
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF by computer
To: WSFAlist at WSFA.org
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

In a message dated 4/18/2005 5:12:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
omni at omniphile.com writes:

>I got the DVD, but haven't watched it yet, and I missed it in the  theaters.
>My main interest in it is the technology used to make it.   Story would be
>a nice extra... ;-)

CGI is a terrible crutch for lazy filmmakers, for examples see the "Matrix"
movies, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", and most of the dreck Sci Fi
channel puts out.  I guess the idea is that if you stun the audience by
filling the frame with moving detail, they won't notice that the story was
missing.  Actors are hard-pressed to turn in decent performances when they  not only
can't see what they're supposed to be interacting with, but often have  no
idea what it is.

CGI for the fan television-maker isn't as straightforward as it  sounds.
Babylon 5 was often straining to get its digital footage rendered  in time to
meet the broadcast schedule, and those were not on the cutting edge  of CGI
photorealism. Even at NTSC resolution, home computer equipment is not  powerful
enough to render complex, well-lit, ray-traced frames in any kind of  reasonable
time frame unless you use a LOT of  computers.