The difference is 100% on the production side, not in the final images (although we can do certain kinds of Avatar-style full CGI environments for about 80% les

The difference is 100% on the production side, not in the final images (although we can do certain kinds of Avatar-style full CGI environments for about 80% less than they cost now -- $100K minute vs. $500K minute). Carpathia, as you might have guessed, is chock full of them. :) It's the production difference that actually gives us the Pixar-like edge -- we can iterate on the film, slowly closing in on the final film over a multi-year period. This allows every department time to do their best work. "Computerizing" the photography (just like "computerizing" the animation at Pixar) is what allows this to happen. We've got special tooling to support it as well, but that's what makes it great in a nutshell: (much) better films at lower cost due to massive numbers of iterations from concept to final film.