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Yes, I have to second this. While there is some edge to technology in the render sphere, no one went to see Moana or Sea Beasts due to the amazing water effects

Yes, I have to second this. While there is some edge to technology in the render sphere, no one went to see Moana or Sea Beasts due to the amazing water effects. They went because of word of mouth or advertising and were subsequently awed by said effects. You can have the most advanced visual effects and still make a terrible movie. And you can make a great movie with slightly outdated effects and still wow people (Mitchels vs The Machines is a great example). Dreamwork, being in the business of movie-making and not technology as a service, only benefits from an open renderer atmosphere. Pretrained talent, open source collaboration and contributions to improving their software and PR wins.

mkaic 4y ago
I'm genuinely curious, what about The Mitchells vs. The Machines graphics felt slightly outdated? It felt like they pushed the boundaries of the medium to me, including doing a lot of custom rendering work to make their final frames match their concept art as closely as possible, right down the the stroke textures and light-responsive character outlines. Or were you just referring to them not making any significant advances in physically-based rendering, because in that case I see what you're saying. Side note, that movie was spectacular. I have poster for it on my apartment wall!
echelon 4y ago
In the coming years, all sorts of people will be making films, and they'll be empowered by a new generation of editing, compositing, and rendering tools. They won't need large sums of capital or large teams to accomplish what the Pixar of yesteryear did. There are so many people that want to direct, yet the current Hollywood regime only has so much room at the top to grow into. That's going to change. And if you doubt that people want to be creative, just look at TikTok. Really, YouTube should have been our first evidence of this.
xedrac 4y ago
Similarly, video games that focus solely on amazing graphics are often incredibly boring to play, while there are plenty of low budget games that are very creative and fun to play, despite not having amazing graphics. Another example is Anime - very simple and dated graphics, yet fun characters and story lines. The renderer is far from the most important aspect of making a great movie or game, although it can certainly make it more enjoyable.

mkaic 4y ago

I'm genuinely curious, what about The Mitchells vs. The Machines graphics felt slightly outdated? It felt like they pushed the boundaries of the medium to me, including doing a lot of custom rendering work to make their final frames match their concept art as closely as possible, right down the the stroke textures and light-responsive character outlines. Or were you just referring to them not making any significant advances in physically-based rendering, because in that case I see what you're saying. Side note, that movie was spectacular. I have poster for it on my apartment wall!

echelon 4y ago

In the coming years, all sorts of people will be making films, and they'll be empowered by a new generation of editing, compositing, and rendering tools. They won't need large sums of capital or large teams to accomplish what the Pixar of yesteryear did. There are so many people that want to direct, yet the current Hollywood regime only has so much room at the top to grow into. That's going to change. And if you doubt that people want to be creative, just look at TikTok. Really, YouTube should have been our first evidence of this.

xedrac 4y ago

Similarly, video games that focus solely on amazing graphics are often incredibly boring to play, while there are plenty of low budget games that are very creative and fun to play, despite not having amazing graphics. Another example is Anime - very simple and dated graphics, yet fun characters and story lines. The renderer is far from the most important aspect of making a great movie or game, although it can certainly make it more enjoyable.