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From: mce@tc.fluke.COM (Brian McElhinney)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: computer animated 'toons
Message-ID: <1990Aug22.212806.10856@tc.fluke.COM>
Date: 22 Aug 90 21:28:06 GMT
References: <413@synsys.UUCP> <16960007@hpislx.HP.COM> <24107@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <19149@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Organization: Software of the Mist
Lines: 25

In article <19149@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) writes:
> I think we've a way to go before that happens. "Tin Toy" took two years
> and two million dollars to make.  It could only be done as a cutting-edge
> research project. (Question:  What happens when you hire the top talent in
> the computer animation field and give them all the time, money and
> equipment they want?  Answer:  Tin Toy).  I can't see any for-profit
> animation studio investing that level of resources in a three minute
> short.
> 
> It'll happen eventually, as equipment gets cheaper and more sophisticated,
> but don't hold your breath.

That sounds suspiciously like a major studio mogul saying "you can't make a
movie for under ten million dollars".  A computer generated 'toon doesn't
have to have the level of realism that Tin Toy aspires to.  It has to
relieve the drudgery in creating a 'toon, allowing the artist to be more
creative (try more and different ideas) in roughly the same amount of time.

Is the present state of the art up to it?  Perhaps.  Are the "top talent in
the computer animation field" interested?  Doubtful.  Who would want to be
associated with Desktop Cartooning?
 
 
Brian McElhinney	     "If a squirrel farts in the woods, does it smell?"
mce@tc.fluke.com			      --From ZEN FOR AMERICANS, by me.