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From: zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Todd Rundgren's "Change Myself"
Message-ID: <8477@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 4 Mar 91 03:08:32 GMT
References: <7745@crash.cts.com> <3760@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> <5168@mcrware.UUCP> <7795@crash.cts.com> <39765@cup.portal.com>
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Reply-To: zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle)
Organization: U.C. Davis - Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Lines: 33

In article <39765@cup.portal.com> Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com writes:
>
>Ack!  Unfortunately, animators and videographers have utterly
>failed in educating the public in how long it takes to do these
>things!!!!!  

Hideous amounts of time for professionals and CPU's.

>for a not-uncommon cost of about $2,000,000 - $3,000,000 for 2 or
>3 minutes of movie magic.  No kidding.  Just ask Pixar (who should
>know because they're still around), and Vertigo (who know even
>better, because they're not, along with a long sad littany of
>computer animation companies who slipped into the past because of
>the high cost/low time ratios associated with this business).

Depending on the quality of the anim, this sounds about right.  One
of those flashy "flying logos" for sports programs or the Sunday Night
Movie or whatever has a standard charge of 1 megabuck.

Here's something for the rumor mill:  Pixar is in big trouble.
Their adventure into hardware was obsolete before it was released.
Programmers are quitting the company.  They haven't produced anything
since "Knick-Knack".  Expect them to go belly up sometime soon,
leaving Pacific Data Images as the only professional computer 3-D
animation company around.  Their problem is the same as all the other
animation companies.  It's just too damn expensive to produce those
things.  A pity, because I love Pixar's work (especially Luxo, Jr.).

Disclaimer:  The above information is as reliable as its author, who
is not reliable at all.

           Dan Zerkle  zerkle@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu  (916) 754-0240
           Amiga...  Because life is too short for boring computers.