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From: dleigh@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Darren Leigh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: SIGGRAPH -- The REAL show stopper.
Message-ID: <638@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: Sat, 8-Aug-87 16:23:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsz.638
Posted: Sat Aug  8 16:23:46 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 18:33:08 EDT
References: <1097@gryphon.CTS.COM> <915@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <831@percival.UUCP> <922@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <1877@xanth.UUCP>
Reply-To: dleigh@hplabsz.UUCP (Darren Leigh)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 56
Keywords: NewTek
Summary: Have the flamers even seen both demos?


   All of this flaming about PIXAR and Leo's demo is really starting
to bother me.  Have most of you flamers even seen both demos?

   I was at Siggraph and I saw both of them, and I think the whole
debate is ludicrous.  "Red's Dream" was incredible, and Leo's demo,
while it is a VERY nice piece of Amiga animation, doesn't touch it.
The two are not very much alike.  The only similarities you could
possibly draw between the two are that:

  1.  Each had a unicycle

  2.  The unicycles were red

  3.  The unicycles were juggling (albeit differently)

  4.  The juggling happened in a circus ring


  If people think that PIXAR's creativity lies solely in the fact that
they had a unicycle juggling, then I feel really sorry for them.
PIXAR's production was several minutes long, had a story line,
employed MANY other scenes and another character (a clown), had some
really great dynamic effects (the juggling was much more complex, the
speeds were more pleasing, the unicycle and clown moved very well . . .)
and was rendered beautifully.

  Leo's demo, on the other hand, was a short (a number of seconds),
repeating piece of animation with no story line.  All it had was a
unicycle juggling some balls and the juggling was not nearly as
realistic as PIXAR's.  The unicycles were not identical, even though
they were both red.  The rendering, while good for the Amiga, was not
up to PIXAR's quality (did I see some aliasing?  PIXAR people would
get fired for that!).

  Calling it copyright infringement, or even saying that Leo stole
PIXAR's creativity is stupid.  The two are not *nearly* enough alike.

Oh, and while I'm on the topic, I saw a lot of Star Trek stuff at
Siggraph.  At the trade show I saw animated models of the Enterprise
zooming around three dimensionally, and one of the speakers even used
slides and music from the show to juice up his presentation.
(Horrors!)  What about all of these pictures of Spock and the
Enterprise I have seen floating around (you know, the ones you print
up on a line printer).  Do you think Paramount is going to sue?  They
stand on much better legal ground than PIXAR!

Copyright infringement, bah!


Darren Leigh
dleigh@hplabs.hp.com

And since I have been flaming:
DISCLAIMER:  The preceding opinions are mine and may or may not be
             shared by my employers.