Avatar - James Cameron Returns! (Spoilers in thread, obviously!)

Found one on MSN. Good stuff, I liked it a lot more than the first trailer. Stills seems a little cartoonish. Doesn't bother me, but I'm a little confused from Cameron's interview about how super real everything is supposed to look. I won't judge till the big screen. And I'll probably see it three times, anyways!
 
'Revolutionize film' may be slightly hypey, but 3D processes have always just given me double-vision headaches...until I started looking at material for Avatar.

What's more, the way that the 3D effect is utilized in Avatar is not the sort of traditional crap-flying-in-your-face gags: it's more like the surface of the screen falls away from you and you are looking into the world of the film. Yes, there is still some exploitation of the floating-out-at-you effect but it's not a one-note thing.

Plus, with the new equipment it's possible to position the convergence point on-screen: so rather than the effect being fixed at its best in the screen center, it can actually be shifted to the point in the composition where it's most effective (and where you as the viewer are most likely to be directing your attention).
 
its the sharpest 3d I've seen. having worked on a few 3d features and my pervious employer before he past away, gave me so great knowledge of 3d. He would have loved to see avatar.
 
New trailer is looking good. The story is nothing original, from what I can tell, it's been done to death. Still, I like this new trailer much better than the last one.

As long as he does it better than everyone else it will be well worth watching.
 
'Revolutionize film' may be slightly hypey, but 3D processes have always just given me double-vision headaches...until I started looking at material for Avatar.

What's more, the way that the 3D effect is utilized in Avatar is not the sort of traditional crap-flying-in-your-face gags: it's more like the surface of the screen falls away from you and you are looking into the world of the film. Yes, there is still some exploitation of the floating-out-at-you effect but it's not a one-note thing.

Plus, with the new equipment it's possible to position the convergence point on-screen: so rather than the effect being fixed at its best in the screen center, it can actually be shifted to the point in the composition where it's most effective (and where you as the viewer are most likely to be directing your attention).

Sounds like it'll be similar to the 3D in "Up", which added just enough debt to make the film more enjoyable without being obnoxious.
 
I think Up did well enough that no one was left in debt.

Can't comment on the 3D process since I saw it in a 2D presentation.
 
Man this is looking great. I mean sure you can tell when it's CG, but man that is so photo realistic nonetheless. The skin, the hair, the way the light interacts with these features. And as someone said, you can really see the emotion. I can't imagine how it would be big screen and in 3d. Can't wait!
 
I remember the IRON MAN cgi trailers looking abysmal. I have HUGE faith in Cameron. I mean...when was the last time he fed us swill?
 
I've heard quite a few people complaining that the CG looks terrible, but to me, it looks photorealistic. Really impressive.

i heard that too but alot of them said that after seeing district 9.. i thin its because of the different approaches one is slicker and the other. I think in #D it looks way better than the flat prints. also EYES that are too big can sometimes make people perceive fakeness. its more unrealistic to see that type of thin in creatures that have human like qualities.
 
i heard that too but alot of them said that after seeing district 9.. i thin its because of the different approaches one is slicker and the other. I think in #D it looks way better than the flat prints. also EYES that are too big can sometimes make people perceive fakeness. its more unrealistic to see that type of thin in creatures that have human like qualities.

I've watched the trailer several times in HD and think they just haven't gotten over the bar yet with CGI. It's good CGI, real good...but still CGI. I zeroed in on two things...1) The movement is still a little too fluid. I read an article about robotic scientists who discovered that one of the key things which cues people into perceiving a robot as more human are micro-movements, tiny, jerky almost imperceptible movements humans are making all the time. The characters here still have that unnatural fluidity to their movements, caused I'm assuming by a too straight-line mathematical curve between keyframe points. 2) The imagery is too clean. No clipped highlights, no contrast, colors that are too vivid with no grain or grit -- every shot is just too perfect, which is the obvious temptation when you can control every single variable of your image, but it gives things a plastic sheen of unreality. If they can ever perfect these two things I think they'll finally achieve photo-realism in 100 percent CGI imagery.
 
see with D9 i totally forgot i was looking at cgi at one point.

That's because the shots mostly were real, except for the CGI elements. With Avatar many shots are 100 percent CGI and that's a higher hurdle to clear. Plus, these characters are closer in look to humans than the prawns in D9, which adds to the difficulty in overcoming the uncanny valley.
 
In D9 it still looked like mocap on the characters in some scenes. Some of it , specifically in the scenes around the housing units in the compound, were far from ideal in thier movements. Very noticable anyways in a few scenes. Overall it was tight though.

From the one or two trailers I've seen of Avatar, I found the closeups of the faces to look like real actors in makeup. What might be part of the problem for some, is with how the characters are obvioulsy CG because of the actions they take, like huge dives and jumps for example.
And with the preconceived notion that they are CG by the vary nature that they 'are' avatars.

Best CG human character faces and expressions I've seen so far going by the few shots I've seen from the trailer.
 
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