With Comic-Con 2013 having just finished (and which we here at THN covered extensively) another conference have slipped under the radar almost completely, that being the CGI conference Siggraph. When I say almost it’s because one major event did happen at the conference as the first ever test footage from the sequel to the phenomenon that is AVATAR was shown by producer Jon Landau to the audience. Now it has to be said that the footage was rough and very unfinished, but it did appear to show improvements to the already quite brilliant motion capture techniques used in the original. Landau talked up the advancements in the Motion Builder software that Avatar used as talked about using the technology to live capture actors as they perform.
Ultimately our goal is to get to this on stage [for live capture], this is gong to allow Jim to light the scenes and make the process more efficient … and focus on what is most important—the close up. Movies about storytelling.
He added that the technological advancements is a great thing for young film-makers, and that he thinks ‘the future is very bright for Autodesk and for filmmakers’. My hope is that AVATAR 2 will be much less about the razzle dazzle that surrounded the first film and how pretty it was and more about a solid story that is augmented by the CGI. I thought the motion capture on the first film was brilliant, however as hyped as the 3D technology was, I didn’t think it added anything to the film as it worked equally well in 2D. Let us know what your thoughts on AVATAR 2 is.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
