misterd on 24 December 2008
Take a moment and look at the movies, where CGI is pushed to its limit.
Compare a typical Pixar film with one of Zemeckis' motion-captured flicks like Beowulf or Polar Express. Forget the films themselves, and focus on the actual graphics.
Which have been more effective? Most people, without question, would peg Pixar's. Why? They don't go for true photorealism the way Beowulf did, but it does tend to be more convincing. Photorealism is not simply a meaure of horsepower, but an aesthetic choice. Pixar could do photoreal - and they hit it too when it comes to backgrounds or artificial objects. But making a photoreal animal, let alone a human, its never as effective - they still haven't crossed that uncanny valley.
