headnoize: 15 Minutes of Shame, "If you love me, you'll do it"

Okay, Pixar can officially suck my dick. Enjoy.

Square and NVIDIA Team Up to Demonstrate Major Step Toward Real-Time Cinematic Rendering at SIGGRAPH 2001

SIGGRAPH 2001 - LOS ANGELES - AUGUST 14, 2000 - The graphics industry took a quantum leap forward today at SIGGRAPH 2001 when NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) rendered Columbia Pictures' computer-generated (CG) animated motion picture, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, in real-time. This groundbreaking demonstration takes place in the NVIDIA booth (#1701) and SQUARE booth (#1927) using NVIDIA's Quadro(tm) workstation graphics technology, the industry's leading workstation 3D solutions. Square USA Inc. research and development division developed the software for the technology demo. The real-time demonstration was made possible by NVIDIA's nfiniteFX(tm) shading technology, including vertex and pixel shaders, to overcome the technical challenges presented in creating realistic skin, hair, clothing and other organic attributes.

"This interactive demonstration of Final Fantasy is a major achievement for the 3D industry. The realism and subtleties of the images demonstrate the power of the programmable GPU that NVIDIA pioneered," stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO at NVIDIA. "We've taken a giant step in visual computing. The work done by Square and NVIDIA is a glimpse at the future of video games and other interactive story telling experiences. We had a great time working with the talented team at Square. Their artist vision is inspiring."

The Quadro-based workstation renders a single frame in four-tenths of a second, allowing for an interactive, real-time CG scene. For comparison, a single frame from the original movie took over 90 minutes to render. NVIDIA's GPU enables over 100,000 speed-up over software renderers running on a farm of the fastest supercomputers.

"It has long been an artist's dream to render CG animation in real-time," stated Kazuyuki Hashimoto, CTO at Square USA. "This technology demonstration represents the future direction of digital 3D entertainment, simulating human emotions, movements and characteristics through the use of computer-generated graphics."

Final Fantasy : The Sprits Within represents the first attempt in moviemaking history to simulate human emotions and movements more realistically than any current CG animated film. Ushering in a new form of entertainment, the film links interactive entertainment software and motion pictures while using the latest in computer-generated animated technology.

- Posted 12:25 by Mabelrode