Re: Jurassic Park 4 - new dinosaur, no feathers

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2013, David Krentz wrote:
> On Apr 8, 2013, at 8:26 AM, Richard W. Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu> wrote:
>
> "Maybe non feathery skin is easier to render, especially when lots of 
> movement is involved, and thus cheaper to produce."

I think someone else wrote that part...

>  With their budget, their top-end FX house and advances in feather/fur 
> rendering that would be the lamest excuse.  I'm sure it has to do with

Consider

http://www.webpronews.com/pixars-brave-every-hair-is-numbered-2012-06
 ...
 3,473,271
 Individual animated hairs on the Lots-o-Huggin Bear from Toy Story 3

 2,320,413
 Individually animated hairs on Sully in Monsters, Inc. It took 11 to 12
 hours to animate a single frame featuring Sully.

 270
 Types of food created for Ratatouille.

 1,150,000
 Individual hairs rendered on Ratatouilles hero, Remy

Monsters Inc came out in 2001. So this is NOT new technology.

However, feathers aren't hair:

http://m.techradar.com/news/video/software/applications/the-making-of-pixars-up-603600
 ...
 As if the balloons weren't enough, the bird character Kevin posed
 another set of challenges that were no less complex. The first
 challenge was to give the bird's iridescent feathers a soft, fluffy
 appearance.

 In past Pixar features, feathers were modelled as either fur, as
 single hairs, or as single pieces of geometry shaded to look like
 feathers. Pixar used this method as a base to grow an additional
 set of hairs, and in some cases they added a third.

 Kevin's feathers number in the thousands, and the number of hairs
 used to construct them were in the millions. Pixar created a curved
 plane full of hairs with added supports within the illumination
 model. The artists could illuminate the feathers as either
 individual hairs or as a surface, which offered a great deal of
 flexibility to explore soft and hard textures on different parts
 of the bird. This technique achieved the desired soft and fluffy
 look, but it also created the second challenge: how to make the
 feathers iridescent.
 ...

Possibly not the best links but it gets the point across that it
IS doable; "Up" came out in 2009.

> the pre-conceived notions about what Jurassic Park dinosaurs are 
> supposed to look like and the audiences expectations, for better or for 
> worse.

Or perhaps continuity with the earlier films. Or feathers look 
sissified... Or...