AVATAR 2 Test Footage Shows "Noticeable Improvement"
I'm really curious and excited to see the technological advancements made by James Cameron and his team for Avatar 2 and 3. The movie has been in development for years in preparation for shooting, and they are far enough along to start showing some test footage off to people.
Producer Jon Landau showed up at the Autodesk Users Group event during Siggraph, which is a conference for computer graphics. There he showed the audience some footage from the film.
Here’s a description of what went down at the conference from THR:
He then showed a series of clips, starting with a live capture created on a stage last November, which was set on Pandora and featured a human as well as the Na’vi. “This was our first foray into what we wanted to do,” Landau told the audience, pointing to noticeable improvements in aspects of the image including lighting and shadows.
The next examples came out of Autodesk’s virtual production software Motion Builder, and again showed a notable advancement in quality. “Ultimately our goal is to get to this on stage [for live capture],” he said. “This is going 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.”
The first movie looked amazing, and the fact that it's only going to look better next time around is so cool! The movie will most likely start shooting early next year.