Items tagged with Avatar
Nearly thirty years after its release, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is remembered as a unique, amazing game. Now, thanks to Bioware, it's a game that an entire new generation of gamers will be able to enjoy. What set the game apart from other titles, both than and now, is that your character, the titular would-be Avatar, is not tasked with killing an ancient enemy, halting disaster, or thwarting the plans of an evil ruler/God/Kardashian. Instead, you're tasked with becoming... The cloth map that shipped the original game A really good person. The new version (It's much cooler than it sounds). To become the Avatar, you must first meditate on and seek understanding of the Eight Virtues, find...
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The consumer love affair with 3-D technology has waxed hot and cold for the last century, and current data indicates that's not going to change. A surge in 3-D movie ticket sales several years ago jump-started the film and display industries' most recent attempt to push the technology but consumers simply aren't biting. A recent report from Slate catalogs a fresh year of data as a follow-up to an August, 2010 piece on slumping 3-D ticket sales. 12 months later, things have only gotten worse. A few years ago, theatre owners who invested in 3-D screens were realizing a substantial return on their investments thanks to significantly higher revenues on a per-screen basis. Now, those gains have...
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Readers probably don't need any extra encouragement to stay plopped on the couch this summer, but Microsoft is providing some anyway. The company has just launched Avatar Kinect and Kinect Sparkler this week, tucked into the Kinect Fun Labs on Xbox LIVE. Avatar Kinect captures facial expressions and voice so when users smile, nod or speak, your avatar does the same. Players may invite up to seven friends to join in on 24 imaginative virtual stages; discuss the latest celebrity gossip or news on the Talk Show Stage, try out a hysterical comedy routine on the Performance Stage, or wager who will win the big game in the Sports Party Stage. The Kinect sensor can record a session with a...
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We can't help but wonder if someone at Panasonic has some dirt on one of the higher ups working for Twentieth Century Fox. Either that, or Panasonic should really consider giving a raise to the sweet talking, silver tongued rep who managed to talk the film studio into giving it exclusive rights to distribute the 3D Blu-ray version of Avatar with 3D televisions and Blu-ray players until 2012. Isn't the world supposed to end in 2012 anyway? That information (about Panasonic's exclusivity rights, not the end of the world) comes courtesy of T3.com, which claims Panasonic confirmed the deal. If true, it would seem movie studios -- and in this case, Twentieth Century Fox -- are shooting themselves...
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Over the last few years, and particularly since Avatar hit the big screen seven months ago, display manufacturers and the film industry have been yammering to anyone that would listen that 3D technology is The Next Big Thing. Investors and analysts have cautiously warned against embracing the concept that 3D would reinvigorate theaters and profit margins; new evidence suggests consumer interest in 3D films is falling much more quickly than previously expected. A recent story from Slate dug into revenue data from multiple angles; its finding aren't encouraging. First, let's examine how much of a film's revenue came from 3D theatres during its opening weekend. If we exclude Step Up 3D and Pirhana...
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Fans of James Cameron's Avatar were undoubtedly thrilled with the movie's appearance on DVD and Blu-ray last week, but cat lovers who purchased the HD version of the film have been heared yowling discontentedly in the bushes. In a deeply ironic twist, the story of the nature-loving, free-spirited Na'vi is only available to humans whose Blu-ray players have been updated to support the latest DRM schemes. You won't find that mentioned in much of the official discussion of the problem—Fox likened the problem to the need for a software update, "the same way computer programs such as browsers, Microsoft Office, or iTunes do." That explanation hasn't sat well with customers who ponied up for the Blu-ray,...
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Here's a tidbit that the 3D pundits might find interesting: 3D movies have generated 33% of total box office revenue since the release of Avatar last December in the U.S. 33%. That's one-third of all movie revenue in America. Talk about stepping in and making an impact! Just two years ago, finding a 3D theater was a chore; now they're everywhere, and even though they're certainly priced higher than the average 2D film, it seems that customers are still buying in. According to a new report from the International 3D Society Study (watch out for bias, obviously), 33% of domestic box office revenues since Avatar's release have been from 3D films, with four of them ("Clash of the Titans," "How to...
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Not only is "Avatar" the top movie for yet another weekend, it apparently can also help diagnose vision problems.Anyone who has yet to see the movie has probably heard five or six (thousand) times that it's best seen in IMAX or 3-D. Problem is, once they get to the theater, they might not understand what all the fuss is about, because they find they can't see 3-D but never knew.Basically, the 3-D used in movies projects two images onto the screen, one seen by each eye (which is why the 1950s glasses had different-colored lenses, one red, one blue). That's why if you look at the screen without the glasses, it looks kind of blurry. The glasses help viewers see them properly so the images can be...
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NVIDIA Collaborates With Weta to Accelerate Visual Effects for Avatar CHALLENGE: Avatar, the breakthrough stereoscopic 3D feature film from James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox opened on December 18, 2009 with a record breaking opening weekend of over $77 million for any 3D movie, and grossing over $1 billion worldwide since then. The film features lushly detailed scenes and an extensive cast of virtual characters set in computer generated (CG) environments. Wellington, NZ-based Weta Digital, the primary visual effects vendor on the film, is a longtime NVIDIA® customer and deploys both Quadro® professional graphics solutions and Tesla™ high performance computing solutions in...
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