F/X TOOLS
Thanks to high-end workstations, special effects work moves faster than a speeding bullet - except, that is, for one agonizingly slow, frame-by-frame chore: integrating computer-generated elements into live-action sequences.
Enter Curt Rawley, the onetime all-American footballer and Harvard Business School grad who in 1989 first introduced digital nonlinear video editing as cofounder, president, and CEO of Avid Technology. Late this year, Rawley will launch another revolution with his new company SynaPix, whose SynaFlex software turns regular movie shots into three-dimensional environments. The program calculates image depth, object overlap, and where shadows ought to fall, allowing artists to speedily experiment with placement, perspective, and lighting. Suddenly, adding virtual characters and props happens quickly and seamlessly - no more working with layers, rotoscoping, or pixel-by-pixel painting to create or integrate f/x scenes.
"People who work in 2-D video and 3-D modeling environments have different concerns," says Rawley. "We're reconciling the two religions so that both sides can be more involved in the creative process."
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