“All of this stuff may or may not happen to be in a new version of After Effects at some future point in time, maybe.” That was the legalese they produce at Adobe… But at any rate, there are A FEW EXCITING THINGS you can look forward to:

Light Falloff -
Tired of those pesky lights being unrealistically bright and not conforming to our sketchy understanding of the physical universe? Worry no more! Now there is a built in slider that will simulate light-fall off from spotlights and more, so you can have murky shadows…

Rack Focus -
Possibly the coolest thing I’ve seen. They took a video of a boy pretending to hold something in his hand, animated in a ball of fire, separated the hand (foreground) from his face (bkgd) and then applied a rack-focus-map to all the layers. Then you just slide back and forth and viola, simulated rack focus!

Source Code -
all videos will be coordinated and you can switch between any source code you want… I’m sure editors are happy about that

Image caching -
each layer will individually cache their data, so if you change one little thing, it will take less time to update the whole image

Multi Ram Processing -
didn’t actually understand this, except that when you use it, limit the number of virtual CPUs, use a smaller amount of RAM, and disk caching will now default to 20gbs, and u should use it with an ext HD.

3D Glasses -
apparently they already had this filter, but now there will be a one click 3d-stereo-camera rig you can set up and different preview options to try out all the diff kinds of 3d glasses that exist today

RED film -
raw film data can be processed in AE, just like those snobby fashion photographers instantly color correct their pics on set

and finally…
WARP STABILIZATION & SUBSPACE CONTROL!!!!!
A new stabilization filter that uses a default cloud of 500+ tracking points to stabilize an image. We got to see all the crosshairs, but that won’t be available in the future. They had no idea how to term their controls, so one is actually called Subspace. It is all to reduce artifacting and warping around the edges of stabilized footage. Also cuts back on the amount of scaling and cropping. A vast improvement, but not universal for every shot. Personally I think it might cause a little motion sickness, but you’ll have to judge for yourself.

I was going to include a video preview of the Warp Stabilizer, but even though AENY promised it would be up the next day, all my Google efforts produce nothing but Star Trek engine designs…  but keep an eye out!

Much easier.

Switch on your PC and join the New York Geeks as they try to pin down the when, how, and why of magical computers, as depicted in our favorite movies and television shows.

mp3 link

Show Notes:

Break Song: “Home Computer” by Kraftwerk

Dr. Sbaitso, from Creative Labs on X-Entertainment
Infinity Blade
Kotaku article about Infinity Blade
It’s a UNIX System, I know this.
Gawker Media Password Leak
Thor Trailer
1958 “Tennis for Two” video game
Johnny Mnemonic internet
Hollywood Computing article on Rotten Tomatoes

Tron has been aging on a disconnected hard drive for the last 28 years. A Western Digital My Book, from the looks of it.

The first Tron has inspired countless (every?) animator alive today. And if you need to check the changes in the world from the ’80s, remember the oft-quoted fact that Tron was not qualified for special FX awards because “using computers was cheating.” A while ago I re-watched Tron on my Mac laptop, via a possibly torrented movie file from a friend. In the ’80s, computers looked like this:

an '80s computer

The whole idea of Tron was inspired by this machine, and the possibilities that came with it. Enter static flickers, black lights, spinning disks (direct technical influence) and motorcycles. Would it have been too much to ask for a new Tron that was equally influenced by today’s world of Apple, Sony, Facebook, and Google? Do we not have an equally inspiring technical society today, that looks good even in plaid and thick-rimmed glasses?

The story of Tron Legacy is clearly meant to capitalize on the current generation of artists who were so inspired by the first film. (Capitalism: Disney’s rewriting the past so that every boy had Tron action figures and posters in their bedroom.) Since the target audience is kids who grew up, a father-son story works perfectly. A confused wayward child seeking adulthood/closure travels to a fantasy realm to find the answer to life’s persistent questions. This never fails to introduce a fantasy world but neither is it very original.

SPOILER ALERT
Traveling to Tron myself, I expected a hell of a lot more. But as Joseph Kosinski explains, Tron has been running on Jeff Bridges desk since he mysteriously disappeared, and it had no internet connection. My heart died a little when Jeff Bridges seriously asks: “What’s wi-fi? Oh, I invented that in 1985.” Really? Because it should have been part of your world and made it more interesting. Mr. Kosinski failed to distinguish Tron Legacy from any of the countless other sci-fi movies in this post-Matrix world. (Constantine, Matrix 2, A Scanner Darkly, and Titan AE come to mind.)

My personal problem with the film concerns the party scene. The people were supposed to be avatars of computer programs, and I really expected a variety of characters surpassing the diversity of Mos Eisley’s cantina. But instead, I got a stilted world where every girl has the same shiny black bowl haircut, and wore the silver astronaut dresses. Strangely, Daft Punk fit perfectly into this scene, having kept their style the same for years from the original Tron. They kept to their tiny DJ box, smartly avoiding everyone.

Tron has a highly specific artistic style that was reinterpreted by a first time architect/film director, who hired fashion designers, car designers, and other architects to work for the first time in film design. They did a beautiful job modernizing all of Tron’s concepts: the game arena is ingenious, and Jeff’s house is a perfect blend of 2001-Space-Odessey and iPod sensibility. And the action sequences are pretty exhilarating… arcade games inspired the 2D blocking of the light cycles so I suppose the Xbox inspired the 3D blocking of the light-jet-thingies.

I interpret this sudden rush of good-feeling towards Tron Legacy as Christmas cheer, but maybe it means that the movie is not all bad, and that many people will enjoy it anyway. If you needed one reason to watch: go for the young CGI Jeff Bridges. (Mr Kosinski tried to say something about how there are special relationships with Jeff Bridges and his real son versus his digital son, but I have no idea what he’s talking about.)

How to tell them apart.

In this bite-size, David and Brett regroup after the NYC release party for the Boxee Box, a set-top media aggregator for your TV.

mp3 link

Show Notes:

The Boxee Box by D-Link

Boxee website

Mashable: Congress Asks NBC Why Hulu Blocked Boxee

Adding to the lush foliage of this uncanny valley is the fact that Bina48 is partially made up of recorded data from a real person named Bina, one of the robot’s owners. Yikes. Check out the video below and see for yourself.

Interview With a Robot – Video Library – The New York Times

Here’s a sweet new fan trailer for the original “TRON” that makes it feel more like a modern movie preview. I approve.

YouTube – TRON 1982 Trailer [Thanks, Mark!]

The 2nd Annual NYC Twestival will be held in NYC this Thursday, March 25th, from 7pm-11pm at Good Units (below the Hudson Hotel). Unfortunately, Nelson and I will be prepping for our trip to PAX the next day, so we’ll be unable to attend. But don’t let our absence stop you from attending. From the website:

“Attendees will enjoy live entertainment, games, and be a part of one the largest philanthropy events organized through social media.  Join us for Mister Disco ( @MisterDisco ) and Shinobi Ninja ( @ShinobiNinja ), photographs by  Maureen Pitz , prize auction, and amazing origami demonstrations by  Sok Song .  You’ll have a chance to add your signature to his creations before he folds out giant twitter birds.”

So there you go. If you do attend, make sure to drop us a line and let us know how it was!

TWESTIVAL NYC 2010 New York

Anyhow, in true NY geek fashion, I took part in a “Name that Video” quiz, in which I was required to recognize recent viral internet videos based on audio alone. You can check out the video below to see how I did…

You can find more of The Urly Show on iTunes or Urlesque.com, and you can also follow Urlesque on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for having me on the show, guys!