Fiat Lux

[Dave Rawson]

The thing that especially excited me about The Great Mouse Detective and 
The Flight of the Navigator before it, was that it demonstrated that the 
Disney animators understood that to recreate reality using computers, 
one must start with recreating light, or precisely, the effects of light.

In the Flight of the Navigator, the steps which led from the flight 
machine were computer created and correctly showed the planing of light.

In The Great Mouse Detective, the opening of the movie was entirely in 
fog, tendrils of which floated toward one with almost three dimensional 
impact because of the computer rendered highlights edging of the forms.

This was all in profound contrast to Tron, which had a kind of cheesy 
rotoscoping cum 8-bit processing quality to it, no matter that it is 
considered a cult-favorite today.

Let there be light!

-- 
* Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci's greatest works were destroyed?
* That he had an adopted son nicknamed Salai, the "little Devil"?

"CHIAROSCURO: The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci"

A graphic novel by Dave Rawson, Pat McGreal & Chaz Truog.
ISBN 1-4012-0498-8 (Available everywhere late October 2005)