The Math Magic Behind Pixar Movies

Pixar movies look so good you know that loads of cutting edge software, mighty powerful hardware and months worth of rendering are the forces at work behind their studio productions, but the ultimate weapon in the Pixar arsenal, or any 3D arsenal for that matter, is math.

This TED Ed talk focuses on how math plays a major role in the creation of a 3D movie, with Pixar Research Lead Tony DeRose demonstrating how math is the major force behind CGI.

If you'd rather see the math at work within Pixar's proprietary software Presto you should head over to GeekTyrant and watch the included bonus video Presto Demonstration at NVIDIA's GTC Conference, which gives us a rare look at how Presto works.

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Part of it is probably the extra publicity they've received from sites like this.

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Since World of Goo is a digital product, they lose nothing if someone buys it for just a penny (presuming no selling cost involved).

I always wonder if this would work on physical goods, where there is a non-zero cost of goods. It's iffy - but there are some pay-what-you-want restaurants that boost their profits with this scheme.

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Tx Neatoland for posting this.

I have read through the various links and forums and it is very interesting (if you are into this sort of thing :)

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Alex, since they went through Paypal, there are costs associated with collecting the money -- I think they said they lost money for any donation less than 30 cents.

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i had pirated it on my wii so i took the opportunity to give them a little money. i can't afford $20 for a casual game i played for a couple hours but $5 seemed justified

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Well thanks to this post I've bought the game for $0.50 and that's $0.50 more than they would have had because I would never have got it otherwise...Plus it's a really cool game, well happy!

Yes...I am cheap.

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How long before the game becomes boring do you realize you've paid 20 bucks for pixels. I paid out ten bucks for another physics game which was very challenging, but after about a week my brain was tired and I had built a solution for every level. I haven't used it since. I can only hope these games can inspire future architects and inventors.

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You could say the same thing about any medium pwscott... how long before a book becomes boring do you realize you've paid 20 bucks for a stack of paper with small symbols printed on it?

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Radiohead tried this a few years ago, except they did this at the time when the album came out and not a year after release. The wiki page goes back and forth between album sales being very successful and mediocre...so I am not really sure how that one turned out.

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I think I'll toss them $5 myself for their year old independently developed game just to support them, and have it on my computer should I ever have the desire to play it. This business model works well as long as there is no middle man, and unfortunately, Paypal is such a thing and profits could be better had it not been necessary. Like record companies, I would much rather avoid them and put the money directly into the hands of the artists.

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I paid $2.

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I bought this game when it first was released for $20 then I bought it again at a store for $20. So I spent $40 for the game.

It is a great games especially if you play it on a tablet.

What makes it even better is the lack of DRM.

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