First time to the movies in years. It would be great to have a screen that big to work with. I wonder what software they used. Time for a  little research

Didn't get to see it even though I really wanted to, no work at the minute means luxuries like going to the flicks are out I'm afraid!

It's beautifull wants me to purhase VUE 9 wish I had more time to create

Avatar hasn't inspired me any,............................................... because I haven't seen it, tehehe!!!
@thefixer, buddy you need to move here. They just opened up a new HP Plant in Conway, that is 30 miles from me and they need 2000 people to work there. Lowest pay is around $40,000 a year and highest is well into the 6 figure range. We also just got a new cell carrier in the area and they need 1500 people and with all due respect to the South of the Border Alien Work Force, they are not skilled enough for any of these jobs. I live in one of the few places in the states that have hardly felt the recession, Thank God for it, too!!! Jobs are plenty here So Come On Down!!!!!!!

Hey I live 5 miles from Conwy [Welsh spelling for same thing] but it's in Wales not the USA [LOL]. I'd prolly fit in pretty well seeing as I have a HNC in electronics, prolly doesn't mean much to you but in the UK it's a high qualification, just short of a degree.

Saw Avatar last night, thought it looked great for the most part.

Someone mentioned an article here somewhere showing how to achive some of the Avatar Pandora like landscapes.. I wish something like that was available online...

Quote - Someone mentioned an article here somewhere showing how to achive some of the Avatar Pandora like landscapes.. I wish something like that was available online...

There was one article or tutorial in 3d world
www.3dworldmag.com/page/3dworld

Yeah but the odds of finding an issue here in the boondocks is remote.

Is there a more populated Vue discussion group then here and cgtalk? It seems theres very little chatter for something so popular, and eon's own forums are a sad joke.

I liked Avatar much, The closest 3D theater is a 10 hour round trip. So I only saw it in 2D, but WOW.
Great CG.

The floating land masses were nothing new, I've been seeing that in CG since the early days of Bryce.
Plus one had a waterfall?

I can comprehend an area with altered Gravity,

But where does the water for the waterfall come from when you have a small landmass connected to nothing? (Sometimes I think too much)

For example In Star Trek I understand there is a Universal translator so everyone can understand each other, BUT why do there lips still move in English.

Star Gate , How is it that all these races that were taken to different planets long before the English language existed ALL SPEAK ENGLISH?

Somethings are better left unasked.

I've wondered if there is a more populated Vue forum also. So far right here seems best to me.

As far as  inspired goes, the self illuminated plants and foot steps were inspiring to me, I've had thoughts about stuff like that before seeing the movie but have not done much about it. To see it done well as in Avatar was very cool.

In my gallery there is a self illuminated item called Pentaform which is as far got when thinking about that kind of stuff.

Saw the movie in 3D IMAX. That was truly over the top. The CG was excellently integrated. I share some of the same points as ddaydream, such as floating islands with unseen sources of water, universal translators and especially the english speaking off worlders in Stargate, Well I guess that's where the fiction and fantasy words come in right? And speaking of floating islands. I felt Roger Dean should have gotten some credit for inspiring some of those landscapes. Besides the floating islands, the area with the huge stone arches look exactly like some of Dean's work. Check out his art collections and you'll see a few things with a strong resemblance. Great and fun movie. Now I think they could do a reasonable Elric movie.

 I was inspired.  Since seeing it 3 days ago I feel like I never want to go to an alien planet to take minerals from the soil that don't belong to me.
Love esther
PS I did enjoy the story and effects immensely, but don't feel like replicating any of it.

Quote - "I did enjoy the story and effects immensely, but don't feel like replicating any of it."

I feel the same.
I loved the movie but I feel that whatever I'd do to replicate even a tiny bit of it, I would not even come close and my feeble attempts would only stain the magic.
So, in practice, the answer to the original question is: no, it didn't inspire me. It fascinated me but it didn't inspire me.

i seen it in 3d and will be seein it again soon probably just in 2d while it was a breathtaking ride i just didnt drag my chain, i think all the hype is a bit over the top!
I am sure vue would have been used in their pipeline somewhere......

Roger Dean is good but check out some of Patrick Woodroffe's work he is very detailed.
http://www.patrickwoodroffe-world.com/

I've seen Woodroffe's work and like him as well. I beleive he's even had stuff featured in some of Dean's published collections of various artists. If I'm not mistaken he may have been the main artist for the cover and book art for David Greenslade's album The Book of the Pentateuch. Thanks for posting the link.

I think it was an excellent movie from a CG standpoint. As far as replicating any of it nawwww  don't think so not to sound like a stick in the mud but I really don't get on these band wagons of wanting my artwork to copy cat a major movie.  If the industry has already done it  why would one want to copy it instead of coming up with their own original art? It's my hope that some major 3d content company who will remain nameless doesn't have a theme of "Avatar" like they did with LOTR and Pirates of the Caribbean LOL!

I've just watched Avatar the second time in 3D - but this time in a IMAX 3D - not a refitted normal cinema.

To watch it on the large IMAX 3D screen, filling your visual sight totally, larger 3D glasses (the frame not in the view), higher resolution and clearer pictures is a must for a high quality CG movie like Avatar is ...

The waterfall on the floating rocks ? Yes, seems to be pretty impossible - but, if you take a closer look at the floating rocks area, all of the rocks and plants growing on and around there, are surrounded by thick fog everywhere. Since the plant life and nature system on Pandora is shown as a real dense and perfectly working natural system - the water from the waterfall could be originated by the thick, dense mist/fog and evaporated water from all those dense plant life - floating up in the Pandora atmosphere and been influenced extra by this odd gravitational flux - to come down on the top of the floating rocks and plants, form back into water and run down as a waterfall - which evaporates again right after leaving the rock ... and floating back again ... again ...
And about the language:
the Na'vi were speaking english in the movie, when they've learned the english language (taught by Dr. Grace Augustine a longer time ago), otherwise they where speaking Na'vi - a newly created language extra for this move - you can take a look here:
www.learnnavi.org/

And - not to forget - afterall it's a SciFi movie and in those not anything can be explained by human science - if so, we already would be on our way to the stars (and hopefully NOT the Pandora way of approach) ...

At CGSociety is a new report about Avatar - where they explain in good detail, how plant life on Pandora was done - nothing out of the tube - a lot of special programming went into this ... here is the link:

features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php

And yes - why shouldn't something like Avatar, the way it looks and the way it's done inspire me, being a fan of CG art and creating images myself ? 
It doesn't mean, i have to copy anything exactly - but trying to create images in Avatar style isn't for sure something bad, the opposite - if noone wouldn't have been inspired by Star Was or Star Trek and creating related art - there would be a lot of great images/anims never been created all those years by many artists.

I've seen it twice now in 3D, and will try and see it again this weekend in 2D for comparison.

I was enthralled by the whole thing, and it certainly got me thinking about things I could do.

However I do find that seeing such fantastic work only emphasises the huge gulf between what I can do and what the pros produce, and that can be a bit disheartening!

Quote -
However I do find that seeing such fantastic work only emphasises the huge gulf between what I can do and what the pros produce, and that can be a bit disheartening!

You should look at what the pros produce, and then re-invent it.

I saw it in IMAX3D with my son, who was visiting from college for the holidays. I made him stay through the credits. I was all teard up and couldn't speak. Then I told him, "Some day, some way, I'm going to get a movie credit." "I don't care if it's for a tree, a rock, or a sky, but some day, some way, my name will roll by"

Fantastic movie!!!

Had me crying for many reasons throughout the film.  The American Military Industrial Machine needs to be stopped and this movie says that very well.  Basically, America vilifies a people to justify the taking of land and resources.  This movie displays and articulates the message and emotion of this fact so well that tears were in my eyes throughout the film.  The communication between nature, animals and humans is beautiful.

BTW, The 3d was awesome both in the way stuff came out and into the screen.  The depth was amazing.  The CG, godrays, translucency, clouds, and floating islands were great and totally inspired me to do more with vue.

This is not another Jennifer Aniston is going on a date movie.  This is the real deal.

Yeah, we're thinking of using manifest destiny on canada and mexico as well now. ;)

I hear what you are saying.  Seems like I have to run for office before my country spins out of control.  I still can't believe what happened in the Massachusetts Election (Centerfold Republican wins...).

I loved the part in Avatar when the Marine woman pilot stopped killing innocents and said I didn't sign up for this.  I also like the part when she said you are not the only one with a gun.

But the idea of Mother Earth or Pandora in this case being a Alive with a network of tree roots acting like a brain more sophisticated than a human being was mind blowing.

I'm awed by the quality of CG half a billion dollars and an army of artists can produce. It doesn't inspire me to recreate Pandora on my desktop, though. 

Amazing film, 1st 3d one I have seen too I was in awe ....... my computer running 24/7 will take almost a million years to render  something like that! ;)

Looks like CG world with the avatar creation article just hit the US on Jan 22nd... on the 23rd, it still wasn't in stores here yet.

Quote - I'm awed by the quality of CG half a billion dollars and an army of artists can produce. It doesn't inspire me to recreate Pandora on my desktop, though. 

Me too, but there's a trick I used in learning photography that also worked for me in 3D. You buy a cheap book of postcards and then try to recreate each picture. As you study each individual picture you get a chance to think why the picture was composed in that fashion, why the lens was set to that particular aperture, and so on. I have no training in traditional art but I get the impression that copying great paintings is part of that learning.

I looked over the magazine, finally.. the article on world creation for vue isn't 22 pages long.. they have 3-4 separate articles for doing different things and themed them to avatar.

The actual vue world article is 4 pages long.. supposedly there is a video walkthrough on it at 3d world's website, but I'll be damned if I can locate it.

Did anyone else find the video there?

Quote - I looked over the magazine, finally.. the article on world creation for vue isn't 22 pages long.. they have 3-4 separate articles for doing different things and themed them to avatar.

The actual vue world article is 4 pages long.. supposedly there is a video walkthrough on it at 3d world's website, but I'll be damned if I can locate it.

Did anyone else find the video there?

The video is there now

Where did you locate it at? I just looked again and still can't locate it.

Attached Link: http://mos.futurenet.com/resources/3dworld/tdw125-vue_video.zip

Funny you should Mention Greenslade I saw them way back in the 70's at Friars. Also saw yes with their Roger Dean stage props Also Rodney Mathews was producing the same art.
http://www.rodneymatthews.com/posters.htm

Thanks for the link, Hob, but how did you locate it there? what section was it listed under?