This film looks truly amazing, hopefully it is as good as first impressions, however what I'm really looking forward to seeing is the game in stereoscopic 3D. Hopefully it allows for a more immersive game. They've said it's third-person perspective, and I'm hoping it's free-roaming so you can actually experience the world.

I'm hoping the game in 3D will bring other developers onto the idea. It would be truly amazing to have stereoscopic 3D in games for Natal (when it hits the shelf). My only experience in a half-decent VR was when models were still visibly made of triangles, it would be amazing to have 4 people in VR in your own living room . . . although I'm sure coffee tables would become quite the hazard!

3D glasses would make the player and pose detection much easier, actually

Just to eradicate bias, what did you think of Speed Racer?

I thought the graphics were commendable; that's about it.

Dammit, I thought they were talking about this Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvLUrF3ItGQ

This other one looks pretty cool too.

For perspective, here's James Cameron's first film (which is the hard one because you never have money) - some context plus ~13 minutes of slightly blurry google video, 'cause it was made way back in 1978.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/11/15/bdsf-james-camerons-xeno...

When I saw the character in the wheelchair I immediately thought of the Poul Anderson story "Call me Joe": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_me_Joe I haven't heard anything about Poul Anderson being credited as the inspiration for this story.

3D will be cool... but CGI characters still weird me out.

That valley just isn't quite canny enough yet. Though it's getting beter.

Does anyone have a link to a non-Quicktime streaming version of this trailer? I'm on a machine without Quicktime nor the ability to install it.

Looks great. I've become a convert to 3d after seeing what the new circular polarization methods can do when I went to see Up. Meanwhile the world of autostereoscopy is becoming crowded, which is probably a good thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopy

I've never complained about a post not belonging on HN before ... so, before I do, can someone explain why this belongs here?

If it involves some breakthrough technology, cool, but give me some background info–not just a trailer.

Crack Creative (http://www.crackcreative.com) developed a new production technology called "Virtual Production" for Avatar back in 2005. It allows directors to shoot CG motion capture characters and settings interactively like an actual location.

Pace Camera (http://www.pacetech.com/) developed the 'fusion' 3d camera to film(HD) the live action parts http://www.nowpublic.com/3d_hd_fusion_camera_from_pace.

Stories and videos about the tech behind the making of Avatar would be far more HN-worthy than the mass-market trailer. The trailer is essentially just an ad/teaser/spoiler for a movie that will probably be as heavily promoted as Titanic.

If you feel an article isn't appropriate, you should just flag it and hopefully a moderator will delete it.

From the guidelines:

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Having only seen the trailer, this looks similar to Neosapiens in exosquad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exosquad