COMPUTER graphics artists face a tough job when they have to combine their hobbits, kung-fu fighters and spacecraft with live action footage for movies. For fantasy creations to look realistic, their appearance on screen has to react to changes in the colour, intensity and direction of the light in different parts of the film set.
This can be an expensive and time-consuming task, but now two scientists in New York have devised a way of simplifying it.
The conventional technique is to go back onto the set and take photographs of reflecting balls placed in various parts of the set.…
