Looking forward to 2008.(editor's note)(Editorial)

By the time readers have this issue in their hands, 2008 will have already begun. What can we expect in the upcoming months? Undoubtedly, the use of motion capture will continue to grow, and expect to see more projects featuring lifelike digital humans. 2008 also will be big for stereoscopy, with films like Journey 3D, followed in 2009 by the 3D feature Avatar.

What are those in the industry anticipating? I asked a sampling of DCC veterans what application, technology, or product (aside from their own) they are looking forward to most. Here's what they had to say:

Nick Rashby, AJA: "We're looking forward to seeing which of the new codec formats are adopted by the postproduction industry for online quality, and what new formats and codecs are ultimately supported by the NLE software manufacturers."

Patricia Harrell, AMD: "End users and developers are excited about the possibility of dramatically accelerating their workflows via GPUs, and we'll see more ISVs taking advantage of this in 2008."

Antonio Julio, Dell: "As company consolidation grows, so does customer demand for differentiation, especially in terms of application performance as it applies to workflow and creativity. This [opens the door] to providing a more simplified, solution-oriented approach that combines professional hardware, software, and services."

Paul Babb, Maxon: "I'm not moved by the tools as much as I am by the art. I always look forward to seeing quality work coming from very small teams or even single artists. I expect to see more inspiring imagery, animation, videos, Webisodes, etc. unfettered by big studio influence."

Dominique Pouliquen, RealViz: "We will see more applications in which capturing the real world "as is' is key. This applies not only to visual effects (on-set mocap, HDR imaging, set ...