Bingo. Except it looked like magic because the tech was so expensive and only available to them.

Limited access to the tech added some mystique to it too.

Just like digital cameras created a lot more average photographers, it pushed photography to a higher standard than just having access to expensive equipment.

yeah and the only reason we don't see more of it was prohibitively expensive for all but basically Disney.

the compute budgets for basic run of the mill small screen 3D rendering and 2D compositing is already massive compared to most other businesses of a similar scale. the industry has been under paying their artists for decades too.

I'm willing to bet that as soon as unreal or adobe or whoever comes out with a stable diffusion like model that can be consistent across a feature length movie, they'll stop bothering with artists altogether.

why have an entire team of actual people in the loop when the director can just tell the model what they want to see? why shy away from revisions when the model can update colour grade or edit a character model throughout the entire film without needing to re-render?