CGI Is Starting to Suck

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vidiot, Jun 11, 2015.

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  1. altaeria

    altaeria Forum Resident

    What I don't like about most CGI is its lack of "weight".
    Everything moves a little too fast and bounces around a little too much to appear natural, with gravity under-considered.
     
    BrettyD, Tim S and Vidiot like this.
  2. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Yep, that's been a longstanding problem. It was especially evident in Avatar. The only real way to fix it is to use physics based models that take into account mass (inertia), gravity, muscle/skeletal constraints along with physical collision modeling (eg when a foot hits the ground or a punch hits a target, etc).

    All these things are doable and have been investigated in research papers, however, they are way too compute intensive to be practical in a movie setting at this stage.
     
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  3. King Edward

    King Edward Well-Known Member

    Location:
    USA
    Check this clip at 3:30-3:50 and then at 4:10-4:30. You'll see Jack & Rose's breath and then those in lifeboats. I think it's satisfactory and does its job. CGI breath would have stood out badly. He made the right call to use real breath.

     
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  4. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    TED talk from Danielle Feinberg of Pixar, I always geek out at the level of detail and the amount of work that goes into making these movies.

    Danielle Feinberg: The magic ingredient that brings Pixar movies to life | TED Talk | TED.com »

    Danielle Feinberg, Pixar's director of photography, creates stories with soul and wonder using math, science and code. Go behind the scenes of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Brave, WALL-E and more, and discover how Pixar interweaves art and science to create fantastic worlds where the things you imagine can become real. This talk comes from the PBS special "TED Talks: Science & Wonder."
     
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  5. jawaka1000

    jawaka1000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    I really long for filmmaking like this!
     
  6. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    I keep having a nightmare that somebody fed a classic film into a CGI machine and ruined it with bizarre ever expanding, meaningless effects, and that this version was marketed as the "New, Improved" edition.
     
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  7. jackson123

    jackson123 Forum Resident

    Yeah, I love Air Force One, but I caught it showing at an establishment and forgot how awful the ending plane crash was. Looks like something out of a early 2000's video game. I give it a pass anyway since if was the early days of CGI. Nowadays there's no excuse.
     
  8. robertawillisjr

    robertawillisjr Music Lover

    Location:
    Hampton, VA
  9. PlushFieldHarpy

    PlushFieldHarpy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana
    Are people actually watching these movies anymore? I'm seeing parts of The Hobbit on TV, and the whole film seems to be animated. It's like the actors only showed up to film the basic actions and lines in front of blue screens and computers do the rest. Really, it's embarrassing and a disgrace to the art of cinema.
     
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  10. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    You should stay away from the Jungle Book movie then - it's all CGI except for the kid, but it looks gorgeous.

    Cinema has always been about creating alternate realities, contemporary or otherwise. The question is how well is that reality created and how well is the story told. There are good examples and poor examples, but CGI is a neutral tool which can be used to good effect or abused for the opposite result.
     
  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I don't know if I'd go that far, but it is oft-putting to see that much obvious CGI. I think the earlier Lord of the Rings films had a better balance between "real" footage and VFX scenes. The Hobbit kind of becomes a cartoon after awhile. I think all three of those films have some good moments, but there are other scenes where I feel like the CG is hitting you over the head with a sledgehammer.
     
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  12. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    And just to update this thread: I like what former two former ILM CGI supervisors have to say about the current VFX business...

    "Nowadays visual effects is just a tool, and so a lot of times it’s used to make a shot that doesn’t work so well have more energy. A lot of times it’s used in a way to cover up weaknesses in storytelling. And it just doesn’t have an impact anymore."

    Those are very true words.

    ILM's Rebel 'Jurassic Park' Artists Reflect On The State of VFX Art Today »
     
  13. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    Behind the scenes, visual effects, "The Others"

     
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  14. PlushFieldHarpy

    PlushFieldHarpy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana
    Such artistry involved, I had no idea. What did they ever do before such technological wizardry? I imagine making a film was a much more taxing, labor-intensive experience; but more rewarding in the end result.
     
  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    They had to do it the hard way. In truth, special effects have always existed; the problem is now (as the VFX guys say above) when a lot of CGI is shoved into a movie in order to cover up weaknesses in storytelling. And I see that a lot.
     
  16. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    I think most of the movies are 'enhanced'/tweaked with/manipulated nowadays and most of the time we don't notice, it's to do with the look and atmosphere of the movie and I don't really mind. In "The Others" it helped the filmmaker to create an atmosphere without having to wait for the light to change or having to run around with fog machines. I hate it when it gets intrusive; strange colour-palettes, adding unrealistic CGI animals or lens flare. In some cases it seems to me that the director can't stop tinkering and tweaking while a movie like the Revenant shows it's all about the landscape, the decor, the acting, action and photography.
     
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  17. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    ...and the CGI bear!
     
  18. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    :eek:You're right! But it was pretty good one!
     
  19. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    And yet The Revenant had NINE COLORISTS AND ASSISTANTS working on it around the clock at Technicolor for three months, in some cases 24 hours a day in multiple rooms simultaneously. Massive, massive amounts of VFX and color-correction went on by Steve Scott and his crew to infinitely tweak every shot, basically relighting every scene in post. Do a Google search on Steve Scott and "Revenant" and you'll get the story. Steve was not allowed to talk about it until after DP Chivo Lubezki (rightfully) won the Oscar for Best Cinematography in March, but as of April the whole story eventually came out.

    This movie is a good example of seamless VFX and color work coming together to create a fairly natural result. But when you see the before and after of what the movie initially looked like, then what it ended up being... it's fairly stunning. There isn't much "CGI" per se in the movie, but there is quite a bit of scene-stitching, combining an earlier take with a later take in order to create one seamless experience. There was a ton of CGI VFX with the bear attack, however.
     
  20. budwhite

    budwhite Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

    Location:
    Götaland, Sverige
    The Revenant looked good on the big screen but what's the point with all that massive digital tweaking, really? I for one think that Lawrence of Arabia and Jeremiah Johnson looks much better
    It just seems like a waste of money and time. Our nature is wonderful, use it
     
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  21. Yovra

    Yovra Collector of Beatles Threads

    I didn't know that (clearly...), thanks for the info!
     
  22. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    It makes it look better.
     
  23. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    after three stunt men were eaten by the real grizzly it was decided that CGI was the way to go....., the scene delivered the horror and visceral impact intended in my opinion
     
  24. 'The Revenant' looked spectacular on the 21st Century big-screen, much in the same way 'Jeremiah Johnson' or 'Lawrence Of Arabia' did back in the 20th Century. Digital tweaking of imagery in post-production nowadays does the same thing that chemical or light-based post-production tweaking did back in the 20th Century: it makes the movie look the way the film-makers want it to look. Different tools, same result...
     
  25. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR! Thread Starter

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Not exactly. If there are six people in the same shot, and we can color correct each person differently with respect to each other, and if we can color-correct the background in different places and make it far different than it looked on set... there is a point where the color correction is a visual effect unto itself. When pushed to an extreme, it becomes weird and unnatural.
     
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