[Dimmy]

I saw a few trailers in the movie theatre yesterday - Troy, some weird disaster film. And the CGI in them looked terrible. But, the thing is, I used to be totally covinced by it - I didn't used to be able to spot most CGI at all, it appeared seamlessley into the movie's optical effects.

So, what's hapenning to CGI? Is it actually getting worse?

[kill3r]

Originally posted by Dimmy
So, what's hapenning to CGI? Is it actually getting worse?

One word: Gollum.

You can't really generalise that 'CGI is getting worse'.

I'd say CGI, at it's best, is light years ahead of what we have seen previously. That's not to say there's some crap still being churned out at the lower levels though

[Dimmy]

Hmm - perhaps I saw 'Budget' CGI in the trailers?

[lentini]

I don't think CG has moved forward at all in the last 10 or so years. When you look at Jurrasic Park or T2, the CG in those is a hell of a lot better than in some films these days.

[Dimmy]

It occasionally felt to me like CGI hit its peak around the year 2000, and has slowly gotten worse as time progressed.

For example, the final fight between Smith & Neo at the end of Revolutions looked ridiculous.

I don't think it's getting worse, I think it's getting cheaper. That means, everybody and anybody can put CGI into a movie. Before, CGI was reserved for people who were willing to put the work into crafting special effects. Now, any schmoe can put sub-par CGI into a movie a heck of a lot cheaper than traditional FX.

[ferris57]

I also think people are more used to it and look for it more now.

[MrFurious]

the cgi in star wars ep2 was excellent,take the clone troopers for example,there was not one outfit made.they are all cgi,excellent in the scenes where yoda arrives at the arena.....

[CrackDown]

Originally posted by lentini
I don't think CG has moved forward at all in the last 10 or so years. When you look at Jurrasic Park or T2, the CG in those is a hell of a lot better than in some films these days.

Watch the sfx makings of on The Two Towers dvd. They created software called 'Massive' which let them create 10,000 models of orcs, all different and let them battle using A.I. They could react to their surrounding, hear virtual sounds, and recognize each other and enemies. They let the thing run and record the results then composite them into the movie. Now tell me that isn't a move forward.

What would be interesting, would be to remake the effects for JP today and see what it would look like. I consider JP a real milestone (they were originally going to do the dinosaurs in stop motion) and I dont think it would surpassed even today. Maybe this is due to being over ambitious, thats good though. LotR made considerable progress but I dont think we've hit the next milestone...yet.

Hey u guyz!!!
What your opinions of chapter 1 of the animatrix?
Now thats what i mean by realistic!
But i suppose its not CGI inserted into a movie though.
Still impressive though.
The Dude.

[WeirdFish]

Watch the trailer for Van Helsing and you'll see wot Dimmy means

Mind you theres still some pretty spetacular stuff out there.

[Garrett]

Originally posted by kill3r
One word: Gollum.

You mean that was not an actor!

[Garrett]

There is some good and some bad. There was some really obvious stuff in Spider-Man and goodness what they spent on that budget.

[WEIRDWOLF]

I still rate the T-Rex in JP as one of the best bits of CGI despite it being one of the first attempts at CG creatures. The shot of it chasing Jeff Goldblum as he's running with the flare is crackin!!!

If used carefully, it can look very, very good and much better than equivalent 'traditional' methods of making fx for certain things, although I would say that 'stop-motion' for example has a certain something to it that gives it a cinematic or unreal quality.

CG animators also in my book have a long way to go before they can give realism to a creature's movement with regards mass and general presence. The Van Helsing trailer is a case in point where things happen at lightning speeds with no apparent regard for 'real' physics.

[pointon]

For me CGI fails most when the camera is doing things that you know they can't do, like following the fight sequence between Neo and Smith, or most recently in a Trailer for the Godawful looking 'Torque', with bikes doing over 150 mph, breaking all laws of physics, with the camera dancing and swirling about and in and out of them. There's no cameraperson doing that, it's all silly animation. Just no soul.

Sure the T-Rex in JPark wasn't there really, but you can easily imagine that there is a cameraperson pointing his stuff at a real dinosaur.

I'm making no sense, so I'll stop now.

[Dimmy]

Tarantino's rant about CGI was best, but I don't think I can quote it here...

Jurassic Park was remade it was called Jurassic Park 3 and the CGI was even better with subtle differences between the Velociraptors in the first and in the third movie and they also cut out most of the build up and i loved both of em. (( just didnt like the lost world much ))

[Lex]

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
Jurassic Park was remade it was called Jurassic Park 3 and the CGI was even better with subtle differences between the Velociraptors in the first and in the third movie and they also cut out most of the build up and i loved both of em. (( just didnt like the lost world much ))

That is exactly what I was going to say! I think there is a featurette on the JP3 DVD where the cgi creators talk about how they have improved the T-Rex from the first movie (with detailed under skin muscle movements) and made it so much more realistic...

I certainly think you cannot talk on this subject in generalised terms - of course CGI has improved - a more relevant area of analysis is the budget. Of course low budget (and often rushed) cgi is worse than expensive cgi - also they are now trying to do things with cgi that they aren't capable of doing properly yet (e.g. Die Another Die) which used to be done with real stuntmen and special effects...

[Dimmy]

Originally posted by Lex
also they are now trying to do things with cgi that they aren't capable of doing properly yet (e.g. Die Another Die) which used to be done with real stuntmen and special effects...

And, IMHO, don't actually NEED to do with CGI. I prefer optical effects over Digital effects. I think CGI should only take-over when something simply can't be done practically.

[WEIRDWOLF]

Agree that the sort of shots that are obviously not possible to do without CG show them up to be CG....I think because you have the limitless freedom to do whatever shot you like, then directors/CG people are gonna explore those possibilities.

The shots where people go 'I didn't realise there was any CG' are a lot of the time ones where it COULD have been done for real, therefore you are not looking for the effect.

'Die Another Day' was a bad use of CG with respect to Bond because we want to believe there are real stunts being performed, and when it's obviously NOT i.e. Halle Berry diving backwards off a cliff from a close-up on her face, it completely spoils any suspension of disbelief.
The makers of Bond should stop trying to 'keep up with the Jones's' for CGI and get back to reality a bit more.

[BadAss]

Imagine if the were to make Indiana Jones today, they'd have a big CG ball rolling down behind Indiana instead of a real one!

Anyway, I think the use of CG falls in three three groups.

It's technicaly easier to do some thing with CG than it is to do it for real. Like Reloaded.

It's cheaper to use CG than it is to employ 10,000 Uriki

And its alot quicker to use CG than it is to say build a real set or backdrop or combine the two.

The down side to this is when you get a production company that uses CG for all three, to be cheap, quick and easy. Then you get films like Spiderman, The Hulk and Van Helsing.

[spidermanalf]

Tarantino's rant about CGI was best, but I don't think I can quote it here...

I think it was something along the lines of 'if I wanted Cgi I would fornicate with my Nintendo'

[Dimmy]

Originally posted by spidermanalf
I think it was something along the lines of 'if I wanted Cgi I would fornicate with my Nintendo'

You read it too then, .

Originally posted by MrFurious
the cgi in star wars ep2 was excellent,take the clone troopers for example,there was not one outfit made.they are all cgi...

This is exactly what's wrong with CGI today. Using it gratuitously where it isn't needed. Lucas is the worst for this by a mile.

Take Bad Boys 2 and the amazing car pile up scene where they spin and spin, that looks real to me yet it was afterwards i discovered they used CGI thats one example of good CGI.

[Garrett]

I just look at that Spider-Man 2 trailer again and even on a very small setting I can spot some CGI.