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[HyperZone<3]

saw Under the Skin today, and it had either some of the most creative and nifty practical effects ever, or some really, really convincing CGI. No parts I can talk about without getting into spoiler though, and there wouldn't be any clips I could show that wouldn't be NSFW, but the limited effect work seen in that film is very, very effective.

 

[Madrin]

Some of the ocean scenes in Kon Tiki are top-tier CGI for me:

http://youtu.be/gFpL2XzAn44?t=4m39s

 

[PigSpeakers]

I keep forgetting they made a Marsupilami movie

I had no idea they made a Marsupilami movie. Is there a childhood show that HASN'T been turned into a cgi movie yet?

 

[aaaaaaaaaaaa7654]

The stuff in Zodiac is in like 90% of all films and TV these days, you just don't notice it.

I'd stay Gravity takes the cake right now, the audrey advert is also up there.

 

[mattiewheels]

avatar was a jurassic park moment for me. couldn't believe what I was seeing, and how much of it I was seeing.

That's the thing, it was a moment. It's reason to exist was in a movie theater, giving people something they've never seen. So unless they keep having showings of Avatar in 3D theaters, it's going to lose any reason to see it, unless you're Scullibundo.

 

[FrankieMcGuire]

1. Davy Jones
2. Iron Man
3. T-Rex (and car) in JP1

 

[TAJ]

4K renders for VFX have been done before. Transformers 2 IMAX shots were 4K I believe. Renders took goddamn forever.

You're kinda making his point for him.
But I'm pretty sure the redone opening to Star Wars made for the Special Effects IMAX film was done in at least 4k way back in 1996. They built a new scanner just for those couple shots.

 

[HassanJamal]

My mind is being blown. JP was CG? God damn.

 

[CadetMahoney]

How exactly was the CGI in District 9 so good considering its $30million budget?

no way that had a $30 mill budget. . . no wayyy./

 

[Rhaknar]

when did they make a real life Marsupilami movie?

 

[RoboPlato]

no way that had a $30 mill budget. . . no wayyy./

Yep. Filming on location in South Africa and having no name actors cut the budget down by massive amounts.

 

[Rhaknar]

I still to this day have no watched Avatar, and I own it on blu ray. Its not even anything against the movie, just never happened to pop it in, I rarely watch movies these days. I should really watch it, if only for the spectacle

 

[RedStep]

That's the thing, it was a moment. It's reason to exist was in a movie theater, giving people something they've never seen. So unless they keep having showings of Avatar in 3D theaters, it's going to lose any reason to see it, unless you're Scullibundo.

Not that I want to align myself with Scullibundo, but in agreeing with "Jurassic Park Moment" as a pejorative, are you saying Jurassic Park also has no reason to exist?

Because I'm pretty certain both movies have maintained an audience (home media sales, etc) after their theatrical release.

 

[Karak]

It was very impressive, but for me Avatar never quite managed to transcend the uncanny valley. Maybe it was just that the creatures portrayed didn't really exist so I was unable to suspend my disbelief, but I actually felt like District 9 did a better job overall.

...uhm those are aliens in district 9 as well so how does this thought process work?

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

...uhm those are aliens in district 9 as well so how does this thought process work?

Because the D9 things have earth-like counterparts. Prawns!

 

[Karak]

Because the D9 things have earth-like counterparts. Prawns!

Hahahaha. Ah well than that makes perfect sense. And now cats.

 

[3phemeral]

I agree Avatar looks fantastic but like one person said, it helps that we don't have an example of a "real" navi to compare it to. The Navi are humanoid so it's easier to suspend disbelief unconsciously. I think we've yet to create a convincing CG human being.

Don't really think it works out quite that way. We all know how humans move and emote, so if anything, it would be really easy to trigger that response of "that's so fake." I think people are really underestimating the work that went behind Avatar's characters. Even if you think about it physiologically, our brains have specific regions devoted to facial recognition, emotional cues, body language, etc. We're not designed to process individual or unique animal characteristics because we never evolved to have to.

I mean, look at the work that not only went to making the characters look physically present, solid objects within the frames they're in, but for the skin on their faces to move and stretch as they should. Proper realistic facial animation is one of the very last things that animators can't consistently get right because it's expensive and time-consuming to attempt. Even motion capture isn't enough to get it right.

 

[DerZuhälter]

Avatar had some terrible looking CG scenes in it too:

The mix of real assets and CG brought some seriously eerie looking effects on the screen.

In some instances it looks like people walking around in paintings.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Zodiac isn't convincing in the slightest. The whole thing looks really off-putting to me, especially some of the shots where elements were mixed together entirely in post (the long shot from inside the car passing the truck on the side of the road being the worst example). I think the idea is incredibly clever but in practice it kind of makes the movie look like a cheap Youtube fan movie or something.

 

[TAJ]

Avatar had some terrible looking CG scenes in it too:

The mix of real assets and CG brought some seriously eerie looking effects on the screen.


In some instances it looks like people walking around in paintings.

Those weren't Weta. They were Framestore.

 

[Loofy]

That's not really how it works. To have something look photo realistic doesn't mean we need a real life comparison.

Its harder to fake something when you have real life to compare it to.

Personally I never once felt that Avatar looked real. Which is fine, I love animated films.

 

[CouchMaster]

Even though this is good CGI, why is it eerie? It's not supposed to be, but it is.

The eyes, they always give away the secret because its so damn difficult to capture a natural eye movement in CG.

 

[ZehDon]

I have to agree with a lot of the people here: in terms of pure CGI, as opposed to composite model work, Avatar takes the cake.

Some shots work better than others, no question, but when Avatar is at its best, there really isn't any comparison. When I looked into how a lot of this the forest stuff was put together, I expected some degree of composite work. But there isn't any. That's pretty incredible, frankly. Several shots just look and feel completely real to me. The reveal shots of Neytiri are closer to photo-realistic than anything I've ever seen.

Runner up, of course, has to go to the T-Rex scene in Jurassic Park. While some of the CGI in that film has not aged well at all, ILM created work in that one scene that will last forever.

Honorrable mention to Children Of Men, because it always gets forgotten.

It's mostly composite work, especially the long-take scenes, but its utterly convincing to me. Some bad CGI in there, of course, but when its good, its damn good.

 

[Toxi]

The best part about the T. rex scene is the misdirection involved. Everyone immediately recognizes the science fiction T. rex can't be real and accepts it for that so they can admire how good it looks. Nobody looks too closely at the normal everyday objects like, say, the jeep.

 

[MNC]

Avatar looks better than I thought it would. And I think realistic fictional objects are that much harder, since we know something does not physically exist in our world (is an alien spaceship) and somehow always strikes me as "Fake!" Right away, instead of needing to think about it.

 

[Psychological Intellect]

BREAKING BAD SPOILERS

BREAKING BAD SPOILERS

BREAKING BAD SPOILERS

Spoiler

The car hitting the two dealers was entirely CG

 

[Scarecrow]

Is the water CG too? Cause that's some pretty good water.

 

[Trickster]

Is the water CG too? Cause that's some pretty good water.

Pretty sure all the nature stuff in the movie is CG

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Is the water CG too? Cause that's some pretty good water.

Everything in that image is CG.

Just wait for the new underwater perf cap in the sequels.

 

[Übermatik]

Is the water CG too? Cause that's some pretty good water.

Entire scene was CG.

 

[TacticalFox88]

So with all these shots and what not, is there anything CGI CAN'T do nowadays? Like if a director was given $350 million dollars to make the most convincing CGI and badass movie experience ever, what limitations would they have even with an ridiculous budget?

 

[Chopper]

Zodiac

What the fuck?!

Why?

 

[Marvel]

The destruction in Man of Steel was INSANE.

 

[vio]

Recently found out about this. Mind blown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj4JREvwloo

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Everything of nature was cgi in avatar? I cant accept that.. I also cannot accept that the car in jurrasic park os cgi too.. how is a normal person supposed to know that!?

 

[Munin]

Everything of nature was cgi in avatar? I cant accept that.. I also cannot accept that the car in jurrasic park os cgi too.. how is a normal person supposed to know that!?

Are you people really serious when you say stuff like this?

Look I think artistically Avatar was pretty nice looking but it never even once looked real to me.

 

[Aegus]

There's a raptor scene in the original JP that's CGI. I honestly thought for years that it was animatronics or guys in suits.

 

[vio]

Not everything and not every scene.

Most of them are 100% cgi though.

 

[Raiden]

The best part about the T. rex scene is the misdirection involved. Everyone immediately recognizes the science fiction T. rex can't be real and accepts it for that so they can admire how good it looks. Nobody looks too closely at the normal everyday objects like, say, the jeep.

This is insane considering the age.

I mean look at that shitty computer interface haha ..

 

[SuperHans]

Again, not really CGI. This is known as Video Morphing.

CGI doesn't mean "special effects made using computers." CGI stands for "computer generated imagery" and refers to pictures or movies of objects created entirely in the computer.

Toy Story is CGI. The Navi are CGI. Using a computer to perform video effects on footage of real people is not CGI.

I remember I had software on my Amiga 500+ that could morph a picture of John Major into Dracula. That probably didn't take much doing though.

EDIT: Found it and also discovered one of the greatest sites ever.
http://amr.abime.net/issue_599

Spoiler

An archive of old Amiga magazines

 

[moggio]

So with all these shots and what not, is there anything CGI CAN'T do nowadays? Like if a director was given $350 million dollars to make the most convincing CGI and badass movie experience ever, what limitations would they have even with an ridiculous budget?

Time.

 

[SCULLIBUNDO]

Man, Avatar had fucking everything.

The best was seeing the flight controllers' HUDs in the control tower in 3D.

 

[hendersonhank]

The fact that virtually no one knew that everything but the faces in the first exxtended, no-cut, IMAX screen sequence of Gravity was CG should silence all the ridiculous "Avatar and nothing else comes close" nonsense.

Even at the time, I thought Avatar looked retarded, like a 4 hour Warcraft cutscene. Not convincing at all, although some of it still looked beautiful (which I put down to the shameless ripping off of Roger Dean).

 

[ComputerMKII]

when did they make a real life Marsupilami movie?

I had no idea they made a Marsupilami movie. Is there a childhood show that HASN'T been turned into a cgi movie yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_la_piste_du_Marsupilami

Man, Avatar had fucking everything.

The best was seeing the flight controllers' HUDs in the control tower in 3D.

It obviously looked like CGI even at the time the movie came out. I thought Avatar was supposed to make CGI and real life indistinguishable... what a disappointment.

 

[hendersonhank]

And only one mention of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is ridiculous.

 

[ComputerMKII]

Avatar had some terrible looking CG scenes in it too:

The mix of real assets and CG brought some seriously eerie looking effects on the screen.


In some instances it looks like people walking around in paintings.

This guy is right. I'm not even the kind of person to criticize Avatar's plot (although it is nothing great indeed) but the general visual quality of the film/CGI is what I find most irritating.

Also, this, Jesus Christ:

Why

What the fuck?!

Why?

It costs money and paperwork to find a street, block it for several hours, move the cast and crew there and hope it's not too dark, too light or it's not raining. Might as well do it in the studio. If something goes wrong you can change it on the computer instead of re-shooting the scene.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

Would the twins in The Social Network count in the context of this thread? Because it blew my mind when I learned that they were both played by one guy.

Cate Blanchett in Benjamin Button. I was convinced she was an incredibly gifted dancer as well as actress but her face CGI/composite or whatever.

I was blown away when I saw that in the special features.

 

[PaulKersey]

I agree. D9 looked most realistic in the environment. Avatar's jungles are photo real, and...

Considering his costume was cgi as well.. sheeshhoeshesh...

Loved that character so much. Bill Nighy is so awesome.

 

[FTF]

Fincher movies and Gravity are the first that come to mind.

 

[Angry Fork]

Everything in these gif's are CG. Anyone who says Avatar looked bad or weird are out of their minds. It's still hard to digest how much of an achievement this movie was.