CGI sucks please discuss

[old.ignus]

I think its official now, CGI is now well out of hand and the Hulk is the final straw. I can draw the Hulk looking more realistic than it is in the film it just looks like its meant to be a cartoon, and of all the films watched recently, terminator 3, daredevil, matrix reloaded they all look fake none of the fans like it and the only people who do are the people that spent months creating a CGI image of the daredevil climbing a building by jumping from one wall to the next (when for a fraction of the amount needed the director could have hired a stuntman to hook up to a wire and jump from wall to wall and have a good take after a days filming) and the production team who seem to think "it looks so realistic".
Peter Jackson has the right idea, use real people in special crafted suits or forced perspective and models but if you really really have to, maybe you need a specialist background or a full scale battle scene or maybe you need to use a bow and arrow but its too dangerous to use in a crowd, then and only then use CGI.

Its all George Lucas' fault, him and his bloody starwars cartoons, I wouldn't be surprised if he turned round to the cast of episode 3 and said "sorry guys we don't need you now, the nerds in the CGI department have figured out a way to make CGI characters that look so (shit) realistic"
I say we lead an angry mob to his house, pitch forks and torches for everyone.

Sorry but its been ages since we've had a decent film not spoiled by unnecessary CGI, dog soilders was the last one I think, they only used it for muzzle flash and yellow eyes which is fair enough.

 

[ECA]

I think CGI has its place certainly.

I also think if there has to be CGI it should be to serve an otherwise too expensive or too dangerous sequence.

It should NOT server as a major factor in itself eg star wars ep 1.


Oh and the daredevil wall bit, surely build a wall on the floor and just use a diff camera angle so it looks like he's crawling on it.

Not f00king hard is it.

 

[dysfunction]

There was a lot of CGI in Daredevil besides the wall climbing.

In the beginning there was a rat which was clearly CGI! Now WTF?? Is that really necessary?? How hard is it to get a real rat ffs???

 

[Meatballs]

I thought the CGI of the hulk looked good, they captured the face of the actor of Bruce quite well, and the expressions were good.

Terminator 3 wasn't that CGI heavy was it? I mean nothing you wouldn't expect since T2's liquid metallic guy?

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

T3 CGI was really good imo, I think it's a style thing.

 

[Jonny_Darko]

Check out "The Final Flight Of The Osiris" on the animatrix DVD. It's certainly getting there...

Plus, I don't think Ang Lee wanted it to look 100% real. It's part of the aesthetic, keeping it almost like a comic book, CGI is certainly good enough to make Hulk look real should they have wanted to.

Wait for Peter Jackson's re-telling of King Kong, that'll change your mind, or Transformers, if it's done well. The idea of Prime and Megatron smashing apart a city while they fight is making me wet myself.

 

[Durzel]

Definitely agree on the Davedevil front, and CGI generally.

I actually think the CGI in Matrix Reloaded was just enough, without taking away from the value of the cast.

One thing I never really understood about Daredevil, is whilst I could allow the suspension of disbelief with the whole "other 4 senses become highly developed", that doesn't really explain how he can jump around buildings and drop from insanely high heights without breaking anything.

 

[Furr]

i feel that cgi has taken a lot of the fun out of special effects in films , even in the first matrix there were parts which had you scratching your head to how they did it . Now though you see CGi and all you think is , hmm i wonder how many computers they needed to make that pile of shit.

 

[CptDoom]

I just feel sorry for the actors, how emotional can u get standing in front of a blue bit of wall?

Even tho CGI is certainly becoming used heavily, i still think youll find directors wanting to take the time out to make the effort. And the money.

One film never ceases to amaze me, Blade runner, ok looking slightly dated now but even so its incredible to look at, a remake would just be shit

 

[CptDoom]

Does 200 posts make me special?

Bah

 

[Furr]

it means you no longer a forum peon , just one of its many bitches.

 

[Yaka]

think dvd and mking of type documentries featered on dvds has done much to ruin specials effects in genral not just CGI.


And blade runner sfx is just plain kewl. i remeber me mate watching the film when the game came out and he couldnt belive the fact that film was made in the early 80s




wonder if the film will ever be released with the unicorn scene included.

 

[mank!]

Originally posted by ECA
Oh and the daredevil wall bit, surely build a wall on the floor and just use a diff camera angle so it looks like he's crawling on it.

Not f00king hard is it.

Gravity.

 

[-Ultimate]

Maybe its just me but big puppet Jabba the Hut > CGI one Lucas squeezed into that deleted scene he re-added.

I mean i know he only did it because it was the only way to cover the stand-in Jabba actor in the film, but it looked like a heap of shite tbh tbh (tbh).

 

[(Shovel)]

Originally posted by Durzel
I actually think the CGI in Matrix Reloaded was just enough, without taking away from the value of the cast.[/B]

Some of it was very clever - recreating all the faces on the Smith stunt doubles for instance. However, then they went and CGI'd that whole scene!?!

While the burly brawl did look good, it would have looked infinitely cooler if they had used 99 stuntmen and wires (and think about it, it's not like they couldn't afford it).

 

[Sir Frizz]

Originally posted by (Shovel)

While the burly brawl did look good, it would have looked infinitely cooler if they had used 99 stuntmen and wires (and think about it, it's not like they couldn't afford it).

Sounds far too complex to orchestrate.

:/

 

[WPKenny]

I have to say I thought the Hulk was spot on. I REALLY enjoyed the film. I've seen it twice now and enjoyed it just as much the second time.

The cuts between scenes and the animation of the Hulk was great and I think Ang Lee got it spot on.

I've heard a couple of people criticise the fact the Hulk looked to fake or too plastic but you can tell from the way the rest of the film is stylised that A LOT of thought has gone into the overall look of the film. If Ang Lee didn't want the Hulk to look like that you can be sure as hell it wouldn't.

To me the film felt like "reading" a comic book, which IMHO is exactly what films like this should be like.

 

[WPKenny]

Erm..moving back onto the general topic at hand...

Yes I do think CGI is far too over used. A physical puppet looks ten times better than CGI.

It's just something tells your brain that the CGI isn't real but when you watch a puppet you can say to yourself, it doesn't move quite right or whatever but there's no denying this thing does phyisically exist no matter how many men are off camera pulling strings.

I do agree with the point about Peter Jackson and LOTR. It does go back to the early days of Star Wars. But instead of HAVING to invent new ways of doing stuff, he WANTED to because he knows it looks far better on the screen. The only bit that bugged me in LOTR2 was when they rode out of Helm's Deep pushing all the Urukai (sp?) off the bridge. The physics or something of the CGI there was messed up.

 

[plightstar]

The CGI in Star wars episode 2 was good, the whole droif factory bit was done really well.

What did u think of the CGI in Final Fantasy?

 

[Xtro]

Originally posted by plightstar
The CGI in Star wars episode 2 was good, the whole droif factory bit was done really well.

What did u think of the CGI in Final Fantasy?

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0292498

 

[mank!]

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0086610

 

[Xtro]

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Mank,+Gregory+W.

 

[PR.]

Originally posted by plightstar
The CGI in Star wars episode 2 was good, the whole droif factory bit was done really well.

BWAHAHAHAHA


Final Fantasy fx wise was pretty damned good, my Dad sat watching it for 15mins before enquiring as to whether the characters were computer generated

If anyones seen House on Haunted Hill the remake, they finally reveal this major evil enemy thing and it isssssssss...... a kids playground butterfly (where you paint 1/2 a piece of paper then fold it over) only created on a computer, I was laughing it was such a joke!

 

[xane]

Ray Harryhausen > CGI

 

[Embattle]

A lot of it is to do with mental attitude towards CGI, the problem with the Hulk is it bears no reference to real life because it is totally CGI driven.

 

[Tom]

CGI is just another filmmaker's tool. It can be used to great effect, to enhance the film you're watching (Saving Private Ryan for example), or it can be a showpiece to amaze people (Independance Day). So long as it is properly implemented, I don't have a problem with either scenario.

The only film I have ever seen that is just about flawless, and that wouldn't ever have worked without CGI, was Jurassic Park. The T-Rex chasing the Jeep is unforgettable.

 

[Durzel]

The biggest problem with CGI, is duplicating real life events.

In Star Wars, the droid factory worked because no one has a frame of reference. You've got nothing to compare it against, so you automatically believe what you see. It's a computer simulated representation of a fantasy scenario.

Watching CGI'd humans fly about looks fake because despite all of the advancements in technology - humans are still given a "ragdoll" effect, and I've yet to see anything which is 100% believeable.

The bits in the Matrix Reloaded fight where it slows down and Neo hits Smith with the pole are probably about the most realistic CGI I've ever seen.

 

[old.ignus]

I agree with whoever said that its harder for the actors to act when they're stood in front of a blue screen, it'd be better staring at a guy in a suit.
A good example of CGI ruining films in the alien films, how scared were you when you saw the guy in the suit appearing out of the darkness when you only got to see a bit of him at a time, or the alien queen in aliens, then in alien3 and resurection the CGI aliens just looked like cartoons scurrying along the walls.
Tom has missed the point though, CGI is a good thing but only when its used to enhance the entertainment not replace it. Saving private ryan was all real stuff and CGI was only used to create backgrounds that would be too dangerous to expose actors to or to add tracer rounds in a battlefield because lets face it how else can you do that. But when you get George Lucas creating a CGI clone soldier talking to amidala after falling out of the carrier instead of a real person in a suit, it makes you wonder if he's taking the piss.

 

[Tom]

I was referring to the scene just before they set out to find Ryan, where the camera pans across the entire invasion fleet in the channel. There is also the morph of young Ryan into old Ryan, and the explosions lighting up the night sky as the soldiers walked profile across the horizon was very effective. Also, the tracer fire in the battle scenes was I believe, CGI.

I'd say within 5 years good CGI will be utterly indistinguishable from the real thing (actors being the obvious exception, of course). One thing I have noticed about scenes with CGI in is that they tend to be from fixed or tracking camera positions, and not shoulder-mounted cameras.

 

[Ch3tan]

During the HUlk I didn't think twice about CGI. It seemed perfectly fine to me, obviously I knew the Hulk was computer generated, but importantly I did not care or mind -it looked good and fitted the comic book style.

Daredevil I noticed it more, but again, it did look good and after a while I forgot about the CGI totally.

The first time I saw Reloaded I hated the amount of CGI, apart from the highway sene I noticed it everywhere, however on second watching I hardly noticed it at all. At the end of the day it just worked well, and I am sure it will justify the costs.

Termintator 3 was done better than any of the other three films mentioned.