CGI Discussion

[urgeok2]

This isn't a CGI vs non CGI effects debate ..

it's something i got thinking about because of a couple of comments in another thread.

Someone mentioned bad CGI.

What do folks consider bad CGI vs good CGI.

what are examples of it done poorly ???

One example I can think of is in the otherwise excellent Blade II
when for a brief second there were a couple of vampire ninjas flipping around. it didnt look natural .. the figures were stretched out and plastic looking.


good CGI - the Jurrasic Park movies, 10,000 BC (not a great movie but the effects were pretty awsome), King Kong.


when people say 'bad CGI' i'm curious to hear why they say it was bad specifically (and not the 'they shouldn't have used CGI at all" arguement - thats for another thread)

[Zero]

Lord of the Rings - was great cgi. the characters and situations were so real and fleshed out that even the cgi seemed natural. Golem was so three dimensional because the character seemed so deep.

[alkytrio666]

CGI should be a supplement- not an indulgement. A wise filmmaker will use CGI in small doses, and if it plays a more crucial role in the film, its appearance should be brief or sheltered by shadow or some other real obstruction.

Example of good CGI: The Mist (to use the forementioned discussion). Every creature in the film is oozing with CGI. Why does it work? Because we see the creatures in quick, flashy doses (pterodactyl things aside). Another good example of the same technique would be the first half of The Host. The second half fell apart for me...mostly because I got too good of a glimpse at that video game-like dinosaur thing, and it lost all credibility.

Example of bad CGI: Exorcist: The Beginning. When a filmmaker tries to pass a human being off with a full body suit a' CGI, complete with face and expressions, it doesn't work- most especially when this subject is in full visibility for minutes on end. The genious of the original Exorcist's make-up design was that it was so...well, for lack of better words, real-looking. Audiences could see every texture of every lump and scar on Regan's face because it was really there. Thirty years later, when audiences watch this "new and improved" possessed being, she looks more like a Spider-man villian. CGI in large doses serves as a distraction, and therefore only detaches the viewer from what is happening.

That's how I see things anyway...

[Elvis_Christ]

Bad CGI to me is things not looking natural like you mentioned or things look too fake (I felt some of the explosions in John Rambo suffered from this).
Overuse of CGI is something that kills films for me.
I think the worst CGI I've seen was in Escape From LA... that shark haha :)
My favorite CGI stuff was probably in T2. The technology was pretty new then so it was a bit more of a novelty to me (the 'wow did you see that' factor) and it had a good balance of CGI/traditional effects.

[massacre man]

I think the worst CGI I've seen was in Escape From LA... that shark haha :)


http://youtube.com/watch?v=5j3DQsbeXjI

Skip to about 2 minutes.

[Elvis_Christ]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5j3DQsbeXjI

Skip to about 2 minutes.

Haha awesome! Fuck that Indian one with the horse cracked me up!

[newb]

I haven't seen a good CGI werewolf transformation yet. American werewolf in Paris...Van Helsing...suck and suck.
The Hulk CGI was pretty bad as well.Too cartoonish for me.
As stated above LOTR, Jurrasic Park, King Kong....they got it right.

[X¤MurderDoll¤X]

Good: The Mist, Lord of the Rings (bad movie though)
Bad: Van Helsing, Dead Birds,

[The STE]

Wanna see bad CGI? Watch any BBC show. BBCGI is barely above Veggie Tales in quality.

[Roderick Usher]

I Am Legend has both

post-humanity NYC looks amazing and it is done with digital mat painting. It's how I've always wanted to see D.C. in Logan's Run (but the old-school mat paintings in that one are rather pleasing)

The creatures looked plastic and unnatural

Mechanical objects are always easier to render than organic ones, which worked to stunning effect in Transformers; a film I hated, but couldn't help but marvel at the amazing effects.

What really sells CGI is the attention to "lighting" the rendered object. If the light source doesn't seem to match the lighting scheme in the live action plate, then it always looks like shit. And of course this all has to do with budget. No animator wants thier work to look crappy, but rendering time is money...the more time spent rendering he tiniest details of CGI (smoke, hair, thermal distortion, etc) the better, but it also becomes more and more expensive with each hour you are paying a highly specialized motion graphics expert to work on your film.

[urgeok2]

I couldn't see anything wrong with the I Am Legend CGI myself ...

but i though of a couple of places it looked dumb ... both in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Vanhelsing - in particular the Jack the Ripper character.

[bloody_ribcut]

bad cgi- the shooter, when they were shooting at mark walberg.. i cant believe they used cgi...when the bullets entered the wood it was lite in color and looked fake as hell...


good cgi- land of the dead wasnt too bad..



i rather use puppets like critters or gingerdead man..

[Phalanx]

Excluding "total" cg animated films here.

It depends on the film IMO...

With certain movies, liberal use of CG can be fun/funny or further throw you into the world of the unbelievable, eg - Pans Labyrinth, Starship troopers, and from what I've seen the cgi in the last AVP film seemed right at home, Sin City, Kung Fu Hustle, Cloverfield, there's more but that's what comes to mind.

But in some cases it's either not needed quite so much - Rambo IV...I mean c'mon, not EVERY gunshot/explosion/maiming had to be done like that...or just plain dodgy, eg - bloodrayne, and/or other $2 bargain bin crap - eg - low budget in CGI it would seem, is pretty hard to work with, and in some cases just looks like some stupid shit...with the occasional appearance of those films that have cg that just doesn't seem to work (lets talk x-men 3 de-aging), you just look and think...ok...weird, Blade 2 had this in spades as well, with the action-figure style fighting scenes - again, where not needed.

So...I'm either way, I like it in some films, in some I do not...and it seems largely about the type/tone of film, how seriously it takes itself, and also budget to an extent.
That said, I prefer a more subtle approach, especially when it comes to horror...at least until cg can look a lot better than it currently does.

[_____V_____]

My favorite CGI stuff was probably in T2. The technology was pretty new then so it was a bit more of a novelty to me (the 'wow did you see that' factor) and it had a good balance of CGI/traditional effects.

Cant agree more. Back then T2 rocked the audiences with its dazzling effects, me included. I was all like "how the f*** did they manage that?!"

But yeah, now its part-and-parcel of almost many movies. Good CGI like in the Matrix series is pretty impressive, and I thought it was a welcome addition to the LOTR franchise, the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises etc. We have been treated to ample doses of it from Star Wars times anyways...it was just a matter of time before it became a dominant force in movie-making.

But a movie like Beowulf makes me wonder, how the hell can you get a CGI-animated live-action character to show emotion? Making faces is one thing...getting the emotion out of a character is another.

Same goes for cheesily bad CGI effects. Pick up any Shark Attack-esque or The Hulk, Spawn etc. type of movies and they not only make the movie terrible, they take away a chunk of the effect on audiences.

Its all about maintaining a balance between CGI and live characters IMO. If you can get just about the perfect balance between the two, the movie clicks as a whole.

[Despare]

The scene in Ichi the killer where a man is cut in half (as well as some other scenes)... HORRIBLE CGI there. It does however fit with the over the top, almost anime style of the film and didn't do much to pull me away from the movie. Personally it bothers me more if it's in a film that's supposed to be realistic than if it's used in a fantasy setting. Rambo's CGI wasn't bad, a little over used but it didn't look like overproduced cheese and didn't really draw my attention to it. Even movies like Shoot-Em Up which I think had some really bad CGI moments don't bother me much. I think the worst CGI effect for me is blood spatter, that's the one I notice the most and it makes me wonder why they didn't stick to the old school method for that BUT bad special effects are bad special effects. It doesn't matter if they're CGI or poorly made puppets. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention Sweeney Todd as a recent movie with good use of CGI.

[urgeok2]

oh ... bad CGI - the Zatoichi movie that came out a couple of years ago.

CGI blood in a sword movie ???!!!

i'm not debating if it should have been there (of course it shouldn't have been)

i'm saying that it just looked horrible.



great CGI - Desperado ... Rodriguez rendered all the gunshot hits on the walls of the church with CGI.

nice when they can do something simple to look realistic - and save a ton of money and potential damage.

[_____V_____]

For the innovative topic and the excellent debate which has sprung up, this thread gets...

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g12/ravenavi/seal3.gif

[Despare]

oh ... bad CGI - the Zatoichi movie that came out a couple of years ago.

CGI blood in a sword movie ???!!!

i'm not debating if it should have been there (of course it shouldn't have been)

i'm saying that it just looked horrible.



Yes it did, especially the scene where Zatoichi lops that guy's hand off. I still love that movie but some of the blood was horrible.

[Kemal]

It works in fantasy movies, not so much for movies that are supposed to scare you. Imagine The Descent done with CGI creatures. That would have been horrible.