this movie looks pretty good, but you can still distinguish it from reality very easily. when will they be able to do computer generated movies that look just like reality?
shareI think when it comes to mechanical things and landscapes they pretty much can already but pulling off human actions and facial expressions perfectly - still reckon they're a bit of a way off yet.
shareSome scenes were almost perfect, if all computer generated movies were as good as this id be happy enough.
Some games do try to make photographic quality rendering, however the dx10 bugs keep holding them up.
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I'm very responsible, when ever something goes wrong they always say I'm responsible.
Avatar should be pretty good if it even gets close to the hype.
And Benjamin Button's CGI human face was pretty damn amazing, even a step up from Gollum and King Kong. All the little old man stuff when he's young is a 100% CGI face on another actor's body. It was photo real like 80% of the time I'd say.
With something like Beowulf, they had a lot more animation to do, so the same care couldn't be put into every shot. Didn't really see the point with Beowulf, either, whereas a Benjamin Button or Lord of the Rings - those effects really enhance and help tell the story. And they often look better because there are "less" effects so more time and effort can go into each shot (since Beowulf is technically a special effect scene for every scene, since it's going for photoreal despite being an animated flick.)
Exactly my saying... The Beowulf CGI just looks cheap and cheesy, there was not 1 minute where I was not constantly reminded of the fact that it's all just some animation.
Either do it right - Lotr, Benjamin Button, you name it... - or let it be and use old fashioned flesh-and-blood actors.
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?
I agree completely. Due to the continually obvious CGI rendering I was distracted constantly from the dialog and character development. Thus, after 20 minutes or so into the film I fell asleep. I must have made a dozen subsequent attempts to focus and take in the story, but invariably each time I could stay awake no longer than 5 minutes.
Normally, I'd blame such a circumstance on the script, but after some reflection and future viewings it was actually a fairly decent adaptation.
What did (and still) disturb me was the unnecessary use of animation. I mean, you have the actors in the studio...they spend extensive time memorizing lines and modeling in the blue suits--only to have the animated characters appear (nearly) identical to the them and merely standing around most of the time. In my opinion you only need animated effects if the alternative isn't cost effective and it helps draw in the audience. From my limited perspective though, unless the costumes/make up department really costs a fortune, are they really saving that much time and money?
I think the answer is a resounding 'no!' and suspect that they were merely flaunting cinematographical innovations that unfortunately weren't exactly believable enough to be recognized as state-of-the-art--at least as far as the character rendering was concerned. As was previously mentioned, the subtleties of the facial expressions were way off. I also noted, however, that the skin textures were completely lacking in detail. I don't know if it was the shadowing or lack of random imperfections characteristic to normal skin. I mean, I'm sorry but no one's skin is that perfect. It was almost like watching living sculptures or porcelain dolls in motion.
I agree Feralshade. I felt like I was watching Shrek, only with more blood and worse language. I could never really invest myself in the story the way they probably wanted people to be because it was much too cartoony. But, someone has to keep pushing the frontier or we'll never get to the point where it is indistinguisable. So bravo to them for taking the chance I guess!
Taking back IMDB message boards....one ignored Troll at a time.
at least 15 years, because...
It will take forever to REALLY make something photo-realistic and not spend a year making an ear or toe or something. These computer animated films take many many man-hours to make, so it's a fine balance between production cost, time, and what you hope to accomplish with the end product.
If you had a few years and unlimited cash flow, then you would see something realistic by 2013. but no studio would spend a billion dollars on an animated film (yet?). So we have to wait for things to get faster and software to get better and easier to use. Once the whole thing becomes cheaper these bonehead studios will hopefully take more of a risk on an animated film, instead of giving us Shrek 12.
It can be done, check out Lightwave renders, and Maya does wonderful fur. It's lifelike hair that will be the main hurdle. Making 100000 strands of hair move like they REALLY would on a head (long hair) isn't easy, or cheap, or fast, but possible. you would have to create a skeleton for each hair and then animate it with today's technology.
What Beowulf did well was capture a lot of facial elements I have not seen in many other animated films.
But that's just the way I see it
It may be stupid to hear now, but I can bet one day all movies will be CGI, and not long after that even the voices will be computer generated.
shareIn still screens it looks alright.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2007/07/25/beowulf460.jpg
They can be almost by mapping faces of real actors on the 3d models and using motion captures. As this process keeps improving, it will be harder to distinguish in some scenarios.
Having said that, it is only suitable for certain scenarios. They are suitable for dark and usually sci-fi environment.
I don't think it will ever be able to replace something like sitcom.
Keep in mind that I am talking about photo-realistic CGI and how real it looks. Not how pleasing it looks e.g pixar's stuff.
Example for implementation of photo-realistic CGI is "Final Fantasy The Spirits Within".
It's funny that you mention Pixar, because when I saw this thread, I thought about how realistic Wall-E was, at least until you see the humans.
shareNever.
In my honest opinion, I do believe that technology will surpass most obstacles in the cinematic medium, but as for a film that is completely created via CGI, I do not believe that it will ever reach the level of actual reality, emotionally or visually.
Just as the "Digital or Film" argument. Digital has improved leaps and bounds just in the last 5 years and it will continue to do so, but Digital will never be on par to film. No matter how many filters, no matter how many advances in the technology, Film will never be surpassed by Digital. And with that said, CGI will never be on par with reality.
Then you have the pros and cons of both mediums. For every obstacle surpassed, a new is formed in its place. Nothing will ever be perfect.
There's a mad man in there with his hand on a...on a BUTTON!
They already can. Many big shots in the motion picture industry saw demo footage for the earlier PIXAR films and peed their pants. As a result PIXAR has had to cartoonify and res- down a lot of their visuals because of concerns that one day actors will be redundant. I would imagine Beowulf was also taken down a few notches to make it look cartoony. But the processing power exists for absolute photorealisic visuals.
shareI have watched every single animation from Pixar. Even before they were known as Pixar. And none of it is anything like that I may confuse with reality. And I am talking about human characters in human enviroments. Something that has to be dealt with to make a movie.
shareHA HA looks like they have a while to go.
The motion capture was excellent though - it really highlights the fact that they used a fat overweight guy with a back problem to play the part of beowulf.
So we have beowulf who appears as an athletic warrior hero but who moves like a mobility impaired fat guy with a back problems instead.
The actor who played him should have stepped aside for a real gymnast, fighter or action actor for the action scenes they are just terrible.
I was truly disappointed with the film especially the miscast action sceens. The rare moments when it looks good are few and the times where they need it to look it's best just seem to fall down so badly, and comes across as a bunch of clunky wooden dolls.
No doubt future films will eventually improve but after watching this crap i will be very cautious of this type of motion capture CGI rubbish.
in films like beowulf, i kind of give them the benefit of the doubt, and try to think of it more like a painting or illustration-- albeit one that moves.
with those others (button, lotr, avatar), they're obviously going for photo-realism-- and succeeding alot of the time. but with something like beowulf, i think they realize that the technology's not quite there yet for a full-length feature fully cgi. so they go for something a bit more stylized, but do sometimes get amazingly close (mostly with non-human stuff).
while it's still fairly distracting in my opinion, it is fun watching these movies. but it's still going to be quite a few years before we have a photo-real completely cg human character that can fool the human eye.
the uncanny valley is still very deep.