Handling The Visual Effects

[dark_b]

did ILM do a CGI human? i only remember for star wars. but the style that Lucas used made the effects look very fake. he likes theblur effect when someoen jumps.
but did ILM do a close up of CGI human?

Camerons pushed weta to the limit for the realistic CGI. so weta is also an option.

 

[CGHulk]

ILM's work on the prequels could have been better. When Peter Jackson was making The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he wasn't spending his own money, he was spending Newline's, but George was spending his own money to make the Prequels, he got a little cheap. That how I justify with the hit and miss effects work in the Prequels. But one year later after Episode 3 ILM won the Academy Award for Visual Effects for Pirates 2, which was financed by Disney. On Fantastic Four 2 Weta did the Silver Surfer, and people were complaining how poor the surfer looked (except for one shot, which you can see on the Weta Digital website, which that one shot they are proud of), a CG artist came forward to say why their work wasn't that great, due to Fox's lack of financing. Did anyone see the Water Horse? Weta's work on that film didn't look to good. The Bridge to Terabithia didn't look that good too, I read due to lack of financing too. But King Kong looked geat, and got the Academy Award, boy did Universal shell out the dough for that one!

James Cameron is actually promising photoreal CG characters for his film Avatar, with his new breakthrough motion capture technology. He has said Weta has developed phototreal skin and cloth simulations. Spielberg and Jackson are going to be using all of this new technology for their Tintin movie. Cameron is also promising photoreal CG environments.

 

[dark_b]

James Cameron is actually promising photoreal CG characters for his film Avatar, with his new breakthrough motion capture technology. He has said Weta has developed phototreal skin and cloth simulations. Spielberg and Jackson are going to be using all of this new technology for their Tintin movie. Cameron is also promising photoreal CG environments.

there are 3 directors IMO that pushed CG companys to the limit. jackson,spielberg and the king of all new CGI technology james cameron.
like i said ILM or weta. but weta is interesting. the things that weta did on avatar they will use on otehr projects.
like ILM working on transformers. it helped them to make IM faster and easier..
ILM is now the best when it comes to brushed metal. but the photorealistic cloth simulation and skin from weta could be very handy for superman.

 

[CGHulk]

I recall in 2006 everyone was fooled with Davey Jones, sure we knew the tentacles were CG, due to the implausibility of them being real, but the whole guy was CG, it just blew everyone away. I truly believe if ILM got the Superman reboot, it would be a challenge they'd want to take up to make the first photorealistic CG double. We shouldn't rule out ILM with cloth sims and skin renders, since 2005 George has been employing mathematicians from major universities, here's one of them http://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/ he's developed fire, water, hair and cloth simulations. She's hot http://graphics.stanford.edu/~rachellw/ and she worked on Transformers!

 

[BMM]

i was talking about TIH.

That's what Crook pointed out. In that regard, I agree with you.

 

[dark_b]

R&H did an amazing job on marlon brando. but they can not make a whole movie plus smaller jobs.

 

[CGHulk]

R&H did an amazing job on marlon brando. but they can not make a whole movie plus smaller jobs.

I thought the mouth looked fake. Alot of people think the close up shot of Brando at the end of the sequence was a CG Brando, it wasn't. It was live action footage of Brando saying, "Kal-EL."

 

[batlovescatDC]

get the team from the dark knight or underworld.

 

[dark_b]

get the team from the dark knight or underworld.

thatsh teh problem. since TDK is making 500 milions that means that everything is perfect from them.
how can we even compare the CGI shots from TDK to a superman movie?
its completely different.

 

[dark_b]

I thought the mouth looked fake. Alot of people think the close up shot of Brando at the end of the sequence was a CG Brando, it wasn't. It was action footage of Brando saying, "Kal-EL."

it didnt look fake to me because it was so short.

 

[batlovescatDC]

thatsh teh problem. since TDK is making 500 milions that means that everything is perfect from them.
how can we even compare the CGI shots from TDK to a superman movie?
its completely different.

yes, they are completely different.... but I think they could pull it off just as well.

 

[dark_b]

so you would rather use the CGI company from TDK because the movie made 500 milions rather then a CGI company that is specialized with CGI creatures and heavy CGI action scenes(weta ,ILM)?

 

[Alien Anal]

i forget who it was now
but the car company that had the flying man
:P

 

[CGHulk]

get the team from the dark knight or underworld.

Double Negative
http://www.dneg.com/projects/the_dark_knight_129.html

Framestore CFC
http://www.framestore-cfc.com/#/Film VFX/TheDarkKnight,

http://www.framestore-cfc.com/#/Film VFX/Underworld,

it didnt look fake to me because it was so short.

I re-editted my post I meant to say it was live action footage, not action footage.

i forget who it was now

but the car company that had the flying man

:P

Fin Design

http://www.findesign.com.au/

 

[matrix_ghost]

get the team from the dark knight or underworld.

thatsh teh problem. since TDK is making 500 milions that means that everything is perfect from them.
how can we even compare the CGI shots from TDK to a superman movie?
its completely different.

yes, they are completely different.... but I think they could pull it off just as well.

so you would rather use the CGI company from TDK because the movie made 500 milions rather then a CGI company that is specialized with CGI creatures and heavy CGI action scenes(weta ,ILM)?

This is exactly the same logic that was used when Sony Imageworks got SR. SPider-man 2 featured the first big superhero battle done right and everybody was raving about it.
Fastforward a couple of years later and everybody is hating Sony Imageworks because of their work in Superman Returns.

The companies like FrameStore CFC and Double Negative are nowhere near the level of ILM or WETA or Sony.
Those companies are specialised in creating near photoreal CG creatures and have experience with CG humans.
R&H is in the same league of Framestore CFC and look at their work in The Incredible Hulk. It was good but it's still looks like a CG creation.

And Superman is guy who you want to look like obvious CGI. You have to go for 100 % photorealism

 

[matrix_ghost]

I agree. When it comes to flying the next director should try their hardest not to over use CGI stunt doubles. I totally perfer extensive greenscreen/wire work.

Answer to the question:

I'll go with ILM.

While ILM has made huge improvements with their CG technology , i still have my doubts. Davey Jones looked photorealistic but he is still not a human.

Also i find care to explain a little more why you'd go for ILM when you're wanting the director to shoot the actor in flying harnesses. Iron Man is a bit similar with Supes because it features a guy flying. And the VFX are done by ILM. All the shots of Iron Man flying are CG shots. No wire-work

 

[Crook]

There's obviously gonna be some form of huge cgi-work all throughout the movie. Minds as well go with the best.

 

[matrix_ghost]

I was referring to the very plastic-looking Superman cgi double.


He was referring to R&H's work on TIH. That is why he's making the comparison of a small company doing a big budget film.


I'm pretty sure most cgi films use more than one studio to do the effects. The thing is though most of the third party companies are working on the small things like wire removals and subtle touch-ups.

Ideally, only one studio should work on the very big effects for a film. You mix up studios and you (likely) run the risk of varying cgi inconsistencies.

Bingo.
I can understand why studios hire different VFX companies to work on various shots. One studio could deliver the all the VFX shots ( like ILM did on SW prequels) but it usually takes longer then a year. The more shots , the longer it takes. That is why the work is spread with amongst different companies.
While this obsiously lessens the workload the problem you get is inconsistencies.

I remember reading the Cinefex issue which featured TF. ILM and Digital Doman were the two companies that delivered VFX shots and you could clearly see a difference between the CG work delivered by ILM ( robots such as Optimus) and the stuff created by Digital Doman ( the mountain dew robot).
It really looked different.

 

[Captain Planet!]

ILM should do it. That is not an opinion or preference, that is a fact.

 

[dark_b]

a fake moving CGI superman head is not anymore an option.
here you have perfect facial motion tracking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwAV2fXoy6E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0R-N6ZQO4

this should be and WILL be used for the new movie. i just hope that ILM will start using this. WETA is already using this for AVATAR(james cameron)


the last flying scene where we got a close up of CGI brandon was first filmed on greenscreen. later on they replaced him.this means that they didnt track brandons head. which of course means that the animators were animating the face by hand. this is not PIXAR for christsake.

 

[SuperDaniel]

Why cant they past the actor's head in a CGI body instead of wasting time and money in trying to make a CG face that WILL NEVER look real?

 

[CGHulk]

a fake moving CGI superman head is not anymore an option.
here you have perfect facial motion tracking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwAV2fXoy6E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0R-N6ZQO4

this should be and WILL be used for the new movie. i just hope that ILM will start using this. WETA is already using this for AVATAR(james cameron)


the last flying scene where we got a close up of CGI brandon was first filmed on greenscreen. later on they replaced him.this means that they didnt track brandons head. which of course means that the animators were animating the face by hand. this is not PIXAR for christsake.

James Cameron is not using Image Metricks for "Avatar", he's developed a new technology for facial motion capture called “Facial Performance Replacement” (FPR). IMO the Image Metricks technique doesn't work well, at least not convincing ina photoreal way, it works well for videogames. This is a heck of alot better company, http://www.mova.com/ you just wait and see what they'll be doing in the near future! There's a new film called "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette where he's a little boy that looks old and as he grows up he gets younger, using the MOVA technique. The little old man is Brad Pitt, put your head around that. A CG face on a little boys body, or how about that mirror shot, a full CG character? Whatever technique they used it looks amazing! Here's a trailer to the film. http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/06...-the-curious-case-of-benjamin-button-trailer/

Why cant they past the actor's head in a CGI body instead of wasting time and money in trying to make a CG face that WILL NEVER look real?

Well for "Blades of Glory" Rainmaker Visual Effects put Will Farrell's facial live action performance on a real ice skaters body. For other shots they put a CG Will Farrell's face over a real ice skaters face. After watching the video breakdown on this site http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/technique/how/7926.html I think the techniques worked quite well. I think it would work well in a Superman movie!

 

[Crook]

IM is being used for Avatar. There was a direct quote from someone on the film stating such.

 

[CGHulk]

IM is being used for Avatar. There was a direct quote from someone on the film stating such.

Oh crap you are right, my bad!
http://filmonic.com/coolness-image-metrics-cg-facial-animation

"This technology will mainly be used on Zoe Saldana, Laz Alonso, CCH Pounder and the rest of the actors playing the Na’vi alien race." - Avatar producer Jon Landau

Well the CG baby Ogre in the 5th Harry Potter looked bad, and the demos online look bad! Well lets hope it works out well.

 

[dark_b]

Oh crap you are right, my bad!
http://filmonic.com/coolness-image-metrics-cg-facial-animation

"This technology will mainly be used on Zoe Saldana, Laz Alonso, CCH Pounder and the rest of the actors playing the Na’vi alien race." - Avatar producer Jon Landau

Well the CG baby Ogre in the 5th Harry Potter looked bad, and the demos online look bad! Well lets hope it works out well.

you mean image metrics?
emilly had IMO 99% realistic movement. lets forget about how the surface looked. those guys are not experts in lighting and shaders. but they made some pretty good eye ball movements.