Best CG Character of Past, and Present

I love the character, and the Wookies, but not so fond of the way they communicate

 

The only time Chewbacca has 'annoyed' me was when he and Tarfful were talking while Yoda was leaving Kashyyyk. It wasn't even so much that it was annoying, just playing two wookie voices off of each other was unsettling, as I'd never heard it before. He was always just a lone wookie.

Still, as alien sidekicks go, he rips the arm off of Jar Jar any day.

-Vaportrail

 

then beats him to death with it out of annoyance

 

Yea, sandman is definetely my favorite cg character, and possibly the greatest feet in cgi yet (at least in my opinion). It's easy to see where their 300mil dollar budget went. there, and the opening credit sequence.

 

Depending on how the Transformers movie pans out, i may be switching over that way...i mean, both Prime and Starscream are killer in the newest trailer.

Take the trailer, and watch either of Prime or Starscream's transformations in slo-mo...ILM took great detail in making sure the small parts were all included....very, very good...and well...Peter Cullen + CGI Prime = bliss:

[image=http://www.madhorizons.com/prime.jpg]

 

Huh? It's barely more than basic particle simulation. The character-represented-by-a-fluid thing was where CGI started with The Abyss and then with Terminator 2. It's nothing new. And I'd hardly call it "The Greatest Feat in CGI Yet."

EDIT: Vapes, you obviously haven't watched the Holiday Special.

 

Did anyone think the compositing in the final shot of Harry's death scene look bad? I saw some feather on it.

Did anyone else see this? Am I seeing things?

 

There is no feather...there is only Zhul.

I still haven't been able to get passed the first 15mins of it...but i'll let ya know when i get there.

 

The opening credits?

 

The latest POTC movie was great, lot's of Davy Jones stuff, it was amazing. Spider-Man is officially knocked out of the race for me. But Transformers might have better, those bots are so amazingly complex. Doesn't matter though, both movies are by ILM so they'd get the award either way.

 

Pretty much. Any movie that causes the theater to cut the lights on in the middle of the movie just to talk smack about the movie while it still plays has a tendency not to capture attention for long.

 

So far, with the Transformers trailer, they look good, but even with my distaste of POTC2 I have to admit they're not even close to the quality of Davey Jones. With him, people were questioning whether portions of him were actually CGI.

Sandman was a particle effect, yes, but he was one of the better ones out there. There were layers of sand with him, heavy to thin. The only thing that bugged me was when he would change color from sand to his clothing and skin. Still, you have to wonder how exactly you might do that. Just fading to it gradually as they did seems about the only way, unless they would've had streams of color sift through him and into place. That would've definitely upped their lengthy render times.

-Vaportrail

 

Davy Jones is awesome, no doubt about it. I guess I'm biased towards Transformers. No, i won't think they're real at any time like Davy, but I am as impressed with their Transformations on a technical level as I was w/ Davy's realism (so far).

 

The Best (and by that I guess I mean "best realized and executed") CG Character:

DAVY JONES

Why? Because everywhere I go I still see people posting on forums that they thought he was part-real or that only his tentacles were CGI or even that he was entirely real. And to this date, there are scenes in that film where I can't see the digital seams as it were. The compositing is miraculous, the lighting is dead-on perfect for the night sequences and the face (minus the tentacles) still, despite the fact that I KNOW its not real, looks like a prosthetic. Oh and those drips and droplets of water sliding down his skin? *faints*

I'm a very critical, very hard to please, very rarely impressed special FX fan. CGI often just ticks me off to begin with and I'm not really a fan of stop-motion either. I'm just a real stuck in the mud who's hard to please and can often destroy the magic of most special FX characters within minutes. Even Gollum and Kong hold no more magic for me (though Kong's hair looks good from time to time). But Davy Jones's skin and wardrobe CONFOUNDS me.


Runner ups?

The T-Rex in the rainstorm attack sequences from "Jurassic Park" - still some of the most breathtaking keyframe animation I've ever seen and the compositing and light-mapping is just amazing. Pity it never kept up after this sequence was over.

The T-1000 from "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" - again the brilliant compositing in a handful of scenes and the SUPERB texture mapping of the reflective surface. The scene in the Pescadero Mental Hospital where he kills the guard and the Steelworks and the Helicopter takeover.....those scenes still have the "magic" for me.

The Tripod machines from "War Of The Worlds". Probably the best machines ILM's done to date (we'll see what Transformers does of course).

And that's about IT. I can't really think of ANYTHING I've seen that's held up against time and repeated viewings.

 

Well, yes, fluid-characters have been around for years. Sandman wasn't new. That's not why his effects are such an incredible feat. It is because it was so well executed. Personally, with the T-1000 in T2, I did like the look of the model and the shape shifting, but I can't help but flinch everytime I see that shot of him walk away from the fire. His animation looks pretty robotic (no pun intended). Anyway, what I'm saying is that the technology isn't new, of course. It's just been utilized in an incredible way. It's hard to describe. It's hard to say technically why that scene is so incredible. Basically, I think it was the mix of photo-realism, technical motion, and general awe that made it such a feat.


At. World's. End. Davy. Jones. One. Word. Breathless.

I always loved Davy in DMC, mainly because of his insane visual realism, but also because of his cool lines, actions, and emotions. In AWE, he played a bigger part and was in more scenes than I was expecting. In short, his effects were just as good as in DMC, if not somehow better. From the first shot of him to the last shot, he was incredible. I honestly began shaking in awe everytime he was on screen. Every shot was incredible. My personal favorite shot of him is when it starts raining and he gets angry, shaking his head and yelling. The mix of realism of the entirely CG character and emotion of the moment made that scene give me something I think belongs in the category of a "nerdgasm". In short, he had great character moments, an awesome swordfight, great performance (much props to Bill Nighy), and consistent visual realism. ILM deserves gigantic applause. Davy Jones is undoubtedly one of the greatest feats of character-CGI ever.

I repeat.

Davy Jones is undoubtedly one of the greatest feats of character-CGI ever.

 

I thought for the rainstorm attack sequences from JP, the T-rex was a physical model. I remember seeing it from a behind the scenes vid last year.

But then again maybe I was mistaken.

 

It depends on the shot. A basic rule of thumb, as I recall, is this: Whenever you can see the T-rex's legs and lower body, it's the CG model. Whenever it's just the head or top of the body, it's the animatronic, because the animatronic was just from about the waist of the rex up. Even still, without this knowledge, it can be hard to tell whether the rex is CG or animatroic. The two looked so incredibly alike. It was a perfect blend.

 

I guess part of the reason that I didn't like sandman very much was that, as a character, he was just boring. And the movie really didn't make ANY use of all the cool powers he had. And I really didn't like the "impossible scale" shot of his birth. Just plain didn't like it. But, I guess he was pretty well executed.

I still don't see where anyone gets off calling him the "best CG character of all time" though. There's little innovation and little creativity in what the character does.

The T-1000, even though it was the FIRST time that the effect had been done, stands the test of time, in that the writers and animators were very creative with the character.

The Sandman does not impress me.

Davy Jones, Gollum... those impress me.

And yeah, to whoever said it, there was something wrong with the sunrise scenes from S3. I didn't actually catch any blue spill in MJ's hair, but kept expecting to. King Kong had the same exact problem (to a somewhat worse degree.)

 

I actually have to disagree on that last point. I thought in AWE that the first three or four shots of Davy were actually not so great. The skin didn't have the right translucence and his eyes weren't as nuanced as DMC. I'm a big, BIG Davy Jones fan so I was kind of scared that somehow ILM had dropped the ball, perhaps just due to the sheer number of Davy shots. Luckily it all sorted itself out and the rest of the movie Davy was great.

Weirdly, the first few shots of Davy in DMC are also among my least favorite of the Davy shots in that film. I'd credit it to "they were still figuring it out" but it's not like they do the shots in order.

I would think the first few shots should be the BEST you can do, to really sell the character up-front.

But eh. I think he's still the best CG character.

I really don't think things like the T-Rex or liquid metal T-1000 count as "characters". They're CG effects. The T-Rex is a character but it was a combination of animatronics and CG. The T-1000 was a character but it was most of the time Robert Patrick. To call the liquid metal T-1000 a CG character isn't really accurate. To be considered as a "CG character" I think the majority of the character's screen presence has to be realized with CG, not just occasional enhancements.

 

Davy Jones in AWE is Teh Best.

Period.

SB

 

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned Reptile from Mortal Kombat 1!

 

Seeing as how Transformers is out, I think it is right to bring this thread back to the top.

I haven't seen the movie but will review POTC:AWE.

I think the overall visual effects of the movie were fabulous, and the maelstrom sequence was amazing. The fact that they shot that on bluesceen stages and then added water later in post just send shivers down my spine, of the compositing was near seamless. But enough with that, onto the characters.

I didn't think that Davy Jones had improved much over last time, as there isn't much to improve. But in a couple of years, CG will be far past that, but still it will look good. I think the interaction between real and CG characters has improved. Just look and the final battle, and how Davy Jones kills Mercer by smothering him with his tentacles. Ah, the effects of this are top-notch, now onto Transformers...

 

Transformers was awesome. They did a really great job on that. The big thing about it is that they had thousands of parts for each robot, Optimus Prime had over 10,000 moving parts, and it took them months for each transformation and the transformations couldn't be reused because none of them were in the same circumstances (like where the character is at the time and what they are doing). For their budget they did extremely well. And a really amazing thing is how they were able to add in anything in some of the shots where the camera is shaking around too much and there's a limited view of where the robots actually are. And the materials are really great. I can't think of anything that didn't look perfect. And unless there's something better coming out this year I think they'll win it.

 

I think a lot of that camera shake was done in post though. I'm sure the camera wasn't static on the raw footage but I don't think it was as violent as the final composite on most shots.

 

I forgot that Davy Jones was CG in the later parts of AWE. There was just too much going on to analyse the effects work, and it was so flawless that not once did I get pulled out of the moment. So far as I was concerned, Davy Jones was as much a character as any of the other actors on screen.

Transformers effects-wise was impressive, but frankly I think organics are harder to do and harder to sell.

-Spiff