**Official** Special Effects - Digital Effects - CGI discussion thread.

Binary, the only "sets" that was completely CG were the droid factory and the battlefield at the very end.

Everything else was a real set or a model.

 

"Binary, the only "set" that was completely CG was the battlefield at the very end.
Everything else was a real set or a model. "

So what about the:
- Droid factory
- Rain battle platform
- Arena
- And the list goes on...

Someone else called AOTC "ILM Porn"... Not too far from the truth, I suppose.

 

The cityscapes of Coruscant during the Zam car-chase and the inside of the building on Kamino (especially the clone-vats) hurt my eyes.

 

The arena was a model, as seen in stills at Celebration 2. The Kamino sky is hardly a set. I put the droid factory in my original posts 2 seconds after i posted it, i forgot about that one.

The interior of Kamino was done w/ models.

 

the 1st thing when talking about sound-fx
that comes to my mind

········· T W AA N G G ·········

 

Their was a vast difference in the believability of the special effects depending on whether you watched the movie on digital or film.

On film while still strong, some of the background looked a bit flat. The water also lacked some realism.

However on digital, what a difference. The colours were far richer. The opening sequence said it all. The clouds seemed transparent and fluffy, the spaceship was tinged in the softest pink.
As for Yoda, he looked incredibly realistic. His human characteristics really came out. The battlefield which looked somewhat heavy in orange on film was far more vibrant.

For all the people who saw this movie on film, I think you will be amazed when you see it on DVD.

 

Hi,
I don't like the cgi effects either. They are too blurry. I was watching ESB on TV last night and I really enjoyed the special effects!!! I think they look better than AOTC. What I dislike the most are the backgrounds. They look like paintings!! Have you seen the Wizard of OZ? The backgrounds are painted walls with fake country side and mountains. AOTC looks worse. And, c'mon guys, Yoda the puppet looks one thousands times more real than the cgi in AOTC. I did like Yoda's lightsaber fight though.

Cheers,

Inigo

 

Ok, here we go. Yoda, Dexter looked great. Yoda did have few scenes where he didn't quite look in place, but that's ok.

POGGLE THE LESSER. This dude was PERFECT. They took some real care with him, he always looked awesome.

Reek, good most of the time. Acklay was PERFECT. Nexu, great creature, great most of the time. Take these guys over the Rancor any day of the week.

Jar Jar looked off in the beginning, but eventually got a bit better. I think it was the clothes.

Yoda's close ups and facial expressions were amazing. He actually looked like tears were forming when sensing Anakin's pain.

Kamino beings were awesome. Great closeups on them, always looked good.

YES some of the actors in all CG environments looked out of place.
The list:
Obi-Wan in the Geonoasian tower.
Dooku entering the Obi-Wan cell.
Padme and Anakin walking through the Geonoasian hallway.
A bit of the Jedi temple.
Dooku riding his hover bike. So out of place. Even my die-hard-forgive-anything friend thought it looked really bad.

Actors riding CG creations. Every shot, not quite right. Keep trying ILM! The best of them all was on the Reek I thought.

Sets which were models:
Tipoca City on Kamino. The outside AND inside environments were mostly models. (Exception to Boba's apartment.)
Padme's apartment building.
Jedi temple. (outside)
Geonosian comb towers.
The Jedi Archive library.
Dexter's Diner (outside)
Many of the Coruscant building shots.
I think much of the chase sequence had modeled environments with CG enhancements.
Tattoine country side when Anakin's riding his bike. (I think, it was a mix of CG and structure models, not 100% sure)

I'm sure there are more....So people models were used extensively.

I thought the movies visual effects were amazing. Though they can do better. George is quoted as saying the movie looks BETTER then he expected and may be the best they can do. [Boy I hope not]

They built 40 or 50 extremely detailed sets I think, here are a few I know of:
Dexter's diner
Palaptine's office
Fett apartment
Nightclub exterior and interior
Lars Kitchen
Lars dining area
Homestead
Lars Garage
Geonoasian conference room
Padme's interior apartment/hallway
Padme's bedroom
Jedi council room
Tusken Raider camp (small portion)
Padme Starcruiser interior
Freight cruiser interior
Dining scene on lake retreat
Fireplace confession on lake retreat

Other awesome digital effects: Jango flying, Flight through the asteroid belt, Poggle's command center, and Obi-Wan suspended in his cell. I LOVE those scenes. Oh and basically all of the clone war shots!

 

LOL! This thread illustrates the high degree of ignorance by many who resort to the tried and true comments like "It's all CG!" Way too much CG!"

I will tell you now that:

1. No, it's not, far from it.

2. The number of models used in the PT far outnumber the numbers used in the OT.

3. You must unlearn what you learned.

 

What ShaneP and ElegantWeapon said.

 

I found these posts to help you.



Differences between DLP and regular film version - this one is more about film "content," sorry!

***Official*** AOTC DVD Thread

AotC Director's Cut on the DVD??

DIGITAL MAKE UP????

getting warmer...better contact the guy who wrote this one below:
More Facts on "How does the DLP work?"

This one below is also good
Movies shot on digital video


SW2 REEL pics

Your digital theater pleas- I'd like to hear them.


Question about the future AOTC DVD.....

AOTC makes the OT look too primitive

Digitally Remastered with THX and Skywalker Sound



picture grain

*** Index of Important Topics / Newbie Survival Thread***

 

UP!

 

For naysayers, refresh your self on this Official site video about extensive use of models and miniatures.

http://www.starwars.com/episode-ii/video/making/making8.html

 

Alot of people's idea of the FX are skewed by bad projection. AOTC is a very hard film to project properly - I had wildly different experiences each time I saw it depending on the projectionist.

When I finally saw it digitally I had this complaint : some of the digital-film elements have a raw, almost early video, look when digitally composited with other elements. There are even some artifacts (a soft line around characters).

I think EIII will have most of these technical problems solved. AOTC is a little jarring - a little raw looking compared to TPM.

 

Agree with people who said there are a lot of (excelents) models in AOTC. Is it all CGI? No, but it´s all digital edition so...

riding is the problem, look like Harryhausen?

 

My head will probably get chopped off for this, but: The models of the ships in the OT (and so on) does have a visual advantage. They look real, because they ARE real. Perhaps that is the ONLY advantage. But still, watching a tie fighter attack an X-wing beats any other average naboo-fighter (or whatever). I know people who would like to see AOTC (and TPM for that matter) with the same kind of effects as the OT (with the ships etc). But i think it would be a great dissapointment. Using that kind of technique is: time consuming and also more expensive (from what i've heard). So i try to stay as neutral as possible in this issue. They both have their advantages, but CGI probably has more of them.

 

I thought most of the cgi was perfect except for three things:

1. At a few times in the film yoda seems to have an overly stretched texture on his forhead

2. Some of the scenes with people on a cgi backdrop looked fake, mostly when obi wan was on the assasin driod and when Obi wan, Mace, and Yoda are talking (yoda is hovering)

3. The water on that one planet was horrible! I could do better with Microsoft paint!

Other than that it was perfect, the three creatures in the arena were flawless and JarJar, no matter how much I want to ring his neck, looked real *shudder*

 

now most of the new star wars films are cgi. does anyone else think that maybe its a bit overboard? who else enjoyed seeing the going around of the limits of technology- luke circling the freeze chamber so he could drop his full lightsaber prop and pick up an empty one, yoda looking more real in empire and jedi than in clones and phantom, the perfect timing of the explosives in the bespin city lightsaber duel. those were great moments in film because not only the visual thrill, but also the special effects and how "real" they were. because a lot of the new star wars are flash, but they cannot match the storytelling of the originalsa.

 

Greetings!

I thought CGI stuff was amazing ... however, I thought blue/green screen composites of subjects (actors) were horrible ... ratty edges, uneven or mismatched lighting, levels not matched properly, fine edge detail (especially hair) was lost ... etc. The scene with OB1 standing to the (screen) left of his Jedi starfighter on Geonosis looked like a "weather-man" composite on your local TV station.
They will never admit it but a lot of it has to do with HD.

Iggs

 

Digital Yoda is light years ahead of the sock puppet, sorry.

 

I agree Augusto, I've converted to CGI Yoda as the best Yoda.

I think the effects(Cgi and otherwise) were INCREDIBLE!!! ILM raised the bar. I'll take CGI over stop motion anyday.

 

The CGI is strong in this film, although it is going to make perfect in fans' heart. But it is done in a way that surpass all other films.

Examples of good & bad (in my opinions) :
Good-
Arena (except those creatures, i mean the surrounding audience)

Kamino ( you can definitely idetify it as CGI but it look so cool, not to mention those Kaminoian , and the REAL rains blend with the CG background well )

space chase ( the one I like most is the perspective on Jango Fett's view in Slave I to the asteroid outside )

Coruscant at the end when Dooku returns (it make u feel the film is so dark)

Trade Federation core ship fall ( it make u feel 9/11 but it look so cool! )

Dex Dinner ( look "natural" )

Dooku Solar Sailer ( it look so beautiful! )

Bad-
Meadow Picnic ( worst of all, the proportion isn't right & the background too fake )

Coruscant chase ( the part which Ani & Zam combating on the Zam's speeder. The camera is always on the same angle for a time, make Ani's action fake)

Yoda ( not all the time, but at some angle it isn't detail enough )

ILM is making a great job this time! Sometimes the scenes ILM draw is as beautiful as in LOTR where the crew shoot!
Wow! Amazing!

 

The first time I saw it on film, some of the effects looked fake. The second time on digital, everything looked real.

 

i feel quite oposite to that. i saw it first digitally and thought the effects blended in more with everything when i saw it the second time on film.

while i love the effects in this movie i'd have to say that they were better in TPM. in AOTC i could more easily tell what was CG. it seemed to me that everything had the exact same reflective qualities.. its like ILM chose one setting that they could just apply to everything they made instead of figuring out just how much a certain something should reflect.

and the clone troopers defenatly where overly CG... very unnesicarly in places.
and i absolutly hate when Padme eats that "pear" it kinda of disappears as it goes in her mouth.

over all it was good work. but i'd have to say they did a better job on TPM

 

I dont agree. I really dont feel like going through this movie shot by shot...but all I can say is that IMO, and in ALOT of others opinions who saw the movie with me, the effects were just superior to anything ever seen on film. Of course they are not perfect...some are...but the movie is a pretty thing to look at.

I think to date, the only perfect CG movie is Pearl Harbor...ILM perfected that stuff. I was just amazed!

Anyhow....I was awestruck by clones...and a buddy who is OBSESSED with effects in movies said that he thought AOTC was just stunning...he said the only things that he said hasnt been perfected are: animal/human interaction, some lipsinking with CGI creatures/characters and he really didnt like the Zam morph...even though I thought it was fine.

What cannot be neglected was how PERFECT the Coruscant scenes looked..I think its the greatest...THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON ITS NUTS!

anyhow....my rant is over
gnight.