ST CGI in The Force Awakens

A round faced, goggle eyed, bespectacled short creature. An apt comparison.

 

Well this is a genuine "agree to disagree" if ever there was one! I think I'll leave it there...

 

Helps to watch Grievous in motion. His cloak, in particular, is the least convincing CGI I'd seen in ages at that point. It's so obviously digital, it hurts my eyes. Even in a still shot, it looks terrible:



Lighting is an important element of making CGI work. If Lucas wanted me to accept Grievous as a real character in the frame, he should probably not have bathed him in the garish light of the terribly-designed interior of his awful starship.

And yes, I do agree that this in part has to do with design. The combination of Ryan Church's hideously cluttered design work, and too much brightly-lit CGI, makes ROTS the ugliest of the PT to me. IMO, TPM looks much, much better than it. Which is partly why I've rewatched TPM a number of times (and the beginning of AOTC), but rarely ever watch ROTS anymore.

 

I have a cape and even used to have a tarp in my old house, both looked just like Grievous' cape. So are those not real?

Also the starship is amazing looking, the lighting is perfect, the motion is fluid and Grievous' design is better thenanything either of us could draw. It loosk amazing, people gawk in amazement when they see grievous cosplayers, the look is badass and epic looking. Something I wanna do when I have the money.

Show me ONE cgi character out of star wars that looks better then grievous -_-

 

Yoda in ROTS I think is the best SW digital creation...

 

Tools are just the beginning of execution. Imagination, design and craftsmanship are too often overlooked. For some reason too much is made about improvements in the rendering when at a point that makes little difference to actually being able to use them to their fullest.

I'm so glad I've never seen the version of ROTS you have! The version I always watch is AWESOME. It's absolutely the most gorgeous SW movie by far. It's hard to believe that Grievous and Yoda et all were not real characters on the set. The cloth looks amazing.

I can appreciate that it doesn't work for you for whatever reason. I can't relate in the least as it looked as real as anything I have ever seen in movies. It's utterly fantastic of course but it creates it's own reality. For some people they can't accept it for whatever reason but why one image is less real than another I don't know:

 

I'd imagine the poster was referring to the more action packed sequences e.g. fighting on the lava flow etc. where ROTS does sometimes over extend itself (IMO), and heavily composited shots become more obvious... but on the whole I think ROTS is quite immersive, in terms of blending fantastical landscapes/environments into a live action film.

 

well maybe your Eyes are better then Mine I wear Coke Bottle Glasses Like Buddy Holly Style or the Kind Abrams Wears But I will say with my glasses I see pretty good And I find It hard to tell what Is CGI and what Is Practical In Abrams Films especially Super 8, Star Trek Into Darkness, and TFA point Is he does not use a lot of CGI In his films...

 

When we are talking about the quality of CGI I don't think the director gets much credit beyond maybe his/her reputation allowing for a larger budget. Getting great special effects is ultimately the domain of the artists and engineers, not the director.

 

Honestly? Off the top of my head... scenes such as the Kelvin being destroyed, Kirk and Khan space flying through debris, flying around Kronos (?) the Cloverfield monster destroying buildings (although Abrams didn't direct that), the Falcon escaping Jakku, the big monsters on Han's freighter, Snoke, Starkiller base etc. You can't tell they are CGI? I mean, I think the effects are good, but they are kind of obviously digital effects to my eyes.

 

I think there is an element of how the filmmaker wants to employ them. For example, as mentioned previously, Abrams purposely uses Earth type environments in TFA... the net result being is that when you see a digital ship flying across a digital sand dune, the brain is seeing something familiar. When you see a digital ship flying across a planet covered in buildings, your brain is telling you that environment doesn't exist on Earth.

 

I wish there was an option for 'very good.' I loved all of the CG except the Motion Capture. They were a bit behind on that. Maz should have been a puppet and Snoke needed a bit more polishing.

 

@TheOneX_Eleazar I agree, but in this case it's a little different. Everything we see is what George imagined. Accept a few cases where George was like "I want a droid general, I'll pick the best looking one." He tells them what to draw and the artists draw it, then the animators animate it. All three are crucial parts, George's imagination plays a BIG part in why star wars looks so beautiful and diverse. However without the artists or animators George couldn't bring ANY of it to life. All 3 are crucial parts, George is the heart, the artists are the stomache, the animators are the brain, I choose those three because they're organs that all need each other. Without one the other is set to fail.

It's really nice to see, like snoke in TFA, yeah the aniamtors made it, but it was JJ who decided what he would LOOK LIKE, and apparently he took a very long time on it....I think the design is rather plain, however it's not just the animators who are responsible, they make the vision of others come to LIFE! The have the much needed talent to make it all happen.

 

but that is not a lot of CGI in each film, Minimal is the word
and in each one you bring up especially Into Darkness, Super 8, and TFA I could not tell with the naked eye that those were definitely all CGI, Not on my 42 Inch LG HD TV it all looks beautiful on there and I can't wait to see TFA on my TV !!!!!!! Star Trek 2009 and Cloverfield I do not count because 1. special effects/CGI have come a long way since 2009 and look so much better and 2. Abrams did not direct Cloverfield, he just produced it. I did not see Abrams Mission Impossible, it is free on Xfinity On-Demand I will get around to it one of these days!!!!! my mom and her family lived on Cloverdale AVE in Great Kills Staten Island New York and when ever I hear something about the movie Cloverfield I think of Cloverdale AVE, which by the way I know a little off topic but the New Cloverfied looks really good. better then the first and I am a big fan of John Goodman !!!!!

 

There is not a minimal amount of digital effects in Abrams Star Trek films. There's lots. We can go shot for shot if you'd like? Which isn't to say the effects aren't good, I think they are very good, but those films are big effects extravaganzas.

 

IMHO there is a Minimal Amount of CGI In everyone of Abrams films. and no I don't want to go Shot for shot as I find It quite Subjective ...

 

That's ridiculous, every spaceship in every Abrams film is CGI.

I can't think of one example of him using miniatures, or model ships.

 

I'm genuinely glad that not everyone sees what I see as there were certain scenes that just broke to illusion for me. It probably has something to do with the fact that at the time Lucas was pioneering these advanced techniques that sometimes worked amazingly well & other times, well not so much. An example is this below (couldn't find a higher res one in my quick search). Again, this is purely personal.

 

It's a movie In space what do you expect? But for films these Days Abrams goes CGI light, Compare It to Age Of Ultron and I can probably come up with Hundreds More But my post would be to long

Just for example of what I am talking about, look at all the practical effects all those trees and plants and Foliage are mostly all organic real sets with blue screen sky and Ocean but Obviously there Is a lot of Real Practical Effects In all the Movies You just have to GOOGLE and YOUTUBE



And the Volcano Is largely a Set Piece with Some CGI that looks Better then Mustafar IMHO !!!

but That Is more to the fact that ROTS was 2005 and Into Darkness was 2013 big difference In effects from 2005 to 2013 ...

 

It doesn't matter how much cgi is used, it only matters if it looks good. Same with the practical effects, accept you really wanna limit practical effects, sure they're cheaper to make but they take longer to make and work with.

 

No, that's completely backwards.

Here's the thing: the physics used in CGI are only an approximation of real world physics. The complexity in the models improves as the grunt behind them can handle the load better, but there will always be nuances that won't be properly captured. OTOH, practical effects don't need any approximations when it comes to real world physics--being practical, it comes for free. That's why it's better to augment the practical with CGI where needed, not the other way around.

 

I'm always of the opinion that if it can be believably done with practical, and within a reasonable price, it should be done that way.

 

Not if there's a time problem. CGI is much faster, puppets are cheaper.

 

I'm not convinced that puppets (or practical effects in general) are cheaper. But in general, it's still dedicate as many resources (time, money, whatever) to practical effects as the bedrock, supplemented with CGI.