Industrial Light and Magic

George Lucas, obviously famous for his Star Wars saga, has his very own digital effects company called Industrial Light and Magic which has worked on many films like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Ironman etc

Check out their website here:

http://www.ilm.com/

There was a book in the Library all about ILM which will be a brilliant reference for when I talk about CGI.

ILM don't just specialize in CGI however, they tackle all sorts of visual effects such as miniatures, prosthetics, puppets etc. They cover a vast range of stuff.

Check out this video aslo, it shows behind the scenes work on Star Wars Episode 3.

http://www.starwars.com/video/view/000306.html

Motion Capture, An Introduction

A very brief one I might add as I will look into this with more detail tomorrow.

Motion capture is a common technique used to create CGI characters within films and video games.

Motion capture entails an actor wearing a skin tight suit covered in a varying number of special balls. These balls are detected by a special camera which sends the movement patterns of these balls into a computer. This data is then relayed to a 3D model of a character in which I can be realistically animated based upon the actors movement.

Examples of this can be seen in The Lord Of The Rings with the Golum character, and also in King Kong.

An advanced form of Motion Capture was used to create Avatar (See previous post for a quick insight).

AVATAR

So I went to see Avatar today and I think it is a very good example of CGI use. If anything, this film has completely re-defined use of CGI in films.

Avatar takes CGI to a whole new level, rather than just the standard Green Screen technique of plac

ing live action elements within a CGI environment, James Cameron has managed to combine, flawlessly I might add, live action actors with CGI characters.

This film was actually delayed so that computer technology could improve enough to create Cameron's vision exactly how he wanted it. As this film was originally conceived in 1994 and scheduled to start production when Titanic (1997) was released, it would prove impossible to create the film on this scale back then.

Many different techniques were used in the film, even new technology created especially for this film was used, for example:

A Virtual Camera System was used which allowed James Cameron to Direct the motion capture sequences while viewing the live action in an augmented reality in real time, essentially allowing James Cameron to tell the actors how to react as if the CGI world was actually there. This allows more realism within the film as the actors are better directed instead of them being told roughly what they will be interacting with.

A new type of motion capture was used to create the Avatar's faces. An individually made skull mask was created with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors face which captured every tiny detail of the actor's facial and eye movements. The data is then sent to computers. According to Cameron, this technique allows 100% likeness in their CGI characters, and it really shows! (see below image)

I highly recommend seeing this film as it shows a brilliant use of CGI and it is just a brilliant film.

It was also presented in 3D...I will talk about 3D in another post as I plan on explaining how 3D in film works and when it was first used.

CGI Case Study 1 "Poseidon"

So I have decided to look at CGI in more depth as it is the most common form of Special Effect used in the industry today.

CGI is best for creating fictional worlds, unreal creatures or for simple enhancements on sets or actors.

A very good example of CGI use can be seen in Wolfgang Petersen's 2006 disaster remake "Poseidon". Extensive use of CGI was used to create the shots of the ship in the ocean and also the entire opening shot was created with CGI, the only Live Action element was of Josh Lucas running along the deck. (See below Link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXrcTto7mzI

This shot managed to incorporate Josh Lucas running along the deck by filming him running

against a green screen. He was then matted into the CGI pallet in post production resulting in the

scene seen in the link above.

Every exterior shot of the ship was created with CGI, and in my opinion, I think that this film

showcases some of the best CGI work seen in film today.(Excluding Avatar as I have not yet

seen it, therefore I can't judge).

One of the main reasons the CGI in this film is so good is because of it's insanely huge budget

of $160,000,000. Sadly the CGI is the only good point to this film. The rest is terrible, however

I won't turn this into a review of the film. As CGI is rather expensive (But a lot cheaper than

miniatures), sometimes it is very hard to get the realism that is intended. However in Poseidon's

case, that wasn't a problem. Poseidon showcases some of the best CGI water I have ever seen

in a film. For example, take a look at the capsizing scene. The water effects are flawless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roayx-79cAs

Now if CGI was just limited to effects like this then I would certainly agree that CGI is the way

forward in films, however some films have smaller budgets, yet still rely on CGI which, due to a

cheaper company being used, the effects aren't as flawless as those seen in Poseidon.

For example, if we look at the TV movie Britannic, The CGI effects are clearly cheaply made as

the realism in them is very small.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOaVJ3wFqM0

As you can see the Green Screen effects used in this film are rather poor. The CG rendering of

the ship looks pretty good, but once the live action elements are placed in there the CG becomes

very unrealistic. For example, when the lifeboat is heading towards the rotating propellor, the water

effects look very badly matted to the live action lifeboat which destroys the dramatic reality of

the scene.

I will look at CGI further in my next post.

CGI - A Brief Overview

CGI, or Computer Generated Images, have been used in films since the late 1970's, starting with Westworld in 1973. This film used 2D bit-mapped images created by digital artists to create a POV shot of a robot. Quite a simple but effective technique requires little effort unlike the CGI used today.

The first use of 3D CGI was in the sequel to Westworld, Futureworld from 1976. This film used 3D CGI to model and animate a CG version of Peter Fonda's face and hand. Created by the special effects company Triple I, this marked one of the first uses of 3D CGI in a film.

George Lucas' Star Wars Episode VI: A New Hope was one of the first feature length films to make use of extensive CGI to create visual effects. The main CG sequence used was the training briefing video of the Death Star trench assault. It was a basic unshaded/untextured 3D wireframe model. A later 1997 re-release saw extra CGI effects and other special effects enhanced or added.

These films were the origins of CGI which would later be used more and more frequently as technology developed.

I will go further into GCI techniques in my next post.