Discuss the Ghostbusters movie that was released in 2016.
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By Sav C
#4880792
Another great VFX breakdown video - the set extensions are particularly amazing!

It's great accepting them at face value, but wouldn't it be cool just to take an in depth look at the ghosts from the first two films? It could be fun.
Skyknight wrote:
Alphagaia wrote:The glowing drones used as stand-in for light reflections on the surroundings adds to the believability of the effect.
I don't think so. The ghosts glow much more brightly than the drones which leads to them not lighting up the surroundings enough and looks much less believable at all.
While I agree with your sentiment, they probably were going for a stylistic look, and not a realistic or believable one. You really can't fault them for their stylistic choices.
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By Kingpin
#4880817
Sav C wrote:but wouldn't it be cool just to take an in depth look at the ghosts from the first two films? It could be fun.
I'm down with In-depth looks, as I love seeing how stuff was done (like the lighting and enhancements on the new ghosts) but some of the analysis has definitely been critical, rather than in-depth.
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By pferreira1983
#4880836
80sguy wrote:
Not true. With that mindset, you'll be telling me it only takes a person with knowledge in art to create a masterpiece. The computer can't make a scene look good. The PERSON has to do that. The computer can't decide weather or not this car look like an actual car. "Computer knowledge" only gets you to a certain point.
No, to actually composite something within a frame that has been built requires actual artistry. Creating something in a computer is dealing with calculations. The imagination gets lost.
80sguy wrote:That's not a fact. There are movies in the earlier days of CGI that look horrible. Lord of the Rings had piratically all the sets created in CGI. So are you saying that what we see in Lord of the Rings was worse than what we saw in say, Spawn? Which looked like it came from a PS1 game? CGI has only gotten better. The problem is that we're seeing too much mediocre CGI.
I wasn't a big fan of the CGI in LOTR. The miniatures looked real though.
80sguy wrote:If you really say it's gotten worse I'd like to point out Terminator Genysis, where a full CGI recreation of Arnold from the first Terminator was made. A lot of people thought they just reused footage.
Yeah I have to say I wasn't too impressed with that. In screen shots it looked ok, in actual movement the CGI recreation looked fake somehow, the face looked wrong, reminded me of de-aging Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy. That wasn't a good example to convince me.
Kingpin wrote:Just for clarification of where you're coming from, you've worked on 3D modelling and animation, texture work, working these into video projects?
No I haven't however I've read and seen enough to see it's to do with calculations, not actual craft. If you're good at Maths, you're good at CGI.
Kingpin wrote:Please trust me, more people can use a computer for basic processes than can use it to create "images". You still need to have a lot of artistic talent and background to use a computer to make things, and make them look good. It's like giving a canvas and paint to a class of ten people, those ten people can apply the paint to the canvas, but it's unlikely all 10 will actually make something that could be considered art.
Then perhaps what I should be saying there a complete lack of good artists working with CGI today.
Kingpin wrote:Sometimes digital effects are just a better altnernative. A practical effect might look good, but if not engineered or operated properly, can look terrible (Kamelion from the classic series of Doctor Who comes to mind, Bruce from Jaws is another, less niche example).
I agree with your examples but I really do feel practical effects are ignored because CGI is the simpler, more cost effective route. It's laziness on part of the director and the studio.
Kingpin wrote:That's more an opinion than actual fact, while the bad CGI does stand out, the best stuff is so good that often we don't notice it at all
Any examples of good CGI?
Kingpin wrote:CGI lets you digitally extend sets, recreate whole cities from past eras, construct armadas of ancient ships and fleets of vintage warplanes.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear. That's all well and good but the more you rely on CGI for everything the more thinly you're spreading the quality of it. Look at it this way: spend a whole movie over a year doing CGI for it and it'll look crap, there's no way the quality will be great all the way through. Spend one scene doing CGI over a year and chances are it'll look good. This goes back to what I was saying about quantity over quality. The problem is making everything CG asks more from the crew working on the movie. It's overloaded in one area and not another.
Razorgeist wrote:Im reminded of how well the CGI ships looked in "The Force awakens" and all the new dynamic poses and shots we ended up getting that wouldn't have been possible with models.
I really was disappointed with the CGI in that movie, it looked quite fake and unreal at times. It feels like they didn't use actual models when they made a big thing about using them originally.
By Skyknight
#4880864
Kingpin wrote:I know, I know, I jest.

The thing is though, Slimer does not look like something from a Pixar or DreamWorks animated film, and I feel it unfairly dismissive to say so.
I think he really does look like that in the new movie!
I feel it should be noted that we've never discussed/dissected the ghosts in the 1984 and 1989 movies to such a critical level as we have with the 2016 movie - we accepted them at face value, and I believe we can employ the same approach with the 2016 ghosts.
No, at least I can't accept them the same way I accepted the ghosts in the original movie, because they look less real and more fake to me than those did!
I did like most of the main characters in this movie and the look of the new equipment, but not the way the story was told or the visualisation of the new ghosts. So let's agree to disagree on this! It's all a matter of taste and this is just how I feel about it!
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By 80sguy
#4880865
pferreira1983 wrote:No, to actually composite something within a frame that has been built requires actual artistry. Creating something in a computer is dealing with calculations. The imagination gets lost.
I don't recall any a computer artist say all they do is punch numbers into a computer and the computer automatically making everything look good. Clearly, your grasp of what actually goes into it limited if you seriously think it's just "calculations". You still have to make textures, composite the CGI properly into the frame and make it look presentable. The imagination is "far" from lost as you aren't limited to what the practical effects can't achieve.

You have no idea what artistry is if you think none of that is used in the creation process.
pferreira1983 wrote:That wasn't a good example to convince me.


Which is funny on your part, given it's one of the best examples of how far CGI has gotten. Especially when compared to the one seen in Salvation. FYI, the Arnold model was PAINSTAKINGLY recreated by the CGI team, using hundreds of photos of Arnold for reference, in addition a scanned head cast from 84. They were constantly changing and fixing it. The scene was the longest part of the film to produce, and was rendered literally around 30-minutes before it was going to final print. And you think that's lazy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKlbaU_uWpI
pferreira1983 wrote:No I haven't however I've read and seen enough to see it's to do with calculations, not actual craft. If you're good at Maths, you're good at CGI.
Bullcrap! I know people who are great at math, but guess what, none of them are good at CGI modelling. No craft?
pferreira1983 wrote:I agree with your examples but I really do feel practical effects are ignored because CGI is the simpler, more cost effective route. It's laziness on part of the director and the studio.
Practical effects are not ignored, they're still used. The reason CGI is used is because more can be achieved with it in certain areas than with practical effects. The 70s Incredible Hulk series for example Lou Ferrigno never struck me as big huge enough to be the Hulk. Given how huge he is in the comic, that's really no surprise though. The scenes where he transforms into the Hulk still look pretty cool, but the way Hulk is done today with CGI is more effective. Now you have a full body shot of him as he transforms from a normal size man to hulking giant, instead of cutting to different shots of his body as it happens. That would have been, pardon the pun, INCREDIBLY difficult if not impossible to achieve with a practical effect.

I again point to Terminator. I love the puppets used for the Endoskeleton and make up in the first two films. The puppets and makeup hold up really well, expect from a few instances.

Certain CGI elements are going to be cheaper, but large scale effects such as the ghosts in the new Ghostbusters were definitely not more "cost effective". The CGI Arnold in Terminator Genisys was the pretty much the most expensive thing in the entire film. I certainly can't see how it's laziness either, given how so many directors (ones who worked on films during the practical effects era) have said they wouldn't have been able to achieve certain shots or scenes without the use of computer effects. Many scenes had to be changed because they wouldn't have been able to achieve it with piratical effects. With CGI, you are no longer limited to that.
pferreira1983 wrote:Any examples of good CGI?
Yes. But since you've shot down the examples given (like LOTR which was praised by critics for it's effects), it's unlikely you'll think any of the examples are "good" anyway.
pferreira1983 wrote:Maybe I didn't make myself clear. That's all well and good but the more you rely on CGI for everything the more thinly you're spreading the quality of it. Look at it this way: spend a whole movie over a year doing CGI for it and it'll look crap, there's no way the quality will be great all the way through. Spend one scene doing CGI over a year and chances are it'll look good. This goes back to what I was saying about quantity over quality.
And that exact same thing can be said for practical effects too, so...
pferreira1983 wrote:The problem is making everything CG asks more from the crew working on the movie. It's overloaded in one area and not another.
Um...what? The crew working on the CGI effects is not gonna effect the crew working on rest of the film. The guy editing the film isn't going to be simultaneously working on CG effects. Everything is divided by the specific departments, so this isn't an issue. The director is producer will most likely be over seeing some of it, but that doesn't mean it's gonna effect their work in other areas. The only issue is not having enough time and the CGI lacks because of it, which will happen with most films anyway.
Last edited by 80sguy on September 18th, 2016, 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By Razorgeist
#4880868
I really was disappointed with the CGI in that movie, it looked quite fake and unreal at times. It feels like they didn't use actual models when they made a big thing about using them originally.
The only CGI I found lacking was the monsters (forget what they were called) that Han was hauling on that freighter. Besides that the starships looked great. Hell the Finalizer looks better than the model ships in ESB.
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By Kingpin
#4880886
pferreira1983 wrote:No, to actually composite something within a frame that has been built requires actual artistry. Creating something in a computer is dealing with calculations. The imagination gets lost.
It is not just "dealing with calculations", as 80sguy explained earlier, a computer is only part of the process, to create a digital scene, whether it's the backdrop, 3D modelled elements, additional effects (like 2D fires, explosions, sparks etc), you need the human mind, and its creativity (and by proxy to that, its artistry and imagination). It is not a case of "click and paste" and you're done.
pferreira1983 wrote:No I haven't however I've read and seen enough to see it's to do with calculations, not actual craft. If you're good at Maths, you're good at CGI.
With all due respect, as you have no background in the field, you don't really know what you're talking about in relation to creating CGI elements. I've read up a lot about the Titanic, but it doesn't mean I have inside knowledge in shipbuilding.

Mathematics is a good skill to have with some aspects of CGI, but it is not essential. Mathematics is without a doubt the subject I struggled the hardest with at school, but that struggle hasn't impacted my ability to create 3D models and to animate them. I believe what I made was to a pretty good technical standard, and I would say if anything, my skill as an artist and my eye for 3D visualisation were what I relied on more heavily than any skill for multiplication or long division.

I do believe that if you'd studied CGI as part of a university or college course, you'd know it to be true that maths skills aren't the be-all/end-all in computer graphic imagery.
pferreira1983 wrote:Then perhaps what I should be saying there a complete lack of good artists working with CGI today.
Or it may be a matter that some are more specialised in certain areas of CGI, and have been asked to create stuff they're less experienced with.
pferreira1983 wrote:It's laziness on part of the director and the studio.
That's your opinion and we're going to have to agree to disagree in that being the case in all instances. Not everything can be effectively executed with practical effects, and some times it's better to employ CGI rather than potentially waste a lot of money on a tricky and ultimately unsuccessful practical effect. CGI also allows someone to tweak something after the principal photography has wrapped, you'd be looking at having to request a reshooting schedule and extra time if the practical effect doesn't look as good in review as it did when the scene was being shot.
pferreira1983 wrote:Any examples of good CGI?
For the 2016 Ghostbusters, there's the set extensions (I'd also propose Gertrude Aldridge but I know we won't agree on that), Rowan's Destructor Form, the ghosts in the mirrors in the basement of the Mercado, the proton streams, the parade balloons.

Then there's the close-up of the Proton Pack in the first trailer, which has been revealed to be fully CG.

Beyond Ghostbusters, there's all of the work on Mad Max: Fury Road, The Avengers, Oblivion, The Edge of Tomorrow and Saving Private Ryan are good examples of CGI I believe, there may be more out there I could cite, but I might not be aware of because those CGI elements were so well-made I didn't know they were CGI.

And if we're accepting fully CGI features, How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Good Dinosaur, Rise of the Guardians, Wreck-It Ralph, Ratatouille, Wall.E and Up would probably be some of the best examples we've seen in recent years.
pferreira1983 wrote:That's all well and good but the more you rely on CGI for everything the more thinly you're spreading the quality of it. Look at it this way: spend a whole movie over a year doing CGI for it and it'll look crap, there's no way the quality will be great all the way through. Spend one scene doing CGI over a year and chances are it'll look good. This goes back to what I was saying about quantity over quality. The problem is making everything CG asks more from the crew working on the movie. It's overloaded in one area and not another.
I don't believe always inherently true, especially as it's commonplace now for multiple studios to work on a big-budget production. The biggest constrictions will be the time and the money available, if a CG house has plenty of both, they can make a more elaborate or involved production better.

To that point you've raised though, poor effects as a result of too much work with too small a window to work in, and too small a budget, isn't something unique to CG, it's also present in the practical effects world, Star Trek: The Final Frontier and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace both suffered in their effects work either because the reputable effects houses couldn't be gotten at the time, or because they had their effects budgets slashed.
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By Sav C
#4880894
pferreira1983 wrote:Creating something in a computer is dealing with calculations. The imagination gets lost.
Even though calculations are involved, the imagination certainly doesn't get lost. While I'm no good at 3D models, I'm actually fairly skilled when it comes to 2D animations.

Take for instance my film production company’s logo, which is a film strip running across the screen. It comes to a stop, and text on the cels of the strip read out the company’s name. There are two versions of it, the original, and then a new one I made last year.

The first one was basically freestyle, there was no math or calculations involved at all. I made the film strip in Photoshop, and then in Premiere had it scroll horizontally across the screen from right to left, like Vista Vision or IMAX. It looked very good and was what I wanted, especially considering no calculations were involved, solely imagination.

For my second logo I wanted to make it a bit more polished. There were some requirements it had to fit, for instance it had to be Anamorphic, and 2160 pixels tall allowing the option of cropping it to a 1.77 aspect ratio. I wanted the film strip to be accurate to an actual 35mm film strip, and when it paused at the end I wanted it to start to burn up.

For the second logo I also created the strip in Photoshop. I decided on making the strip 1298 pixels wide, which allowed three cels to be in the frame at once. The strip was to play for five seconds before coming to a halt, which meant that it had to be 60 cels tall (I’ll explain later why it had to be half of the amount of frames that go into five seconds, which is 120.) This resulted in it being 43200 pixels tall. Of course Premiere couldn’t handle that, and neither could a .psd, so I had to chop it into two pieces, making each one have 30 cels and be 21600 pixels tall.

The reason why the film strip was only 60 frames tall and not 120 is due to motion blur. The video lasts 120 frames, therefore if the strip was 120 frames tall it wouldn’t look like it was moving. Having it at 60 frames tall made it look like it was moving, as it moved half of a frame down each frame. Your eyes then create the motion blur. If I had some common sense, I would’ve just created two shots and alternated them back and forth.

Once in Premiere I created the background, and then layered the first film strip on. Premiere uses the center of the image as 0, and then with each pixel expands the x and y axis in each direction. Since the image was 21600 pixels tall, the top of it is y 10800 and the bottom is y -10800. I wanted the bottom of the image to start at the bottom of the frame; therefore I set it at y -8640, which is 10800 minus 2160 or the height of the frame. If I had set it at y -10800, it would’ve been at the top of the frame instead of the bottom. By subtracting the height of the image it bumped it down to the bottom of the frame.

At 54 frames in, the top of the strip was in line with the top of the frame, making it set to y 10800. At that frame the second image of the strip was added in a new layer. The bottom of it had to be set at the top of the frame, or y - 10800.

6 frames later (at 60) the first strip’s top had reached the bottom, which is y 12960, or 10800 plus 2160. The second strip's bottom had reached the bottom of the frame, making it y -8640. It halted 60 frames into its run, positioned at y 8640, making the top of the strip line up with the top of the frame. If it had been set to y 10800, the top of the strip would’ve been at the bottom of the frame.

Honestly the new logo is only slightly better than the first one. The first one was solely the concept and imagination, no math at all. While math helped make the second one better, the biggest improvements were the refinements of the concept. There was no imagination lost. There was preproduction, I made conceptual drawings to make it look the way I would want it.

Both CGI and Practical Effects serve to bring the concept to life. Just because something is CGI doesn't mean the imagination gets lost.

VIDEOS REMOVED IN ATTEMPT TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS

Note: I sliced frames off of the second one once it was done, as I felt it dragged on too long.
Last edited by Sav C on September 19th, 2016, 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By Alphagaia
#4880942
Sav, technically, a good workaround for your 60 cells problem was just creating 4 cells and looping that animation, adding Motion blur and twerking the in and outs of your animation so it has a smoother stop, so slows down at the end, copy that composition and replace those 4 cells with your text for the final reveal. Would create a smaller workspace that could even be done in Premiere, though for effects I always recommend AE for the great freedom it provides if you want to enhance it of change it. This way it's also much easier if you ever want to make it longer (or shorter) by adding more cells.

Visually: Think about your font usage and look up film burning, particles and masks to create a more convincing effect. Think about angles, instead of letting it drop from downwards rotate it a bit perhaps in 3d (AE can do this with ease) with a bit of light and shadow work to create a more interesting image. It's feels very stiff now and lacks color. I know a film is black and white, but you could add reflections and stuff to it to add a more visual appeal to the cells. Very little is complete black and white in the real world.

Don't take this to hard, as the same goes for everyone still learning the craft (as do I, one is never done) I have to say your skills and visual eye need more finese and I recommend you follow these guys as they give great tips for AE and Premiere to become a better artist and have more power and understanding of the tools provided:



Keep on trucking though as I see you are (and feel like )improving and you are still young!

That all being said: let's get back on track and return to the effects of GB:ATC instead of convincing one guy who does not believe in the progression of CGI within special effects and arts.
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By Sav C
#4880969
Thanks for the pointers! To my credit while writing that post I realized how ridiculously complicated my process was, although it took me a year. I do like your four cel idea better than my two alternating frames solution. The motion blur suggestion is good, and believe me I thought about the best way to achieve it, but I'm working in Premiere CS5 which doesn't have a motion blur effect (CS6 does I think.) But I'm limited to Premiere, Photoshop, Flash, and a computer that isn't meant to edit anything bigger than SD video (the majority of my editing is with proxies.) Hopefully the next time I upgrade I'll get After Effects.

The film burning part I could go either way on, and half of the time I chop it off for my videos. I kinda like the font, but I'll look into it and see if there are others I like better (Korinna comes to mind.) One thing that occurred to me around a week after it was completed is that the filmstrip could have the color changed to a more brownish color, which the (photo) film I've seen looks like. To contrast that the background could be slightly blue, since it is almost on the opposite side of the color wheel. It might come out looking like the old Columbia logo :) I like the flare idea too. It could also use some projector sound.

Maybe it looks a bit stiff because I'm a bit stiff, and it's seeping through to my film projects :D

The computer is a real setback though, I figured opening the project to get the numbers for the above post probably took a year off of its life. If it wasn't so finicky I would probably experiment a lot more, and get somewhat better results.

OK, back to topic: Does anyone know if drones have ever been used for effects before?

And also had Cinefex published an article on the new film yet?
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By mrmichaelt
#4881025
Sav C wrote:OK, back to topic: Does anyone know if drones have ever been used for effects before?

And also had Cinefex published an article on the new film yet?
Yes, I think 007: Spectre, The Giver and some others used drones.

No, they have not. They publish ever other month and we know up to October what the content is. No Ghostbusters. But it is remotely possible it could be in the December issue.
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By Sav C
#4881047
mrmichaelt wrote:
Sav C wrote:OK, back to topic: Does anyone know if drones have ever been used for effects before?

And also had Cinefex published an article on the new film yet?
Yes, I think 007: Spectre, The Giver and some others used drones.

No, they have not. They publish ever other month and we know up to October what the content is. No Ghostbusters. But it is remotely possible it could be in the December issue.
Thanks. I find drones really cool, my neighbor has one and flies it around a lot (sometimes it seems almost as if they're eyeing my Frisbee.) The way they used them in the reboot is brilliant if you ask me.

Hopefully it's in one of the issues eventually :)
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By pferreira1983
#4881516
Alphagaia wrote:I think we can safely assume you don't like or respect any CGI and leave it at that.
You assumed wrong. :wink:
80sguy wrote:Clearly, your grasp of what actually goes into it limited if you seriously think it's just "calculations". You still have to make textures, composite the CGI properly into the frame and make it look presentable. The imagination is "far" from lost as you aren't limited to what the practical effects can't achieve.

You have no idea what artistry is if you think none of that is used in the creation process.
I look at a painting and I see 'art', I see visual effects and they mostly look artificial either because the animators were lazy or the computers have trouble trying to interpret a vision.
80sguy wrote:Which is funny on your part, given it's one of the best examples of how far CGI has gotten. Especially when compared to the one seen in Salvation. FYI, the Arnold model was PAINSTAKINGLY recreated by the CGI team, using hundreds of photos of Arnold for reference, in addition a scanned head cast from 84. They were constantly changing and fixing it. The scene was the longest part of the film to produce, and was rendered literally around 30-minutes before it was going to final print. And you think that's lazy?
Dude it looked fake. In still images it's believable, in motion it looks dodgy and creepy. Perhaps you have no understanding of fake CGI?
80sguy wrote:but the way Hulk is done today with CGI is more effective.
I'm not against using a CG Hulk. I don't think with the Hulk we're quite there yet. Good tries but it still looks like you could put him in a CGI animated movie and he wouldn't look at of place.
80sguy wrote:The CGI Arnold in Terminator Genisys was the pretty much the most expensive thing in the entire film.
Then it was a waste of money. A lot of people have commented that the T-1000 liquid effects look worse than on T-2.
80sguy wrote:Yes. But since you've shot down the examples given (like LOTR which was praised by critics for it's effects), it's unlikely you'll think any of the examples are "good" anyway.
Not necessarily. Also LOTR had good miniature effects but CG armies didn't convince.
80sguy wrote:And that exact same thing can be said for practical effects too, so...
Of course but CGI is more scrutinized and at least with practical you can tell someone made an effort.
80sguy wrote:Um...what? The crew working on the CGI effects is not gonna effect the crew working on rest of the film. The guy editing the film isn't going to be simultaneously working on CG effects.
I didn't mean that, I meant that the more shots you have to work on, the less quality you get. Do you get me now?
Razorgeist wrote:The only CGI I found lacking was the monsters (forget what they were called) that Han was hauling on that freighter. Besides that the starships looked great. Hell the Finalizer looks better than the model ships in ESB.
A lot of the effects didn't look right, the ships seemed blurry and never sharp. For all the talk of using as little CGI as possible I think the film had a lot more than people are willing to admit.
Kingpin wrote: It is not a case of "click and paste" and you're done.
Of course it's not that easy however when you deal with computers you're not dealing with reality. Reality depends on what the computer knows and understands and THIS is the issue, the limitations become obvious.
Kingpin wrote:I do believe that if you'd studied CGI as part of a university or college course, you'd know it to be true that maths skills aren't the be-all/end-all in computer graphic imagery.
I believe you but I can spot fake CGI a mile away.
Kingpin wrote:Or it may be a matter that some are more specialised in certain areas of CGI, and have been asked to create stuff they're less experienced with.
Good point!
Kingpin wrote:Not everything can be effectively executed with practical effects, and some times it's better to employ CGI rather than potentially waste a lot of money on a tricky and ultimately unsuccessful practical effect.
I agree to an extent, I worry CGI has become a crutch. Compare the effects of Independence Day to it's sequel. It's night and day from what I've seen of the sequel. The effects in the sequel look awful. You want a good combination, the original film looks almost perfect, THAT is the way to do it and that film came out 20 years ago!
Kingpin wrote:Beyond Ghostbusters, there's all of the work on Mad Max: Fury Road, The Avengers, Oblivion, The Edge of Tomorrow and Saving Private Ryan are good examples of CGI I believe, there may be more out there I could cite, but I might not be aware of because those CGI elements were so well-made I didn't know they were CGI.
I haven't seen Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow. SPR I've only seen once so will have to take your word for it. Fury Road not quite, The Avengers definitely not from what I remember. I don't really watch CG animated films so will have to take your word on that as well...although I did see The Lego Movie and...everything was awesome! :-D
Kingpin wrote:To that point you've raised though, poor effects as a result of too much work with too small a window to work in, and too small a budget, isn't something unique to CG, it's also present in the practical effects world, Star Trek: The Final Frontier and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace both suffered in their effects work either because the reputable effects houses couldn't be gotten at the time, or because they had their effects budgets slashed.
Definitely and you've provided some very valid examples. I know you're going to hate me for saying this is that with poor practical effects at least they have a certain charm to them because they were man made, while with poor CGI you feel like kicking a computer for either being limited or for the effects guys not being competent with the computers.
Sav C wrote:Honestly the new logo is only slightly better than the first one. The first one was solely the concept and imagination, no math at all. While math helped make the second one better, the biggest improvements were the refinements of the concept. There was no imagination lost. There was preproduction, I made conceptual drawings to make it look the way I would want it.
Well you haven't convinced me CGI is better but you have convinced you're a pro. I need to learn more from you, those are good skills. I really should be taking notes. :)
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By Kingpin
#4881561
pferreira1983 wrote:I know you're going to hate me for saying this is that with poor practical effects at least they have a certain charm to them because they were man made
I don't hate you for saying it, but I do feel that's a bit of a cop-out. A bad practical effect is a bad practical effect, nostalgia doesn't really make it any better.
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By Sav C
#4881570
pferreira1983 wrote:
Sav C wrote:Honestly the new logo is only slightly better than the first one. The first one was solely the concept and imagination, no math at all. While math helped make the second one better, the biggest improvements were the refinements of the concept. There was no imagination lost. There was preproduction, I made conceptual drawings to make it look the way I would want it.
Well you haven't convinced me CGI is better but you have convinced you're a pro. I need to learn more from you, those are good skills. I really should be taking notes. :)
I don't think CGI is better than Practical Effects, it really depends on what achieves the look of the effect you're going for best. Personally I prefer the look of Practical Effects more, but I try not to criticize any effects too harshly as long as they serve the story, such as some of the weaker Terror Dog effects (granted they all still look pretty good.)

It's very nice of you to say that I'm a pro, but really I'm not much more than an amateur. While 2D animation is quite useful, it doesn't mix with live action well, which makes 3D animation a more sought after skill.
By 80sguy
#4881601
pferreira1983 wrote:I look at a painting and I see 'art'
Then you are ignoring what is considered 'art', because CGI is an accepted form of art, just like scupltures and drawings. There's a reason people are called CGI Artists.
pferreira1983 wrote:I see visual effects and they mostly look artificial either because the animators were lazy or the computers have trouble trying to interpret a vision.
How many times must it be explained before you understand that a "computer" doesn't interpt a vision, but a person does?
pferreira1983 wrote:Dude it looked fake.
No, dude it didn't. And given how a lot of people thought the CGI Arnold was recycled footage from the original film, you're in the minority saying it looked bad.
pferreira1983 wrote:Perhaps you have no understanding of fake CGI?
Prehaps you have no understading of how CGI is create....oh wait I think we established that. I'm still wating for a CGI artist to tell us how there's no creativity in it...

Given how there were CGI artists who were impressed by it, you're again still in the mintory of saying it looks fake. But I geuss you know more than the people in the industry right?
pferreira1983 wrote:Then it was a waste of money. A lot of people have commented that the T-1000 liquid effects look worse than on T-2.
Which is pointless to mention because the team working on the CGI Arnold was seperate from the people doing the T-1000 effects. It's like saying "the actors did a crappy job with the script".
pferreira1983 wrote:I didn't mean that, I meant that the more shots you have to work on, the less quality you get
That's not always true, and it largely depends on the team working. Some can pull out quality work faster while others can't.
pferreira1983 wrote:Reality depends on what the computer knows and understands and THIS is the issue, the limitations become obvious.
No, the limiations is what the computer might be able to handle. The computers knows NOTHING. It is a tool. The person does the work, the computer is just along for the ride. Some films have created new software just to use for that praticular production. The Peanuts movie created a new program to specifcally animate the way there heads turn so it mimics the comic. Again, this sort of "limitation" can apply to practial effects as well so why is it an issue? Neither are perfect means.
pferreira1983 wrote:I believe you but I can spot fake CGI a mile away.
So can a lot of people, what's your point?
pferreira1983 wrote:I know you're going to hate me for saying this is that with poor practical effects at least they have a certain charm to them because they were man made
No, not really. The charm in practical effects is how well they're done. It's still a bad effect if it's not done right. Being a practial effect and "man made" shouldn't exclude it from getting a fail. Beside CGI effects are still "man made", just in a different way. Someone has to sit at the computer, animate and digitally create things that otherwise might not exsist.
By pferreira1983
#4882107
Kingpin wrote:
I don't hate you for saying it, but I do feel that's a bit of a cop-out. A bad practical effect is a bad practical effect, nostalgia doesn't really make it any better.
To clarify it's because with bad practical effects you can at least see the bad results on screen as they were physically made. You can't do that with computer animation, it's not a tangible failure that's what I mean.
80sguy wrote: Then you are ignoring what is considered 'art', because CGI is an accepted form of art, just like scupltures and drawings. There's a reason people are called CGI Artists.
I guess, I just don't see that as actual art for the reason I gave Kingpin above. Sorry. :oops:
80sguy wrote:How many times must it be explained before you understand that a "computer" doesn't interpt a vision, but a person does?
As I mentioned in a previous post I don't claim to be an expert however using computers to do what you need is never as 'real' as doing it physically.
80sguy wrote:No, dude it didn't. And given how a lot of people thought the CGI Arnold was recycled footage from the original film, you're in the minority saying it looked bad.
It looked fake to me. The problem as I said is that as a still shot it looks fine but in motion his mouth looks wrong. You call it amazing and say tons of money was put into it, they did the same thing in Tron Legacy. They de-aged Jeff Bridges using photos from 1984 to make him look younger from that year. That film came out in 2010 and back then it didn't look right, it looked slightly creepy (yes critics noticed). The exact same process was used five years later in the latest Terminator movie and nothing has changed, the results are the same. The reason I don't mind Tron Legacy's de-aging is because we mostly see young Bridges as Clue inside the computer and that masks the digital element a bit unlike Terminator 5 where Arnie is out in real nighttime reality. Doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, the tech hasn't caught up yet.
80sguy wrote: Given how there were CGI artists who were impressed by it, you're again still in the mintory of saying it looks fake. But I geuss you know more than the people in the industry right?
Nope, I just have a good critical eye for detail like that. Don't need an art degree for that, comes naturally.
80sguy wrote:Which is pointless to mention because the team working on the CGI Arnold was seperate from the people doing the T-1000 effects. It's like saying "the actors did a crappy job with the script".
I was talking about not just the that shot but CGI from the movie generally. Let's not pretend the liquid effects from the new movie were special. Technology moves on, it should look better than T2, not worse.
80sguy wrote:That's not always true, and it largely depends on the team working. Some can pull out quality work faster while others can't.
Less effects shots equals less CGI. More time spent creating better CGI for what you need and more time focusing on the script rather than another CGI spectacle scene . Simples.
80sguy wrote:No, the limiations is what the computer might be able to handle. The computers knows NOTHING. It is a tool. The person does the work, the computer is just along for the ride. Some films have created new software just to use for that praticular production. The Peanuts movie created a new program to specifcally animate the way there heads turn so it mimics the comic. Again, this sort of "limitation" can apply to practial effects as well so why is it an issue? Neither are perfect means.
Okay so if you're saying the artists are at fault since they create the computer programs perhaps less bad artists should be hired or maybe this goes back to what I said about quality over quantity?
80sguy wrote:So can a lot of people, what's your point?
My point is that if I can spot bad digital de-aging in the latest Terminator then I have an understanding of what is good CGI.
80sguy wrote:No, not really. The charm in practical effects is how well they're done. It's still a bad effect if it's not done right. Being a practial effect and "man made" shouldn't exclude it from getting a fail. Beside CGI effects are still "man made", just in a different way. Someone has to sit at the computer, animate and digitally create things that otherwise might not exsist.
Digital effects aren't man made because there's nothing physically tangible about how they were made. It's all done in a computer. I can look at bad practical effects and see where they failed, with CGI I can't even appreciate bad CGI because most of it looks uninspiring. I go back to Independence Day by saying that that film is the exact perfect way to incorporate both mediums successfully unlike the sequel which coming twenty years later looks fake in comparison. Can we really say the technology has got better in execution? That answer by the way is no.
Sav C wrote:I don't think CGI is better than Practical Effects, it really depends on what achieves the look of the effect you're going for best. Personally I prefer the look of Practical Effects more, but I try not to criticize any effects too harshly as long as they serve the story, such as some of the weaker Terror Dog effects (granted they all still look pretty good.)

It's very nice of you to say that I'm a pro, but really I'm not much more than an amateur. While 2D animation is quite useful, it doesn't mix with live action well, which makes 3D animation a more sought after skill.
No problem, I understand what you mean. :)

I remember an article posted after Jurassic World came out about why modern CGI is bad. Of course I'm sure pro-CGI supporters will totally disagree with it but here it is. Haven't read it since it was published but I remember agreeing with pretty much everything:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-e ... l-effects/
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By Sav C
#4882117
pferreira1983 wrote:No problem, I understand what you mean. :)

I remember an article posted after Jurassic World came out about why modern CGI is bad. Of course I'm sure pro-CGI supporters will totally disagree with it but here it is. Haven't read it since it was published but I remember agreeing with pretty much everything:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-e ... l-effects/
Yeah, I saw that article before. The part I agree with most is the one about color grading, which honestly I think looks fake or unnatural lots of the time, at least relative to chemical color timing. But I'll say this, color grading looks much better while actually viewing the film than when looking at stills pulled from it.

Much of it comes down to comes down to common sense if you ask me. Defying gravity and having a camera that moves anywhere and everywhere just don't seem like good ideas. Sometimes it even feels like so much is happening that it's hard to get immersed in the film, which isn't helped by unnaturally fast editing or shaky cam. But it's all the director's choice.

Many directors in Hollywood seem to have forgotten the phrase "keep it simple and straightforward," which helped make it easy to watch a film. It also helped with suspense lots of the time. Stay Puft could've risen up out of the water next to the Statue of Liberty like intended, but that would've been much less suspenseful I'd assume. Suspense over spectacle :)
Last edited by Sav C on October 1st, 2016, 10:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By Kingpin
#4882118
pferreira1983 wrote:To clarify it's because with bad practical effects you can at least see the bad results on screen as they were physically made. You can't do that with computer animation, it's not a tangible failure that's what I mean.
I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning... "at least you can see the bad results on screen as they were physically made"? Are you talking about how the effect was achieved?

If so, I'd argue that you're not supposed to see how the effect was made, if you do, they didn't do a good job of "hiding the strings".
pferreira1983 wrote:My point is that if I can spot bad digital de-aging in the latest Terminator then I have an understanding of what is good CGI.
Well... not necessarily. It could mean you have an understanding of what makes bad CGI.
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By Sav C
#4882310
Found this about Slimer in an article called Paul Feig on Making His Ghostbusters Reboot:
Feig even tried to make Slimer a puppet, out of nostalgia for homespun ’80s-era special effects, but decided it wouldn’t pass the scrutiny of a new generation.
It's too bad they didn't choose to go with the puppet, but I guess with the huge budget it was probably wise not to experiment.
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By Alphagaia
#4882349
Sav C wrote:What I think Paul was getting at is that he initially intended not to enhance it with CGI, and was instead going to use the puppet on its own.
I'm not sure either, and would love to see a featurette about the process.

My hunch is Slimer started out as a puppet, which did not work expresionwise, got enhanced with CGI, and maybe got completely replaced in post for some or all scenes after disappointing results.

Edit: also whatever happened to this scene?

Image
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By Kingpin
#4882366
Alphagaia wrote:Edit: also whatever happened to this scene?

Image
The cutting room floor.

It's from the moment that the parade manifestation/s notice the Ghostbusters, I guess it was trimmed for timing and/or to give a bit more prominence to the parade balloons. A bit of a shame, given all the work that went into it.
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By Sav C
#4882392
Alphagaia wrote:I'm not sure either, and would love to see a featurette about the process.
That would be great, the special about how Slimer was made in the first one was cool.
My hunch is Slimer started out as a puppet, which did not work expresionwise, got enhanced with CGI, and maybe got completely replaced in post for some or all scenes after disappointing results.
Makes sense. Here's a theory, for GBII not all of the crew were really happy with the techniques used to achieve Slimer's expressions, which they felt looked better in GBI. The Slimer puppet in the reboot was made by some of the people who worked on GBII, so I would assume they used the same or similar techniques to achieve the expressions--a technique which probably hasn't been worked on/improved much since 1989. And since the team that made the puppet apparently wasn't credited in the reboot, I bet that the puppet wasn't used at all (as it is incredibly unprofessional not to credit someone who worked on something in the final film.)
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By pferreira1983
#4882589
Sav C wrote:Yeah, I saw that article before. The part I agree with most is the one about color grading, which honestly I think looks fake or unnatural lots of the time, at least relative to chemical color timing. But I'll say this, color grading looks much better while actually viewing the film than when looking at stills pulled from it.
Totally agree. The colour grading changes the article made to Jurassic World makes the film look better, the difference is amazing. I just re-read the article and completely agree on everything there. From now on anyone on this thread wants to ask me questions about why I don't really like CG in movies today or dispute anything I'm just going to quote from that article. :mrgreen:
Kingpin wrote:
I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning... "at least you can see the bad results on screen as they were physically made"? Are you talking about how the effect was achieved?

If so, I'd argue that you're not supposed to see how the effect was made, if you do, they didn't do a good job of "hiding the strings".
I'm not very good at describing myself sometimes, damn dyslexic mind. What I mean is bad practical or effects that date have a tangible failure to them because they were man made. You can giggle and laugh at them but you can see where the improvement can be made. With bad CGI it can be everywhere and because it's done in a computer you can't feel what's been done right and what's been done wrong.
Kingpin wrote:Well... not necessarily. It could mean you have an understanding of what makes bad CGI.
Maybe my expectations are too high? With Fury Road I was fooled by some of the location CG extensions they made in the chase sequences which is great. However, I did notice a lot of unconvincing CG physics and a lack of solidness in some scenes. I still use the original Independence Day as a great example of successfully combining both practical and CG effects. Sure there were a couple of bad ones (the rocks flying at the screen near the end) but they didn't take me out of the movie as so much CG lead films do.
Sav C wrote:It's too bad they didn't choose to go with the puppet, but I guess with the huge budget it was probably wise not to experiment.
This reminds me what happened on the prequel to The Thing. They hired an animatronics team to do the effects just like the 1982 original (although slightly more lifelike). If you look at the behind the scenes stuff it looks great. Unfortunately Hollywood execs got scared people wouldn't find the animatronic effects convincing and at the last moment got the Avatar effects team to completely cover all the animatronics in CGI. The rush job meant bad CG effects although at least one original animatronic effect shot still exists in the movie. I really don't know what goes through studio execs minds sometimes. :roll:
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By Sav C
#4882654
pferreira1983 wrote:
Sav C wrote:It's too bad they didn't choose to go with the puppet, but I guess with the huge budget it was probably wise not to experiment.
This reminds me what happened on the prequel to The Thing. They hired an animatronics team to do the effects just like the 1982 original (although slightly more lifelike). If you look at the behind the scenes stuff it looks great. Unfortunately Hollywood execs got scared people wouldn't find the animatronic effects convincing and at the last moment got the Avatar effects team to completely cover all the animatronics in CGI. The rush job meant bad CG effects although at least one original animatronic effect shot still exists in the movie. I really don't know what goes through studio execs minds sometimes. :roll:
I'm not familiar with either of The Thing films, but I'd be super curious to know about the reactions to the effects by the test audience, which scored higher?

On a similar note, do we have any idea how the Slimer puppet scored with test audiences? Odds are even if he scored higher than the CGI effects they probably found him to look out of place alongside them.
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By Kingpin
#4882696
pferreira1983 wrote:I'm not very good at describing myself sometimes, damn dyslexic mind. What I mean is bad practical or effects that date have a tangible failure to them because they were man made. You can giggle and laugh at them but you can see where the improvement can be made.
On the flipside it could be said, using the same line of logic you have, that a bad CGI effect could still lead to people giggling and laughing at them but still see where the improvements can be made.

As it is, the "tangible failure" thing just feels a bit of a waffle to back up your feeling that all practical effects, whether successful or not, will always be better than CGI, when that just isn't always the case. There's plenty of practical effects that are better than the bad examples of CGI presented here, but there's a reason some practical effects are falling out of favour, and not just because CGI is "easier" or "quicker" - some practical effects just aren't convincing.

You mention The Thing prequel, and in regard to that film's predecessor, while the animatronics and matte paintings were great for their time, they do look a little dated... even unconvincing in places, now. Still, I thought that what animatronic/puppet elements that were made for the recent prequel did feature pretty prominently, but I might have been mistaken.
pferreira1983 wrote:Maybe my expectations are too high? With Fury Road I was fooled by some of the location CG extensions they made in the chase sequences which is great. However, I did notice a lot of unconvincing CG physics and a lack of solidness in some scenes.
I do believe they may be. Do you recall which scenes you felt had unconvincing physics? Given how many practical car crash stunts they had, I'm a little surprised.
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By Alphagaia
#4882810
New special effects reel on the possessed balloons. I just now noticed there are multiple ghosts fleeing from the remains when they pop one!



Edit: @ Kingpin, I wanted to add this to the OP, but I cannot edit that anymore?

End battle show reel!



Did you catch the demondog statue hidden in the floating debris?
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