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Report From The Land of SFX
prostoalex writes "MIT's Technology Review takes a look at the world of digital special effects, the industry worth half a billion dollars per year, according to the authors. It talks about the role of SFX in movie production nowadays and comes to the connclusion that while might not 100% computer-created in the future, we'll see more of realistic-looking special effects in future titles."
Watching the Behind The Scenes featurettes isn't just the same anymore. I remember watching the making of Star Wars, how they'd string up the space ship models and rig them with firecrackers. Now its like "this is the computer where we do everything... it starts out in a wireframe like this and then we map on the textures." Whoopdeedoo. Its just not the same.
Every time an announcement is made about movie SFX, the arthouse clique shows up with alot of high and mighty talk about how the important elements are plot and quality acting, etc etc. I guess this makes them feel like they have more culture than the average man, i dunno.. IANAP (psychologist)
/.ers are fans of the original Star Wars.. But take a moment to step back and ask yourself what made that movie a phenomenon..
The same thing happens in video games. There are those who constantly say 'i dont care how good Doom 3 looks, its still the same crap, i want better gameplay, thats what counts'..
Though these points are valid, you cant ignore the reality that eye candy and the Wow factor sell entertainment. People always want to see the next level.
Now, its safe to bet most
Was it the story? Hardly.. Simple, archetypal boy-rescues-girl plot thats been repeated since the dawn of time.. Was it the acting? That great moment when Luke lands back at base after destroying the death star, Leia goes 'Luke!', he turns to her and exclaims 'Carrie!'. Or the whining 'But Uncle Owen, I wanted to look at power converters'
Naw, what made that movie was the effects. Noone had seen anything like it before. Dont discount the audio ground lucas broke with THX, either..
Jurassic Park was another.. Dinosaurs are loose, we gotta escape. No plot, nothing to think about here. But those cool looking dinosaurs brought me in.
Most people just want to sit back, turn their minds off, and be impressed.. Always have, always will. Snooty intellectual affairs will always be the exception, never the rule.
If this wasn't true we'd still be happy with black and white film and our Commodore 64s
Now get out there and blow sum stuff up for me
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Ohh I did read it, and actually I re-read your link in case I didn't remember something right. I'm not saying that it will never happen. I just have an issue with those saying that it'll happen in a few years. Besides Carmack was pretty bold, saying they are all wrong. Do you think someone like Tom Duff or Larry Gritz are plain worng and don't know their stuff. These are also pretty smart guys who work in CG for movies, with PhDs and actual practical knowledge of what it takes. The parent post implied that a graphics card would be able to do the work of a dedicated 1000 CPU render farm. Not in a couple of years. And besides CG and VFX studios will be doing even more complex stuff also, it's not like it's a stagnant industry, a quick look around SIGGRAPH would convince anyone.
But you had quotes here are some in response, which I put in the previous Slashdot article about real time graphics, plus someone elses:
Wjat does the GSCube do
Playstation 2 and Toy Story
Real-Time RenderMan?
Toy Story Graphics
So yes one day it'll probably be true but I don't think my next computer/video card would be able to do it. The hardware papers at SIGGRAOPH doesn't seem to imply that it's almost upon us that hardware will match VFX quality graphics, which is another field in CG.
Also he brings some points but there are a little bit off. The waves for the Perfetc Storm were simulated first, Origin 2000 I think. After the data was generated, then it was rendered. Still it took hours just to render one frame each. Carmack seemed to only concentrate on the simulation step, when actually you can think of it as a 2 step process. Then again at AWGUA, Bill Buxton showed the fluid effcts from inside Maya 4.5 and in a video about Jos Stam he had a fluid simulator running in a PDA. Granted it was coarse and simple but it was really impressive.
I'm all for more realistic games but I'll just wait for it.
I think you're missing the point.
What clients want in their FX is customizability; the hardware necessary to do it is nowadays a secondary consideration. I have the capacity with my home machine (just an athlon) to create shots for film - sure, it might take a while, but it's certainly possible. Imagine that regular hardware becomes fast enough to render in real time. Even with this, it's still the artist that will make or break the image. If homegrown vfx were to become more accessible to the avg public, they would have to become easier to create, and the easier something becomes the less customizable it is. The advantage of using a digital system is its complexity and customizability, and in the end it will be the artist who takes advantage of those and makes the shot.
There's a cliche in the visual effects industry:
It's the artist, not the tool.
I wonder.... and this is my point. Let's take Mr. Carmack at his word (he is, after all, smarter then me :) and say that all this power is possible within a few years. Not to take the artist out of the equation at all, but... what IS going to happen when a home machine has that much power? I really don't think we're quite grasping the first part of that statement... the power to do Toy Story (or better) graphics in real time. Imagine that. "I want the huey here, the tank there on the rolling hillside, these three missles will fire, and the explosion will go here! Roll it!" No, it will never be as good for the reasons stated (custimizability, modelling (the huey came from where, exactly?), etc), but for the 75% of people it will be close. That makes it much less of a marketable commodity, IMHO. But then, maybe I am comparing Louve pieces with a Starving Artist's sale... time will tell.