A Photorealistic CGI TV Series Coming Real Soon Now

ziggy_zero writes "SoulPix has revealed their project named "SoulFire", a photorealistic computer-generated TV series created entirely with 3ds max. Here's a trailer (it's in German). Looks pretty cool, better than those CGI cartoons I've seen - although definitely not even Final Fantasy quality. Note - apparently the DivX version was encoded using a weird codec that doesn't work on all players, so you might be better off getting the Quicktime version."

Comments

photorealism

[MJArrison]

I just watched the trailer (thank god for slashdot articles "from the future") and noticed that not a single one of the charcters blinked in the entire preview. Whether it's blinking, or speed of limb movement, or A/V sync, minute body motions are going to continue to seperate live action from CGI for a few more years to come. Photorealism exists only in still frames for the time being.

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

or in the expensive forms of animation, of which television isn't one. Even motion pictures may not be, depending on who's funding it. At the moment we're stuck with what works best for the cost.

Still, it's better than it was

Re:photorealism

[indiigo]

Except for still shots. Watch closely in mags in the next year. Cover shots? Ads? No little sidebar saying so-and so is wearing Gap--no sir-- that is a CG complete rendered at 1/2 (and soon to be 1/10) the cost. And you won't know.

Models revolting, although a model hunger strike wouldn't be very fruitful.

Re:photorealism

[visgoth]

The problem with attempting photorealistic humans is that the closer to "real" you get, the lower the tolerances for what is acceptable are. A creature that is only 50% human looking will be far more "real" looking than a 99.9% accurate looking human. Why? Because each and every human is hardwired to know exactly what a person looks like and moves like. It'll take some time until we get to the point where flesh and blood actors are out of a job.

That being said, cgi is great for things like Gollum, dinosaurs and other such stuff. It's also great for stunt doubles, where some things are just too damn dangerous to pull off with a real live human.

Re:photorealism

[oavina]

Ok done, ./'ed already.

You can quit accessing the poor shmucks server now.

- KBasara

Don't complain of my spelling, i don't even care.

Re:photorealism

[lingqi]

I remember reading somewhere that there is a chasm when the models gets too near "realistic." Like from no resemblance to real world (cartoon networks' toonami robot) to "100% human-like" models, the "realism" would scale linearly until you get to about 95%, which the realism just falls because the models simply "don't look right," or something. of course, eventually it would be possible to climb back the chasm to reach 100%, but I suppose that's really hard. =)

I read this in wired a while back, I believe; and no blinking is not a fault of the CG tech, but rather that of the guys doing this stuff - in better CG things (final fantasy for one - heck even in games they put in blinking characters now), they put in the details.

Btw, FF (movie) seemed weird and creepy but you CAN'T explain what's no "not real" about it - a good example of the "chasm."

And for another example - for anybody who seen the promotional video of Final Fantasy X-2 where there is a comparative track between the real singer doing her song and dance number, and cutting to the CG (Yuna) doing the same, you can see how strangely unreal the CG version is - though looking at CG version alone does not necessarily give you the idea.

Re:photorealism

[outsider007]

actually humans are easier to pull off than most animals because you don't have fur to deal with. it's really hard to make good looking fur, and it takes about 100 times the resources to render a furry creature than a human.

Re:photorealism

[visgoth]

I'd have to disagree. Great looking hair is now just a matter of render time. Check out mighty joe young for some damn nice fur. The problem with photoreal humans is when you attempt to animate them, it all breaks down. The subtle things that we only notice at a subconcious level can't be solved by more cpu cycles.

Re:photorealism

[bluxus]

A model hunger strike would be so unfruitful as to become absurdly funny. It really would be hilarious if the waif became something even more waifish. Where else can the weight, fat, muscle tissue go? Into some other dimension or something? With the left socks of the world?

Re:photorealism

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Fur has been all-but-trivial for several years now. Hell, Maya Complete comes with fur presets. Or maybe it's Maya Unlimited. I forget. Silly names. Either Complete isn't, or Unlimited is. I can never keep them straight.

The grandparent's point still stands. We've seen 3D renderings of animals, including furry animals, that are good enough to stand up to moderately close inspection. We have never seen a 3D rendering of a human face that could pass even the most cursory glance.

Re:photorealism

[Robo210]

Unlimited

Re:photorealism

[deadsaijinx*]

you know, the link was only a few minutes old when I tried. I really think that /. should be a bit more responsible and offer to temporarily mirror the files before slamming the unexpecting server.

Re:photorealism

[heli0]

People who have a DX8 video card should check out this nVidia demo: Wolman Demo that uses

Real time volumetric fur rendering

8 blended fur layers

61 bones, 4 bones/vertex

Re:photorealism

[cmeans]

You've not seen my brother's back...it may not be technically "fur", but there's enough hair there to slow down a render farm :)

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

Fur is quite simple now. I've found some plugins for 3d Studio Max that work amazingly well. It Digimation also has amazing hair plugins.

The time era for photo-realistic CGI's is here. If you look at Shrek, the princess looks amazingly well done. The animators actually had to SCALE DOWN her appearance because she LOOKED PHOTO-REALISTIC. It's only a matter of resources and how much time people want to spend working on the models now, now that once they get the models down, all they have to do is add in the movements, slightly customize their ways of walking, talking, and movements, and all that'll be left is somebody to do the voices.

Re:photorealism

[PylonHead]

Exactly.. the problem is that a large part of our brains are programmed to recognize, differentiate, and judge other human beings. So if something looks ALMOST like a human being, chances are it will look grotesque.

Re:photorealism

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

You're referring to the Uncanny Valley. Really interesting idea.

Re:photorealism

[Thorgal]

Well, it lacked subsurface scattering, which is pretty important thing when rendering stuff like human skin. Check it here.

Re:photorealism

[Thorgal]

We need "moderation: disgusting", and we need it now.

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

... there's enough hair there to slow down a render farm :)

This is why I love slashdot. Where else can you read comments like this?

Re:photorealism

[xmnemonic]

"We have never seen a 3D rendering of a human face that could pass even the most cursory glance."
Just because you haven't doesn't mean none of us have. I think this is pretty photorealistic.

Re:photorealism

[deadsaijinx*]

Unlimited, but that isn't actually important. What is worth discussing is the resources needed and the end result. And fur does take a LOT of resources, expensive resources. And though I only have had very breif interactions with Maya Unlimited's Fur dynamics, I'd have to say that it still isn't near perfect.

However, you are right about the human thimg. This is because evolution has made humans very adept at recognizing humans (go figure^^). As such, I have to wonder if we will ever be able to recreate a human face perfectly. The taste is far more daunting than it sounds.

Re:photorealism

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Are you kidding? Look at the spot between his eyebrows, and the corners of his eyes. It looks like a painting, nothing more.

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is pretty photorealistic.

Dude, you should photoshop those up a little. Clean up some of those blemishes.

Re:photorealism

[Kragg]

I think the cursory glance theory is broken though. That's a damn impressive fake, and I wouldn't have known without being told.

Re:photorealism

[terbo]

So thats why animals lives are so much harder.
Their brains have the additional load of rendering their fur,
making it hard to concentrate on anything complicated.

Re:photorealism

[lucasw]

Btw, FF (movie) seemed weird and creepy but you CAN'T explain what's no "not real" about it - a good example of the "chasm."

Discontinuity between the actor's voice and their CG face did it for me. James Woods has a unique nasally voice and played the generic looking villain: James Woods has a big nose, the CG puppet didn't, and acoustically that didn't make sense. Donald Sutherland's character was a close match to the character's, so there wasn't a problem there.

There's a asymptotic curve of increased content creation and computer processing power that perfect photorealism lies at the unattainable heights of. (Per-photon-and-atom rendering anyone?) Fooling-most-of-the-people-most-of-the-time is probably readably achieveable within a decade, but there will always be a audience members capable of discerning that the long fiber muscle contraction models were only 2nd order approximations and 'just look wrong'...

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a asymptotic curve of increased content creation and computer processing power that perfect photorealism lies at the unattainable heights of. (Per-photon-and-atom rendering anyone?)

It depends. If film displaying abilities grow slower than CG technology then you may be able to do "just enough" to be better than the film it is recorded on. Especially since so many things are digitally recorded now anyway, that creates a very specific goal.

Analog still has qualities that can't quite be 100% captured digitally (I'm referring to both sound and video). But it's good enough for 99% of people.

Re:photorealism

[lightcycle]

Like in Terminator2, where Robert Patrick was motion-captured, but the liquid metal texture makes the t1000's moves look far from human.

Re:photorealism

[solarrhino]

I agree RE: FF, but not everybody would have this problem.

As it happened, I had two tickets to the preview in Boston, and roped in a friend at the last minute. A few minutes into the show, I realized I hadn't mentioned that everything was CG. I leaned over and whispered an explanation, and she seemed dubious but relieved.

On went the show for another, maybe 15-20 minutes, when she tugged my sleeve. I leaned toward her, and she pointed out one of the characters on the screen - the sargent, I think. "Not him tho... right?" she asked, totally serious.

Re:photorealism

[Prof.Phreak]

...CG complete rendered at 1/2 (and soon to be 1/10) the cost...

Hmm... If not using a top model for your shots, it will be a long while before a 30 minute photographing session (with some Photoshop touchups later) will be more expensive than months of meticulous work in creating these 3D models.

Using life human actors is still, for the most part, a lot cheaper than CG.

Re:photorealism

[I Am The Owl]

I'd have to disagree. I manually masturbate animals at a reproductive laboratory, and I'd have to say that they are much easier to pull off than humans (they don't even need porn most of the time).

Re:photorealism

[jandrese]

I think part of the reason is that everybody knew it was rendered. When you're looking for a particular pattern you can spot things much more easily. I think Square should have announced that they were making a regular movie and see how long it took the general public (not just the graphics weenies) to catch on to the fact that the people were rendered as well. The general public is accustomed to seeing CG special effects these days, but the having the people be rendered would have been quite a shock.

As for the lighting, I took one of the publicity shots from the movie when it was first announced and showed it to several people. Only my graphics weenie friend actually caught on that it was CG, and the only because they took a shortcut with the hair that he spotted.

It reminds me of an old demo I saw back at sGI. A camera is looking out at the desert, it then pans to the right a bit and you see a guy standing behind sandbags with a shotgun pointed at a flying saucer. Everybody goes: ok, the flying saucer is obviously rendered, it just doesn't look quite right for some reason. Then you show them the next film, which is the same scene, but when it pans over, not only is the flying saucer gone, but so are the sandbags. Nobody had even suspected the sandbags were CG.

Re:photorealism

[Dh2000]

We need "moderation: intolerant", and we need it now.

Re:photorealism

[gnu-sucks]

Not only that, but current PC's and Macs are limited to 24 bit color. Now, take an SGI Challenge RE2 (Reality Engine 2). That has 196 bit color, and thats what they use to render the big movies. Not 3d Studio Max. heh I've used Max quite a bit, and I can tell you it is one of the most unprofessional slapped together 3D design programs out there. A TV series from this application is NEVER going to seem real.

Re:photorealism

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I'd have to say that they[animals] are much easier to pull off than humans (they don't even need porn most of the time).

And who, pray tell, publishes animal porn?

Re:photorealism

[nurbman]

Here's the best one I've ever seen. Notice he's wearing a hat though and not moving. :)

Our brains are wired to recognize faces which makes recreating one especially difficult. The limits to doing a face now are mostly artistic. Most of the professional software these days has passed the point where it limits the artist. (Whether it can do it in time for a production deadline is another matter.)

Things that make a face not work are:

-Perfect symmetry. (check out Cameron Diaz's nose for how far you can go and still look beautifull)

-Not enough articulation in the forms. (Poser people are getting better but still look like mannequins - too much symmmetry also)

-The eyes and mouth look dry. No meniscus of water at the lids or on the teeth.

-Simple skin textures. The values and color of real skin have quite a range and more variation than most faces are textured/colored.

If you want to see how subtle expressions are, try doing a portrait in paint or pencil and change the shape of the mouth by 1mm or 2. See this link for a really cool article on how subtle and complex facial expressions are. (Bill Clinton makes a guest appearance)

Re:photorealism

[LittleBigLui]

discovery channel

Re:photorealism

[NeMon'ess]

Hey check out the bully who isn't smart enough to craft a good flame. Your sister told me to tell you to shut the fuck up and go back to kicking street animals and stealing kids' lunch money. She would say so if she weren't busy sucking my long hard dick.

2-points karma, gone. Nothing personal, you just deserve this and I feel like onwing up to my words.

Re:photorealism

[NeMon'ess]

It definitely looks quite good, but is he wearing perfectly applied lipstick? In the inside corners of the eyes, where is the blood and uneven, soft tissue? I'm impressed though.

Re:photorealism

[Michael Mooore]

Monday, March 17th, 2003

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table." I'm glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn't sure if I could take much more. So I'm glad to hear that today is Truth Day, 'cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON'T FIND THEM! Why? 'Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don't want to kill him! Funny how that works!
2. The majority of Americans -- the ones who never elected you -- are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives -- and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here's what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs two dollars a gallon -- the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.
3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.
4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope! But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you! How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war? Of course, this is a war you personally won't have to fight. Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.
5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what -- we don't think so either!
6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can be pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn't even have this country known as America if it weren't for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies? And now they are doing what only a good friend can do -- tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can't get out of.

Well, cheer up -- there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I'm guessing there aren't a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner -- and who doesn't like to see a good ass-whoopin' every now and then (especially when it 's some third world ass!). And just like with Afgh

Re:photorealism

[crblev]

All the motion tracking in the world can't compensate for a lack subtley of muscle and fat jiggle on the body; it's too much to adequately mimic. (if you move your pinky, even the muscles in your forehead tense -- hook yourself up to a biofeedback rig and you'll see).
Without that "micro" body language we read subconsciously, the more real the CG actors become, the less human they come across.

___________________
"I don't believe in bad luck; but I do subscribe to the theory of horribly inconvenient coincidences."
-Timmy

Re:photorealism

[Spunk]

Funny line about the models :)

But why are you spam-baiting someone's phone number in your sig?

Re:photorealism

[Spunk]

This phenomenon is called the Uncanny Valley.

Re:photorealism

[matrix29]

I just watched the trailer (thank god for slashdot articles "from the future") and noticed that not a single one of the characters blinked in the entire preview. Whether it's blinking, or speed of limb movement, or A/V sync, minute body motions are going to continue to separate live action from CGI for a few more years to come. Photorealism exists only in still frames for the time being.

Hmm... "Photorealistic TV series"... now what shows do I remember that fits that bill...

REBOOT
REBOOT "Daemon Rising" poster
BEAST WARS
BEAST MACHINES
ACTION MAN
(All of the above by MAINFRAME ENTERTAINMENT)
MAX STEEL
ROUGHNECKS: STARSHIP TROOPERS
HEAVY GEAR
CUBIX
JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS

These are just off the top of my short term memory. Feel free to lengthen my list as I feel I am missing at least 3 shows.

Of course these listed shows were not "Photo Perfect Realism" (MAINFRAME prefers not to render shadows on its main characters to give a "cartoony" feel to them, but if they decided to and were paid enough they could render a perfect human character on a weekly show). The dilemma of that time was with processor speed doubling regularly the investment of more render stations at the current speed means 11 months later they COULD have bought half of those render stations and gotten the same output level. Heck, by REBOOT Season 4 the faster Pentiums had decreased their render times so that they could render 64 times the output that they created at the begin of REBOOT Season 1.

The simple truth is that making a Computer Rendered show that can be mistaken for something filmed in the real world with actors in costumes requires money, talent, fast computers, and great software. At the moment it is cheaper to render a cartoony show and skip the realism for budget and time constraint issues.

Re:photorealism

[sootman]

FF did better with "less than perfect" people (like the old guy and the judges/senators/whatever) and their splotchy skin because it looked a lot more natural than the younger characters and their impossibly smooth skin. A few shots of the old guy really jumped out at me because suddenly it looked *perfect*.

Re:photorealism

[matrix29]

...CG complete rendered at 1/2 (and soon to be 1/10) the cost...

Hmm... If not using a top model for your shots, it will be a long while before a 30 minute photographing session (with some Photoshop touchups later) will be more expensive than months of meticulous work in creating these 3D models.

Using life human actors is still, for the most part, a lot cheaper than CG.

Except CG Actors do not get fussy, can change their expressions perfectly, can defy gravity at will, can defy anatomical limitations at will, and don't cost a penny ever again once they are bought. In other words, the perfect slave that always looks tempting yet never has to be fed or paid ever again. That is the future of human product modeling of images.

As with any good thing, the initial outlay is expensive and the future costs are meager while the profits are pure.

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a Sci-Fi book about a mission to Mars (to make a movie). In this book you have a Stars' Guild which gives out the Oscars. If you don't have Stars (genetically linked to previous generations of Stars) you aren't elligble for the Oscars, which mean that the theatres don't carry it, which means you go straight to video, which means you loose money.....

Therefore, studios are very careful to have at least the minimum amount of Stars in the movie, eventhough they don't necessarily have to act (acting is added via computers).

Re:photorealism

[DThorne]

You have a bad eye if you think this is photorealism, and know little of the FX biz. That last 10% of "photoreal" is a killer, and it moves every few years.
When Jurrasic Park came out - it was called "photoreal". It's been considered improved upon mightly since then.

DT

Re:photorealism

[Relyx]

Unfortunately the off-the-shelf fur that comes with Maya leaves a lot to be desired. It still takes a tremendous amount of R&D effort to create a production-quality fur system. That is, a fur system with powerful, predictable grooming tools, tweakability and the ability to pass any piece of information you may desire into the renderer. I doubt it would be practical to do something like Stuart Little using Maya fur!

Although rendering quality is extremely important so are the grooming methods. Despite the fact that photoreal fur has been around for quite a few years, it is still very difficult to work with. While we desire total control over the grooming, we also wish for the natural randomness and messiness of the real world. Hair can become matted, stick to other hairs and bits of skin, clump together and so on... It then has to move realistically and collide with other hairs and anatomy.

Sony Imageworks, ILM and no doubt many other effects houses use some sort of guide curve approach where hairs inherit the shapes of nearby control curves. This is a very robust, predictable way of going about things. It is also very handy to be able to add and remove vertices from these control hairs so you can have both short, stubbly hairs and long, flowing ones. An alternative method used by PDI on Shrek was to imagine the overall shape of the hair, and manipulate this volume. Some very nice braiding effects can be achieved using this method.

Although it is possible to list a whole slew of algorithms to solve each step within a fur system, much care is needed to develop one that is interactive and flexible. For example, you may not like a certain hair and wish to remove it; alternatively you may like to add some individual rogue hairs. These changes then have to be fed back into the pipeline.

For rendering, it is extremely useful to pass values from the modeller into the shaders. Base and tip colours are the most obvious quantities, but if you are doing slick hair, then you may desire a shininess parameter. When clumping wet hair, you may also like a vector pointing from the "spine" of the clump to each hair within it (useful for rendering the surface of the water droplet.) So tools are required for adding new attributes to the fur and driving values through it.

Maya fur does not approach this level of control. It uses a rather exotic approach involving "attractors" (much harder to do the same sort of grooming as plain-old guide curves) and can only handle certain special quantities. Although this may have changed in Maya 5.0, it can only handle polygon and NURBS geometries (no subdivision surfaces, which are gaining increasing favour among effects companies.) There is rather fragile Renderman backend which is obtained seperately from Pixar but you really have to start plowing through it's source code if things go wrong. (The backend is provided partly as an example of how to write Maya to Renderman exporters!)

So there you have it: Although companies like Sony Imageworks and ILM have fantastic looking fur, bear in mind it has likley taken them millions of dollars and huge film projects to drive their development. There is nothing simple about fur I'm afraid.

- Relyx

Re:photorealism

[netnerd.caffinated]

"it's really hard to make good looking fur, and it takes about 100 times the resources to render a furry creature than a human."
Obviously you haven't watched Monsters Inc. Sully's fur was great. not exactly an animal.. but monster is close enough

Re:photorealism

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is online here

reboot

[LinuxCumShot]

i hope its better than reboot

Re:reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

Reboot wasn't bad. They did the best they could back then, and had some great computer refrences throughout the show. Just check out Season 3, for sale on DVD, for some truly funny stuff....with a good plot, no less.

Re:reboot

[atomray]

Not bad? I disagree.

Season three, at the time, was excellent animation but the writing and storeline made it one of my favourite shows ever. After they were dropped by ABC, they had the freedom to develop a more mature and intelligent plotline, which was quite interesting. The division of the final season into 4 segments was quite original and provided a nice flow to the series. The little references and subtle jokes were really entertaining, even to my non-geek roommates. Lots of eye candy throughout the entire season - their journey through the web had to be my favourite part.

Damn, that was one of the finest shows on TV. They made a season four, I believe following one of the briefly mentioned subplots of season three (that Daemon had infected the Guardians), but I haven't been able to catch it (gave up on TV).

Re:reboot

[RatBastard]

Reboot was a very good show. The animation was pretty close to the cutting edge when it was produced and the writing was very well done. It was a very good children's show.

Re:reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

Only half of season 4 was done, unfortunately, but they do resolve the Daemon storyline. And leave a cliffhanger (gah!). Last I'd heard, they were trying to find someone who could afford to pay them to produce the other half of season 4. So, if any fans win the lottery.....

Re:reboot

[azav]

The show my friend, is Exo-Squad. Best storyline in an animated show ever.

52 episodes. Main characters die, real problems are addressed. So cool for 1994.

Re:reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the next Animatrix is by the reboot director. You must have seen a preview of it on TV :) It's shown almost everday now, and previews with the dreamcatcher movie..

CGI cartoons..

[Metallic Matty]

Well, the only CGI shows I can think of that I remember seeing recently were Beast Wars and the cartoon version of Starship Troopers. I'm not sure if either of them qualify for any ammount of quality compared to this. Beast Wars was a decent show; I wasn't a big fan of the Starship Troopers one though.

Re:CGI cartoons..

[Rude Turnip]

I was a big, big fan of Beast Wars, but I hated Starship Troopers. However, Starship Troopers was clearly far more photorealistic than Beast Wars.

The conclusion?

GIVE ME A GOOD STORY FIRST AND FANCY GRAPHICS SECOND

Re:CGI cartoons..

[hackwrench]

Max Steel, and then there was Action Man.

What's the point...

[rsilvergun]

...not to troll or anything, but what makes cartoons and simular endevors neat is that they don't look real. There's a lot to be said for stylized animation. On the other hand when these techniques are used to make shots posible that otherwise wouldn't be (like about half of Episode II) then I appreciate it.

Re:What's the point...

[visgoth]

The best line I ever heard regarding "photoreal humans":

If I want to go see photoreal people I'll go to the pharking supermarket!

Re:What's the point...

[or_smth]

I don't know but in every movie I have ever seen that has used CG it looks a little fishy. Things like Spider-man, which is said to have great CG graphics I found rather mediocore when it comes to the look of it.

I attribute it to the physics. I could be totally wrong, but I think that the world of artist and more importantly, the world of animator is not governed by earthly physics. I think the computer is not set properly to account for the subtleties of the world and the further subtleties of the human eye. When I see CG in movies I see motion that happens too fast for motion. Spider-man was a huge victim of this, with Peter Parker moving faster than the world would ever allow (I'm aware that he is supposed to have super speed, but speed is best shown in film by slowing everyone else, not speeding the rate of one person up).

To continue with my all-ready used Spider-man example I do notice that even gravity isn't obeyed in half the scenes. Taking into account a certain amount of 'push' force at a certain altitude, Peter Parker would not fly in the air at that angle. He failed to arc in half the scenes and it gets really unrealistic when he exerts minimal force in order to actually gain ground by 'swinging' upwards.

I've seen a lot of CG capes that mysteriously defy gravity too.

I'm sure some 'crazy physics d00d' here could point out a lot more problems with a lot more CG. I think that every CG studio should have a Physist look over their work.

Sometimes the most glaring things in movies is that the CG seems to move at a higher frame rate than the rest of the movie. The character just moves too fast in too short of time and never really looks right.

Re:What's the point...

[Planesdragon]

I'm aware that he is supposed to have super speed, but speed is best shown in film by slowing everyone else, not speeding the rate of one person up

What makes you say that?

Obscene rates of speed can be shown effectively either from normal-speed view or accellerated-speed view. A good example of this technique, in case it's slipping your mind, is The Matrix.

It's all about the character and the focus. It's almost always better to show your focus character always moving at a "normal" speed, save for the rare exception. (_Children of Dune_ has a few nice moments like this.)

To continue with my all-ready used Spider-man example I do notice that even gravity isn't obeyed in half the scenes. Taking into account a certain amount of 'push' force at a certain altitude, Peter Parker would not fly in the air at that angle. He failed to arc in half the scenes and it gets really unrealistic when he exerts minimal force in order to actually gain ground by 'swinging' upwards.

Which scenes are you talking about? Aside from the ones that were almost totally off-camera, his physics were as fine and dandy as they could be expected. (Well, save for a bit right at the end with the cable-car.)

Re:What's the point...

[or_smth]

Well, to start off the whole thing that made the Matrix famous was the effect I am talking about where everything slowed down and Neo [or whoever] would move nearly at a normal pace. This made you feel the speed and you got he sense that Neo was moving faster than normal (while it retained some realism).

I agree with you about the character and focus part.

As for what I was talking about with Spider-man, it was the quick jump scenes that bothered me a lot. When he swings around flag poles with 0 effort and 0 acceleration/decceleration/etc it bothers me. Sure, it's meant to be unrealistic but it's supposed to look as if it were physically possible if you were strong.

The most glaring example in spider man was definitely when he swung around the pole of the empire state building. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it didn't look 'real' in the sense that it would be possible should you have spider-slinging abilities.

I realize that it seems nitpicky, but as far as I can see this is the problem with CG right now.

Re:What's the point...

[SaxMaster]

STFU, you crazy physics d00d

How about a CGI Drama

[snitty]

One thing that, as far as I know, hasn't been tried yet is a photorealistic CGI Drama, as in a a serious film with a good point that is CGI. I would be interesting to see if it were a good movie if it were scoffed off becasue it was CG.

Re:How about a CGI Drama

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumor has it that pixar is re-doing a version of steve jobs' favorite, The Bridges Of Madison Country as pure CGI

You heard it here first, folks

Re:How about a CGI Drama

[Anonymous Coward]

waking life

Re:How about a CGI Drama

[ecchi_0]

While I would certainly see something like this, I don't believe it could be pulled off as well as with traditional animation, or live action. For instance, in anime the characters have very expressive faces. I have been stirred emotionally many times. However, in a 3d rendered setting I doubt that it would "click" the way other forms do. Sure, the story is the most important part but showing emotion can be hard if the voices obviously "don't match" the models. An animated character has a level of ambiguity, where you can't exactly tell what kind of voice they would have. A 3d rendered person would have more of a distinct voice that would be expected of them, and likely not delivered. Begs another question, however: why would you do a drama in CGI anyway? In action films it is often used to pull off things that couldn't be done in live action, but a drama most likely wouldn't have many of these moments...

slightly offtopic ...

[soorma_bhopali]

"Note - apparently the DivX version was encoded using a weird codec that doesn't work on all players, so you might be better off getting the Quicktime version."

To me this seems to be the biggest problem in adopting these new compression techiques for audio/video(ogg vorbis/ DivX etc.)

Re:slightly offtopic ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does that have to do with Ogg Vorbis? I'm curious.

Re:slightly offtopic ...

[outsider007]

Note - apparently the DivX version was encoded using a weird codec...

there's nothing weird about, 5.02 or lower has trouble playing files encoded with 5.03 so you need to upgrade if you don't have it. or use quicktime

Re:slightly offtopic ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ogg blows in the same way the Divx blows. HTH.

Re:slightly offtopic ...

[mz001b]

there's nothing weird about, 5.02 or lower has trouble playing files encoded with 5.03 so you need to upgrade if you don't have it.

No, there is something wierd about that, as long as the major version number is the same, it should be playable. If 5.03 cannot play on a 5.02 player, then it should have been called DivX 6.

Re:slightly offtopic ...

[viper66]

It plays fine in ffdshow also, which means it should be fine in mplayer on Linux. Man, is that resolution nasty though. For the bitrate they could have done much better.

No anime... no support ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but this TV series is not anime. As a member of the geek community, I believe we should stand up and say "NO!" to the non-Japanese people who wish to animate stuff.

--M. Oshii

Re:No anime... no support ;)

[azav]

Oh, GO AWAY MAN!

Most of the "for children" animae pointy hair, big eyed, overreacting animae appears to me to be the biggest barge of garbage foisted onto our culture. I want to KEEEL the people who made Sailor Moon. And what IS it with the names? Sailor Moon - Is she a sailor? NO. Is she from the moon? NO.

Now, Mononoke is wonderfully done but so are alot of the American classics - albeit in different ways. The detail in Mononoke just rocks so hard but then again, look at a good Chuck Jones production (RIP my friend) or the Iron Giant.

The lack of attention to detail to how us northern americans act, speak and gesture, COMPLETELY ruins all too many animae films for me. But then we have Gin Ro and Blood which have got it all ironed out.

Nuke the idiots who create the Kiddie pointy hair BIG EYE animae and then we'll have something.

Take Macross for example. In one of the remakes, there was this disturbing idiot singing "listen to my song" in the middle of San Francisco's union square. His presence is SO annoying that you just want to bludgein the animator. A good example of how to ruin something good. Oh, I can't mention the idiocy of the "generic comic sidekick".

But Macross Zero, now that's something else!

Look out! Zentradi!

Re:No anime... no support ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes - she was from the moon. :-) Mind you that doesn't exactly make the show any better. I don't know why it's always the worst anime that gets large-scale exposure over here. Something like Haibane Renmei could change the minds of a few people who think it's all sailor-suited school girls waving oddly phallic wands around or pointy hair ninja-boys making constipated grunting noises.

Re:No anime... no support ;)

[Txiasaeia]

I take it that the reference to Mamoru Oshii, the writer of "Jin-Roh" and director of "Ghost in the Shell" was completely lost upon you. The original post was written in a satiric manner -- imagine Robin Williams imploring non-American actors to cease acting in films. Obviously, it's a joke.

Unless Oshii really *did* write it, in which case...

Re:No anime... no support ;)

[Luke-Jr]

From just reading your first paragraph, it is obvious you do not know what anime is. Sailor Moon is not anime. It is a stupid dub which is copied off of the anime Bishoujosenshi Sailormoon.

Re:No anime... no support ;)

[azav]

Well, maybe I don't. But it is all to easy for people to lump them all together. FYI, I have seen a LOT of Macross - My roomie forced me to and when the redid it to be targeted towards teens they created some HORRIBLE animae - and yes, it was animae. The dork with the glasses with the 5 foot tall hair singing "listen to my song" in Japanese was animae and is was pretty horrible.

People call Dragon Ball Z animae. Is it or isn't it? All the sailor moon and big doe eyed girl and brooding sullen guy videos are all throughout the "Japan Video" store in San Fran's Japantown. If these aren't aniame, then what are they?

The key is to take a GOOD

[Archfeld]

movie and enhance it with CGI, but Hollywood seems to think that an 'action' movie is JUST action, and that plot is really an extra feature...

Re:The key is to take a GOOD

[RLiegh]

First you have to start with a good movie. Hollywood finds coming up with one of those hard enough as it is!

The details

[Spytap]

...are the reason CGI from Pixar, although less than photorealistic (and with a definite cartoony primary-colored look) can feel more photorealistic than projects where a company tries to fool the eye using computers.

Re:The details

[Twirlip of the Mists]

You just hit the nail right on the head. Geri's Game, a four-minute short film, was more fun to watch and more engaging than the entire 100-minute mess that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Besides, Final Fantasy lost me when they got to the mannequin of Ben Affleck with Alec Baldwin's voice coming out of it. That just made no sense at all.

Can't wait to see...

[smittyoneeach]

...the actor's guild on strike against beings that do not exist.
That will be a triumph of surreal/dada-ism.

Re:Can't wait to see...

[ashitaka]

If they don't exist, they'll just make them.

Re:Can't wait to see...

[Vegan Pagan]

...the actor's guild on strike against beings that do not exist. That will be a triumph of surreal/dada-ism.

Already done.

Wow!

[msaulters]

Final Fantasy, the TV series.

Re:Wow!

[deadsaijinx*]

hopefully, though, this series will have a better plot than FF:TSW had. Come on. Admit it. That plot was pure crap. Still loved the movie though. Best CGI EVER!

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

To the ~!@#$%^*DUMB-FUCK*&^%$#@!~ who modded me redundant, learn to set your fucking browse settings to disable threads. I was like the 14th post on this story, and the FIRST to mention FF. Come to think of it, why the hell is redundancy worth negative karma, anyway? Qualifies you to be an editor here, after all. If you're a dumbfuck, yet you INSIST on moderating, at least read the goddamned guidelines. Otherwise, I have no more time for you.

Not quite photorealistic...

[Tidal Flame]

...it's close, but it's still not perfect... I wonder if it'll ever be perfect? I'm sure you could pass it off as a real person to someone with bad eyesight, though...

Re:Not quite photorealistic...

[prbt]

There were brief scenes in Final Fantasy that were nearly there - especially with the old guy (Sid?). The main problem for me was with the mouths, they didn't move enough; plus, you can often see inside the characters' mouths, and they seem to have some weird internal lighting effect.

Re:Not quite photorealistic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball... droool... now THAT is perfect!

Uh-oh...

[yozzle]

Soon we'll have to deal with a computer generated version of Friends.

Re:Uh-oh...

[m1chael]

there is always the possiblity of changing the channel... but im so lazy, the remote too far away.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Pseudonym]

You never know. It might be more life-like.

Re:Uh-oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know they aren't already? They sure spew lines (both spoken and plot) like a computer would.

Re:Uh-oh...

[orange_6]

And it would probably cost less than the obscene amounts the cast makes as is.

Later
Josh

Re:Uh-oh...

[Captain Nitpick]

You never know. It might be more life-like.

The acting would certainly be better.

Final Fantasy Quality

[phorm]

although definitely not even Final Fantasy quality

Many fans' primary beef with the FF movie was the thin plot, not the lack of impressive CGI. For a movie, a lot of effort can be invested in minute details etc to render with realism.
For a TV series, I would expect less quality simply because there is less time to rollout, and continuous rollouts as opposed to one big event.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[Telastyn]

Odd, I'd assume that serieses would be done much better than a movie as far as nuances go. Being in a series, you'd get more feedback about what works, what doesn't... You'd also have the experience of learning some 'tricks' for certain characters/situations.

It wouldn't be immediate, but the Simpsons started out looking terrible. Even South Park has had noticable improvement over time.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[phorm]

Indeed. And as opposed to the simpsons (or at least a greater expected), there's also a strong correlation between CGI and technology. So as technology for digital imagery and 3d, etc becomes more advanced, we can probably expect much more realistic artistry as the capacity of digital storage increases (I'll bet it takes huge space to store all the meshes, textures, keyframes, etc) - as well as of course the graphic equipment.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[Torgo's Pizza]

Thin plot? No, it was a Japanese writer and a Japanese director trying to get an eastern concept across to a western audience. It takes several viewings to get the "plot" of Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, but it's there and very deep. The majority of the people watching it just didn't get it.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[deadsaijinx*]

yes, but at the same time, you can have YEARS to work out all the minor kinks in all your scenes. With a series, it's 13th hour rush.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[Erwos]

Definitely true. I was waiting for someone to say it.

My girlfriend is not a sci-fi geek, doesn't play videogames, isn't interested in fantasy at all. She was easily able to grasp the FF plot, and thought it was really quite good. The critics might not have gotten the plot, but if you tried to put it in a Japanese context, it made a lot of sense. Gaia, life force, spirits - not Western concepts, but if you know of them, the story made lots of sense.

I own the DVD, and it is one of our favorites. I don't regret the buy at all.

-Erwos

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on! That movie has an _excellent_ plot, but because it's not spelled out in its entirity, most American audiences didn't get it all.

Strikes me that there's a real misunderstanding of the purely spiritual in the U.S., but that's another topic. Go watch the movie again, and seek a deeper meaning.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[Edgewize]

I don't know ... I "got" the plot (though it seemed a bit hokey to my Western-trained mind), that wasn't my issue with the movie.

My problem was the formulaic and completely uninteresting script. Within moments of each new scene, it was easy to guess what would happen in the next five minutes. There were times in the movie when I could predict the dialogue right down to the timing. The lines (and actor's delivery) of the trecherous general were especially pathetic; he was like an amalgam of every bad movie-villian cliche. At the scene near the end where he pounds the controls in ultimate frustration, only to look up and mutter a soft "Oh...", I nearly walked out.

The CGI didn't look exactly "real" but I was willing to buy it, it was the cheesy characters that turned me off. Square would have had a gold mine if they had brought in a writer who could handle dialogue and real personalities.

Re:Final Fantasy Quality

[(void*)]

Gaia, life force and spirits are not Western concepts? Like how? What about writing down the Chinese characters for each one and testing it out for us to see?

Mirrors yet?

[nstrom]

Connecting to 81.3.6.2:80... failed: Connection timed out.

These people put their hundreds of megs of downloads on one single HTTP server, and expect it not to crash and burn? Did anyone get a copy of this to mirror yet?

Re:Mirrors yet?

[deadsaijinx*]

chances are, they weren't expecting a full blown /.ing. Personally, I feel that /. should offer the sites they link to a temporary mirror, before they fry their poor servers.

Re:Mirrors yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I feel that /. should offer the sites they link to a temporary mirror, before they fry their poor servers.

I'm afraid that would go against the DMCA.

Re:Mirrors yet?

[pla]

I'm afraid that would go against the DMCA.

Actually, just plain copyright, no DMCA involved.

But anyway, Slashdot could simply ask permission to mirror it before posting the link. How many sites will say "No, I think we'd rather go down for a few days under extremely hevay volume, and get a huge bill for unexpected bandwidth use at the end of the month"? And if they do, they can either handle it, or deserve the Slashdotting.

Re:Mirrors yet?

[bigmammoth]

Well they could at least link to a bitTorrent mirror or something for the big file anyway.

Re:Mirrors yet?

[kweg]

Google mirrors a couple billion sites and they've only been sued about once.

Re:Mirrors yet?

[whereiswaldo]

But anyway, Slashdot could simply ask permission to mirror it before posting the link.

They could, but with the volume of stories the Slashdot editors have to look at, and society's insatiable need for having everything "now", that really seems unlikely (even though it makes perfect sense).

interesting, but awkward

[thadeusPawlickiROX]

Don't get me wrong, the visuals are nice and all. But the motion seemed really forced and awkward. I don't mean to put the show down, but realism is more then a pretty picture; details that are left out seem blatently obvious. Lack of skin texture gives it a nonrealistic feel, the sense that the mouths and words didn't match up well, and the way that the characters moved seemed very strange, almost like they were staggering around (especially in the concluding shot of the trailor). I think that the animation definately is good, and could be really successful in creating a good show. It's unfonate that a few things could detract from well done CGI images, but that seems to separate the average CGI animation from the extremely realistic.

Re:interesting, but awkward

[deadsaijinx*]

maybe using some motion capture would help out a lot. but then again, that would be like making the show twice. Not exactly cost effecient. Alos, they should blink. Yeah, blinking is important.

Re:interesting, but awkward

[danila]

The lip-sync problems are really inexcusable. You can do better syncing a random video with completely different audio (I know, I've done it). You get better quality in some off-the-mill shoot-em up. :) I don't care about the lips moving right - it would be probably enough if the characters at least opened and closed them on time. But they get credit for trying. Let's hope that this show enjoys at least a moderate success and that everyone learns a thing or two from these guys and does better next time.

wow

[autopr0n]

81.3.6.2 What a strange IP.

It's also quite slashdotted.

Re:Wow

[cyrax777]

There already was a Final Fantasy Tv series in japan. Final Fantasy: UNlimited ran for 26 episodes was planned to run 56.

My question is, why?

[sheetsda]

Why are we shooting for photorealistic CG TV shows? I can understand the use of CG technology for putting characters in dangerous situations where actors can't be used, or creating shots that would be difficult or impossible to attain through other means. But why have total shows created of it, are actors *that* much more expensive than the combined cost of the brilliant artists and voice actors? Sure its a cool use of technology, but why is this going onto TV rather than staying on a geek's drawing board somewhere? As someone else already pointed out, they haven't got it quite right yet, with lack of blinking and other minute movements. What's the motivation behind this type of project, aside from the "cool hack" factor?

Re:My question is, why?

[deadsaijinx*]

Well, Let me ask you this --- "Why Not?"
This is a true test of how far computers have come in the 3dgraphics arena. After all, no test is more rigorous than perfectly emulating the world around us.
Personally, I don't go for photorealism in my art, but I do go for perfectly made. We all have our own artistic endeavours, and they want to try for photorealism.

Has anyone heard anything recently about the supposabley revolutionary techniques in photorealistic CGI developed for Matrix2&3?

And, yeah, it really does have that "cool hack" thing going for it too^^

Re:My question is, why?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

But why have total shows created of it, are actors *that* much more expensive than the combined cost of the brilliant artists and voice actors?

It's not just the actors. Don't forget the props, film equiptment (and that stuff is very expensive), transport, and a whole other collection of little things that you don't have to muck around with in CGI.
Chances are, the may already have the abilities to do CGI anyway (for SFX). So they might not be spending a lot of money on somehting new, just an expanding what they have.

Re:My question is, why?

[lucasw]

Are actors *that* much more expensive than the combined cost of the brilliant artists and voice actors?

It's not the cost. It's about absolute complete control over every aspect of the look of the final production. If you have the ego the size of the planet you don't want someone else's brilliance compromising your perfect vision. And you want actors to be able to repeat the last scene exactly as before in the last 214 'takes', but this time shift their gaze 2.6 degrees to the left starting on frame 3498.

The problem is that the capability for increased control over all aspects requires that that control be actually exercised over every aspect, because there's no brilliant actor to fill in the blanks.

Re:My question is, why?

[lucasw]

I slightly misread the comment I quoted in my post, if there's some discontinuity on my part in evidence...

Re:My question is, why?

[Al Al Cool J]

Let me rephrase your question, in the hope that the answer becomes obvious:

Why are the producers embracing a trendy new technology that will set their show apart and give them ample publicity and marketing opportunities, instead of just being exactly like the thousands of other shows on the market?

I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[BitHive]

Like Invader Zim, South Park, and Futurama, where they use 3D effects for effect, not as a central element of the show.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[Rosonowski]

Amen to that.
Invader zim used the effects very well, at that. Subtle, but there.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[shogun]

old-fashioned Team Fortress Classic

Only Noobs call TFC a classic. ;-)
Wheres QW-TF when you need it.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[arose]

AFAIK South Park is fully CG.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

3D software isn't just for "effects" I don't see why you can't create a program in it. It's no more using it as the central element than a normal cartoon uses drawing as the central element.

Perhaps you are getting confused with the overuse of big, cheesy explostions in some programs? ;)

BTW. South Park does use 3D effects as the central element. The entire cartoon is created with a 3D package, and they use rendering effects to give it the 2d cardboard cut-out look.

Perhaps this is what you mean anyway. In which case, I don't see what's wrong with this new cartoon, because it's simply using a different style.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[damiam]

Not 3d, photorealistic CG.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[arose]

Yes, photorealistic renderings of paper dolls.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[poot_rootbeer]

South Park is fully computer-generated, but except for rare segments it's totally two-dimensional.

It's a lot easier to simulate the jerky motion of overlaid pieces of cutout paper in CG than even traditional cel animation.

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[arose]

overlaid pieces can not be totally two-dimensional

Re:I'll stick with real cartoons, thanks

[JArneaud]

This old interview at ArsTechnica talks with three of the sysadmins that help maintain the computers for South Park production staff.

On page three they actually start talking in detail about the hardware and software involved and the difficulty in using CGI to imitate what are basically paper cut-outs.

3dsmax / maya

[john_smith_45678]

Why is the world wouldn't they use Maya instead of 3DS Max?

DivX 5.03

[Longinus]

"Note - apparently the DivX version was encoded using a weird codec that doesn't work on all players..."

Accordingly mplayer the trailer was encoded with DivX 5.03, so if it doesn't work for anyone, they probably just need to upgrade DivX to the latest version.

Re:DivX 5.03

[Ack_OZ]

so if it doesn't work for anyone, they probably just need to upgrade DivX to the latest version.

either that, or wait until the slashdotting is over...

How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

A Photorealistic CGI Goatse Man Cumming Real Soon Now.

Cost Effective?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering if animated shows like these can attract enough viewers to become viable to produce. I know many recent CGI movies and televison shows have disappeared because their expenditures were higher than their revenues. Lets hope the same doesn't happen to "SoulFire" that befowled "Final Fantasy: The Spirts Within", "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genious", and "Star Wars: Episode II".

A New CSI TV Series Coming Real Soon Now

[Nathdot]

NOOOOOOOO!

Ohhh! c_G_i.

Thank the good lord for that.

-----------
LAW & ORDER: Elevator Inspectors Unit

I wonder how long...

[Capt'n Hector]

Several thousand slashdotters downloading a 60 meg video file, I wonder how long their server will exist as matter in the solid state.

Also, they'd better start working on their lip-syncing, it's quite horrible.

Re:I wonder how long...

[Anonymous Coward]

or you might just need a faster computer ;)

Re:I wonder how long...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're Germans, right?
I guess they're doing the lip-sync pr0n-movie style (as usual)...

"Jaaa, Helga - ze jerky movements turn me on!"

BitTorrent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Could somebody (preferably the operator of the site trying to host the trailers) please set up a BitTorrent stream of the highest resolution versions.

There really is no valid reason not to - it will make all involved much happier. Their server won't melt and everyone who wants the file will be able to download it. BitTorrent really is the best solution to distributing large files.

Re:BitTorrent!

[niai]

good idea

Actualy you can tell

[autopr0n]

The most obvious thing was the lack of radiosity rendering, which is of course encredibly expensive.

But if you know how 3d rendering works it's easy to see whats missing, and what was done wrong.

DivX works for me...

[nstrom]

apparently the DivX version was encoded using a weird codec that doesn't work on all players

Video shows fine for me, using ffdshow alpha 2003-01-03, get it here. Also works fine with latest mplayer.

I like low tech cartoons

[cyber_rigger]

It's probably just me but I like the low tech cartoons.
They seem to have more character.

I like the hand drawn style of Betty Boop, the claymation style like Wallace and Gromit, paper cutouts (or Sgi computer simulations of) like South Park, and the puppet animations like the works of George Pal.

Re:I like low tech cartoons

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of claymation, at times this trailer looked a lot like claymation. Its almost like the reflection of light off the "skin" of characters just wasn't right, and their movement looked kind of forced and clunky.

Just the $0.02 of a lowly AC.

photorealistic? I think not.

[sirshannon]

Final Fantasy wasn't photorealistic. This isn't as good as Final Fantasy. That means this isn't photorealistic.

BitTorrent Mirror

[nstrom]

I managed to get the file, so here's a mirror using BitTorrent. If you don't know what BitTorrent is, first go to the BT site and download and install the client (Windows/OSX/Unix versions available).

Please keep your BT window open for as long as possible (at least an hour or two) after your transfer completes. Thanks!

BT link for DivX (35MB file): http://cobaltnine.net/bt/FINALTRAILER_720_divx.avi .torrent

Re:BitTorrent Mirror

[joe_bruin]

awesome. i've been looking for a good reason to try bit-torrent, and it looks like this is it. thanks for setting it up (currently at 57 kbps and rising). perhaps slashdot integration (as a slashdot effect solution) would be a good idea.

Re:BitTorrent Mirror

[mbourgon]

agreed. Based on your post (which means that it could almost be a reverse-slashdot effect), I tried it. May have taken a little longer than normal, but very cool. Uploading at 11 now.

Re:BitTorrent Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice. Downloading at 160kb/s and rising.

Re:BitTorrent Mirror

[nstrom]

So far, there have been 154 completed downloads via BT. That makes 154 x 34.4MB = 5.17GB of transfer. From personal experience, I've seen 1000+ simultaneous downloads of a 200MB file with only two or three fast file originators (seeds), so BT should scale to feed the Slashdot crowd.

Slashdot editors take note; set up a BT for the next story that links to a big file.

While I do very much enjoy CGI TV shows...

[norweigiantroll]

I much prefer the mod_perl and ASP ones.

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since most download links are already slashdotted I could only download the small quicktime file, so I can't really judge the quality of the rendering. But going by the movement I can only say that I've seen better game cut-scenes than this (like "Blade Runner" for example). Apparently they only used a limited amount of motion capturing, if any. Sorry to sound like a troll, but it looks really, really crappy (if you consider that they claim it's photo "realistic").

Be gentle...

[heli0]

I am mirroring the video: www.btrig.com/share/FINALTRAILER_720_divx.avi [35MB; Divx5.0.3]

Re:Be gentle...

[Ribo99]

Thank you!

Re:Be gentle...

[Anonymous Coward]

200kB/sec +

Thanks. :)

Re:Be gentle...

[nacs]

Nice mirror. I hope you don't have to pay for the bandwidth costs though. :)

CGI TV?

[FsG]

I knew Perl/CGI could do anything.

Photorealistic animation: an oxymoron?

[geekwench]

An earmark of good animation is that it has an illusion of reality to it. This is why Pixar Studios' product, although more "cartoony", is very convincing. There are all sorts of little details included. After watching the trailer (I believe that someone else mentioned this as well), I noticed that not one of the characters blinked. There's also an overall feeling of "not quite right, somehow." Air, human skin, and various other surfaces, all bend light in distinctive ways. CGI figures, no matter how well-rendered they are, have 'edges' that are visually crisp. The characters are just a little too perfect. People and real objects aren't.

Really, what's the point of the exercise, apart from the "but it's sooo kewwwl" factor, and possible future studio leverage against the SAG? [snarky chuckle] If you want absolute photo-realism, just shoot live-action, and you know you'll be right on target. OTOH, live-action is the best reference resource for any animator, CGI or otherwise. Personally, I think that the very best CGI that I've seen lately was shot live with motion-capture: Andy Serkis' performance as Gollum in The Two Towers. Andy's little tics and quirks were what made the character come to life. No matter how good the current hardware and software is, there are [gasp] some things that a computer just can't do.
A computer is an incredible tool to use in the production of art - I know from experience; I use mine for all sorts of art-oriented applications. But art isn't produced by logorithms alone. Like any other artist, CGI animators need to learn how to really see and observe the world around them. The quality of an artists' observations always shows up on whatever "canvas" they use.

Re:Photorealistic animation: an oxymoron?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bugs Bunny has an "illusion of reality"?

i love it

[Anonymous Coward]

its great how the term 'photorealisitc' is bandied
about as if it means anything more than exactly
nothing. a complete page of #ffffff is photo
realistic if your materials have no shading going
on. by definition, anything you see is photo
realistic. there hasn't been a CGI TV series that
looked better than well done hand-drawn. most of
it looks worse than mediocre hand done art, for
that matter. and whats with all the focus on pure
CG animation? .. chewbacca looked a lot better
than any CG does.

Maybe it�s the shades

[Anonymous Coward]

But I think that guy on the contact link bears a strange resemblance to poochie.

Roughnecks: The Starship Trooper Chronicles

[Cyno01]

Decent animation, but for a cartoon the story was pretty good, it really expanded on the book, and IMHO was better than the movie.

Come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

You?! Put that show down!? No way! We all know you'd never do anything like that!

3DSMAX?

[deadkarma]

Why is there a Maya logo in the background of one of the scenes if it was done with 3dsmax?

It's about time

[Pres. Ronald Reagan]

Those greedy Hollywood actor of today needs to be put in his place, and that place is obsolescence.

When I named names of pinkos in the '50s I knew I was doing the right thing; today, actors need to root out the terrorist threat in Hollywood.

Re:It's about time

[Pres. Ronald Reagan]

Sorry, that's "The greedy hollywood actor..." Sometimes I feel like my mind is going...

Subtleties and Style

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has spent a lot of time looking at / working with CG over the past few years, It's my opinion that we still have a long way to go before we can fool the average Joe with photorealisitic CG humans.

The biggest component, in my mind, is the subtleties of motion. Nowadays it's very easy to hook someone up to a motion capture rig and get very good looking motion for a wide variety of actions. That motion would be, essentially, indistinguishable from a real person if seen from a long distance away (given current rendering techniques). Zoom in, however, and everything falls apart. It just feels wrong to a person looking at it, despite that fact that it's very (95%) close to the real thing. Witness Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The whole time I was watching that movie I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that something was wrong with the movement somehow. The characters didn't feel right, they were like ghosts (or spirits :-p). It was eery, and almost unsettling.

To really pull this off you'll need *very* detailed simulations of the human body. Full skeletal simulation, full muscle simulation, skin, gravity, and other environmental factors (even static electricity). It quickly becomes a question of physics, rather then animation.

Difficulties arise, however, in that not all problems can be just simulated away. A good example is the dynamics of hair. Hair just doesn't look right if you simulate it as a bunch of strings. There are wierd attractive (electrostatic, I think) forces that have to be taken into account, among a miriad of others. The way long hair piles up when you lie down can't really be simulated that well (that I've heard of anyway, FF:TSW used some trickery AFAIK).

Now, certainly as time goes on simulations will get better and better (the last 10 years of CG has seen *amazing* developments), but I can't help but feel we are fighting an asymptotic battle. We can get ever closer to perfectly simulating the human body (along with various lighting conditions), and think that we've almost got it, and then look back a year later and see lots of little things that we didn't notice before (partially due to becoming used to seeing such quality work). I see this now as I look back on movies that are 1-2 years old. What once completely floored me, now elicits only a "meh". Instead, I immediately pick up on things that don't look right, such as the skin texture, or something with the ears, or the lighting.

In my opinion, what makes CG great is not technical prowess, but style. All of Pixar's work is masterful, not because of their shaders, but because of their unique look and feel they give each movie. They do push the envelope technically, but the style of what they do is what makes it truely a joy to behold. The lumbering gait of Sully from Monsters Inc., or the wierd bent-knee floppy motion of Woody from the Toy Story movies are what gives movies heart, not polygon counts, or radiosity lighting. Was Shakespeare remembered for his penmanship? Certainly not, he was remembered for what he wrote.

Re:Flash! Vichy France Lives On!

[Anonymous Coward]

the world's latest Fascist

Nonono... Hussein has been a fascist for at least 20 years, he's hardly the worlds "latest" fascist. for the latest fascist, look to you're own government, or for really cutting edge, that guy that just overthrew the president of the Central African Republic. but you might not know where that is eh? given that they only teach you about america in your schools.

pop-quiz - name the continent that Venezuala is located in.

Poor Man's Final Fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor man's "Final Fantasy." Characters are wooden, movements flawed, very robotic. Perhaps next time...

Re:ITS FROM A FUCKING COMIC BOOK DIPSHIT

[baryon351]

Tetris is so unrealistic too.

Sweet idea!

[nule.org]

Tonight on "SoulFire", a malformed HTTP request header sends our lovely Daemonettes into a (kernel) panic! Is it a malicous attack by the raging Mozilla monsters? We thought they were destroyed before, but they have risen again like a Phoenix from the ashes. It couldn't be the insidious Internet Exterminators with their sneaky sidekick Eula (since everyone knows I.E. crashes before doing anything useful). Go on Safari with The Mod_Perl Squad as they save the day again - Konquerors of the Common Gateway Kingdom! Don't worry, this show isn't over - the fat lady hasn't sung at this Opera yet!

That was terrible. Seriously, I know the CG part of "CGI" stands for "computer graphics", but I have know idea what the hell the "I" is for. Everytime I've heard someone reference this it's just been called CG.

--
Almost forgot... Impeach Bush!

Re:Sweet idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

From V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms December 2001 [vera]:

CGI
Computer Generated Imagery

Re:Sweet idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

it stands for computer generated images, or something like that.

BTW, the arguments on the votetoimpeach site are pretty bad, even for a liberal

Re:Sweet idea!

[nule.org]

Yeah - the link was half tongue-in-cheek. Just trying to get people to think.

looks ok

[anonymous loser]

As long as nothing moves. As soon as the characters start moving, I start suffering from massive cognitive dissonance, and I'm left with a feeling of "gee, that's too bad" for the creators. I guess realistic motion is too hard? I noticed the same thing in the Final Fantasy movie.

Macross!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the show! Not the reconstituted Robotech. The original! Civilization wasting aliens! Cool Mecha!

Jay

rendering vs. modelling

[lingqi]

I don't know what you refered to by "it," but:

I don't think the lack of realism really came from the redering technologies, but rather the modelling technologies.

Take the comparison between the real-actress and the CGI (Final Fantasy X-2 promotional video) for example, the lighting and such are all perfectly fine; but you can notice how "rigid" and un-natural the CG character's body moves.

I think, personally, that during movement, any fancy rendering effects are lost, but the actual movement themselves are the critical "realism" that needs to be addressed.

For one, human limbs move on a
1) feed-back system, which would be hard to simulate its complexities simply by dragging the block that says "arm" from here to there,
2) the feed-back is also has a lot to do with balance, another thing difficult to simulate properly, with such a complex system as the human body.

Interesting enough, Final Fantasy (the movie) is completely shot with the little humans too; I think it has to do with the fact that we cannot track the positions of the dots perfectly, though.

It should be possible eventually to do a GPS-esq system where the room has "location transponders" and each "dot" on the actor/actress's body would calculate it's location and send it out wirelessly to a computer somewhere nearby. I think after that, we can see some very good reproduction of human motions.

just my arm-chair thoughts after watching CG generated stuff for a long time.

Re:rendering vs. modelling

[Thorgal]

Certainly unrealistic movement played its role, but rendering is also very important. Just look how much better Dr. Sid's face looks than Aki's. Hers has large areas of smooth skin and unnatural light reflection is very well visibile. Hence, plastic look.

Re:rendering vs. modelling

[drinkypoo]

I disagree that motion is the problem, it's still lighting. The problem is that motion becomes more subtle when your lighting is right, a tiny move which is barely detectable without antialiasing (for example, it's not like the movie had unantialiased scenes) will be nigh-invisible with antialiasing. Likewise, radiosity, or subsurface scattering as it is called which is still just something to do with light.

If you put lights at the joint locations on a black suit, and put someone in the suit in a dark room, when they are standing still (at an angle anyway) they're just some lights, but you can tell they're a person as soon as they move, because we're very good at recognizing patterns of motion, even when transformed by being at an angle or something. It doesn't look right, still, because of the effects of real lighting.

Re:rendering vs. modelling

[visgoth]

Its called motion capture. Vicon are among the best in the business hardware and software wise for this sort of thing. I believe they used vicon hardware in FF-TSW if I'm not mistaken.

porn...

[zootread]

After watching Final Fantasy and being very impressed, I've been hoping to see some photorealistic CGI porn. Just imagine what could be done.

CG? CGI?

[vex24]

I know what CG means (Computer Graphics)... but what does CGI mean in this context?

Re:CG? CGI?

[Anonymous Coward]

CGI = Computer Generated Imagery

Re:CG? CGI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer Graphics Imaging - verb as opposed to noun, used incorrectly in this context.

Re:CG? CGI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. Thanks!

CG snobs

[xmnemonic]

Regardless of how realistic CG appears, you will always have the CG expert-wannabes complain about its unrealistic appearance. The only way to truly have an honest comparison is to not inform a person that something is CG.

Spiderman in my opinion had several instances of photo-realistic CG, at least in stills I've seen (I have not seen the actual movie). One photorealistic shot shows Spiderman in a red fabric suit looking towards some apartments, another shows a bunch of floats in Times Square (the floats are CG). When I first saw those stills, "CG" did not pass my mind.

Episode II had a part where Obi-Wan is fighting Jango Fett, and while his wrist gets caught by Jango's cable thing, dragging Obi-Wan all about, Obi-Wan is actually entirely CG. I thought that was quite photorealistic. Again, when I had watched the movie I did not know it was CG at all.

What I found significant about these instances is the fact that you only notice how unrealistic the unrealistic CG is- all of the photorealistic occurences of CG do exactly what their creators intended it to do- disappear.

P.S. for another "photorealistic" CG project check out http://www.amazonsoul.com.
The following pictures look photorealistic to me.
http://www.splutterfish.com/sf/spluttergaller y/pic s/32.jpg
http://www.splutterfish.com/sf/splutterg allery/pic s/21.jpg

Looks good. Animates bad.

[tinrobot]

As someone who does this sort of stuff for a living, I doubt that the animation will toe the mark. The more realistic the characters, the more realistic they'll have to move. Mocap can only go so far, and it won't nail down the facial animation.

Final Fantasy blew through a couple of hundred million and the characters still looked stiff. A budget for a series is a small fraction of that. These ultra-real feature quality characters animated on a TV budget and deadlines simply will not work.

I would LOVE to see TV animation of characters that are actually designed for the limited budgets of television.

okay, kinda offtopic, but what isnt

[deadsaijinx*]

Funny thing, I got into a big arguement with some girl in my media class over whether or not Grey looks like Ben Affleck. I still say it doesn't. But it was a rather strange argument.

IPv6 Mirror

[jroysdon]

In an effort to try and get more and more geeks using IPv6, I think I'll be mirroring content like this:

ftp://r2.ipv6.artoo.net/pub/soulpix/

Both DivX and QT formats have been mirrored.

If you don't have native IPv6 access (hmm, who does?) you can get tunneling access for free from he.net and a number of other tunnel brokers.

Re:IPv6 Mirror

[Luke-Jr]

I wish. Tried HE and another one, but neither worked.

Looks like a video game cut scene

[ahecht]

Plus, is it just me, or does the guy reading the book at the beginning look like Al Gore?

No breathing, club-like hands.

[Anonymous Coward]

The models and rendering were good but the motion was complete shit. Mostly raw mocap, which is not enough.

The characters never breathed in FF, except perhaps for a couple of scenes where 'taking a deep breath' was the story point of the scene. Breathing is really important.

The hands were mostly just raw mocap data of the position of the end of the arm; the hands behaved like lumps of meat on a stick, rather than the complex assemblage of bone and tendon that they are - most of the time there didn't even seem to be a joint at the wrist, much less any finger motion. Again, there were some scenes where they actually animated the hands by hand, but the most of the movie had club-hands.

By the time they got to the kiss scene, I was thoroughly convinced in the back of my mind that I was watching embalmed corpses moving around; the kiss was indescribably creepy because of this.

Once you got the framework set up

[Mossfoot]

shouldn't the production costs go down? I don't know if SoulFire is using all "in house" production or having other people do it for them, but I would think that once you've got the whole things set up, it should get cheaper to make afterwards.

I still prefer Blizzard North...

[Jezral]

Having watched this trailer, it's still far from what Blizzard North did with the WarCraft III movies.

The Soul Fire characters aren't nearly polished enough. Stiff limbs, odd walk, no blinking...

Nay, my breath is held for if (when?) Blizzard North makes a full-motion picture.

-- Tino Didriksen / ProjectJJ.dk

My question is, why even ask why?

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Every single story about some dude porting Linux to his remote control, or jamming an atx motherboard into a PSOne case, or creating a working rocket out of a LEGO Mindstorm set gets all these asshole responses questioning why someone would do something like that, and it's getting pretty annoying. Those people mentioned above do it because they can... because no one has ever done it before and they want to see if it can be done.

You say this shouldn't have left some geek's drawing board but I doubt the drawing board for this project was even a glint in the geek's eye when this project was greenlighted by rich investors wanting to cash in on some new never before attempted show. Why was this done? Because it has a chance to bring in money... Why should it be done? Because it hasn't been done before, it gives jobs to many CG people (which is good since I myself am one), and it just shows a general milestone of how CG is progressing from flat shaded models in Tron, to photorealism for short periods of time in Jurassic Park, to Photorealism in a 2 hour movie like Final Fantasy to photorealism in 30 min segments once a week... It's yet another milestone that if not done today, would be done tomorrow by some other company, but should never be questioned on why.

Re:My question is, why even ask why?

[sheetsda]

Every single story about some dude porting Linux to his remote control, or jamming an atx motherboard into a PSOne case, or creating a working rocket out of a LEGO Mindstorm set

And how many of those do those people turn around and sell their creations? You misunderstand me. My question was not why this was done, doing for the sake of doing it is reason enough. I want to know why someone thinks this is such a drastic shift out of the norm that it will draw revenue. I can get photorealistic images by posing an actor in a set and having him/her say lines. Why is this better? I don't think there are that many people with a geek complex out there that will watch it just because it's CG. Even for most geeks the novelty will diminish after two or three episodes.
Perhaps they have a really awesome plot and very well developed characters and all the makings of a great show. Why are they trying to sell it as photorealistic CG?

Wallace and Grommit are more lifelike

[Michael Snoswell]

Just discussing this at work yesterday and we all agreed the stunning realism of Feathers McGraw just as he walked into the house for the first time and looked at Grommit was a pivotal moment. How they make a lump of plasticine (clay) act so lifelike is a true art. There's a lot to do with the timing, camera angle, script, etc etc that's missing from things like FF (movie, cutscenes etc).

Better tracking techniques

[danila]

There are much better techniques for motion capture. The guys from VirtuSphere had a great project some time ago, where a special suit recorded all movements. Judging from demos they had on the site (now apparently removed), the thing was very accurate (and dirt cheap).

Those dead dead eyes...

[borgheron]

Why is it that almost all CG characters lack something in the eyes? They look like dolls.

GJC

Already scoffed - The Two Towers

[bill_mcgonigle]

Andy Serkis (Golum) didn't get an Academy nod, most likely because 'he' was CGI. connor_bw summed it up pretty well in this thread.

soulless eyes

[Ragica]

I was going to d/l this to have a boo at it, but the soulless, utterly expressionless, faces on the web site graphics frightened me off. (I'm having enough nightmares today about soulless heads of state.) Perhaps some story could overcome this impression if I gave it a chance; but the fact that the only selling point on the site is the supposed "photo realism" angle, it doesn't really inspire any hope.

(PS. against all odds, i actually really liked the FF movie, though, for some reason even I have a hard time figuring out).

Quick and Easy CG

[lucasw]

The marks of lower-budget CG:

Few characters or computationally intensive objects on screen at any time.

Short range of vision, caused by weather effects, darkness, or short twisty hallways.

Lack of or extremely simplistic collisions: Characters shoot each other rather than getting into a wrestling match.

Characters lack emotion: no complex facial skin folding and animation required, just basic lip movements for near-deadpan speech.

Simple physics: exploding objects are obscured by the fireball rather than display deforming, twisting, buckling, and shattering physics. Also, clothing is snug, either skin-tight or padded and obscuring.

Simplified lighting, often masquerading as style: single blue lights, red lights, etc that obscure details and leave much in shadows.

Sci-fi setting to account for all of the above (and to appeal with most likely audience). It's post apocalyptic or in the depths of space so crowds of people are hard to come by, spaceships rarely have anything to run into, lasers or blaster bolts that just leave a blackened mark are easier than bullets with their complicated ballistics, collisions, object deforming penetrations, etc.

Interestingly, many of the same are true for low-budget live-actor productions, with the exception of human body and cloth physics.

I haven't been able to download the video, but the screenshots make it look like it falls fits my profile pretty well.

Re:3DS Max

[nurble]

well, since you asked so nicely: k+d lab do some really nice stuff, certainly more photoreal than the little german tv show. or, as much as i hate to promote them, blur have managed a nice effect or two in their time, look for the "feature effects" section in their flash nightmare of a site...

Why photorealistic?

[I Am The Owl]

I mean, it seems like such a pointless endeavor. Why not just use live actors? If you're going to make an animation, make an animation. Art trying to imitate reality is a pointless and silly thing.

Re:Why photorealistic?

[Oriumpor]

yeah who would ever buy a painting^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H TV series depicting a real event. I mean a woman smiling, come on.

Re:Why photorealistic?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can't tell the difference between a painting of a person and the actual person? Hmmm.

Re:Why photorealistic?

[Gonarat]

The best example I can think of showing the uses of photorealistic animation is Lord Of The Rings. In The Two Towers most of the background fighting by the armies were all CG "actors." Imagine the cost of hiring extras, training them, costuming them, then shooting the scenes. Another use is the elimination of "all Aliens have different noses, ears, and head ridges" that all of the Star Trek series seems to suffer from. Gollum from LOTL is a good example of this. A live actor provided the voice and basic movements of Gollum, but the animation is what made Gollum more "realistic" in terms of the fantasy world.

This just in...

[The Bringer]

... Duke Nukem Forever has been redesigned as a 'photorealistic CGI' TV Series and will be hitting local channels in the near future*









*time subject to change

Re:photorealistic? I think not.

[mabinogi]

The term 'photorealistic' refers more to the look they're trying to achieve, than the actual outcome.

Whoo, amazingly realistic!

[mkro]

I swear - I almost couldn't tell the animated women from genuine Realdolls!

Re:Flash! Vichy France Lives On!

[I Am The Owl]

Venezuala isn't located on any continent, because it doesn't exist. Now, if you were referring to Venezuela, I'd tell you South America, but of course, this could be a trick question...

= Thunderbirds / Captain Scarlet puppets

[noahmckinnon]

Environments have come a long way but animating human characters hasn't. It's repulsive to look at.

turing test for CG movies?

[lingqi]

that gives me an interesting idea:

can't we test for "realism" the same way as we (try) to test for AI? if you can't tell that it was CG, why would they bother telling you so?

I remember a quote that goes like "the holy grail of CG is that you don't even notice it." Example being in spiderman, where peter parker woke up all ripped and stuff - that was, IIRC, CG - but you don't even notice it.

Re:turing test for CG movies?

[Anonymous Coward]

That scene was Tobey Maguire's real body. The wimpy body in the mirror was the fake one.

Prophesy

[Anonymous Coward]

The world will end when a cgi "reality" show hit's the air.

For some REAL photorealism

[nerdup]

check this out: http://www.believeinsantamovie.com/bisenglish.htm

Re:I'll stick with real videogames, thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Like (insert old 2d video game), where they use 3D effects for effect, not as a central element of the game.

I just picture BitHive like Garth in Wayne's World 1. Change? We fear change.

They've already released the game!

[Quickening]

Just kidding. But seriously, the clip reminds me of the adventure game Syberia which had marvelous art - graphics, music, and style. It was a major effort by a large group of developers and artists in France. Kinda sad that creativity has to happen overseas nowadays...

CGI? What's next? Photorelistic PHP or HTML?

[RobertKozak]

A Photorealistic CGI TV Series Coming Real Soon Now

Talk about old school. Kudos. At least someone is not jumping on the XML bandwagon. -- I really can't be bothered with a .sig

No limitations

[sbwoodside]

Basically, no limitations. With CG you can set up the shot you want, the setting you want, the people you want, without any need for those things to actually exist.

I agree, it shouldn't be done just because it's cool. For example, I think Shrek was far more impressive than FF because it worked as a film in it's own right -- the technology was secondary to the story.

simon

Re:I'll stick with real videogames, thanks

[BitHive]

Funny you should mention that, I was just watching Wayne's World last night. Anyway, I will grant that there is some element of nostalgia, but it wasn't what I was getting at.

Translation

[MudDude]

Seeing as Babelfish is kinda impossible to use on this one, I thought I'd post a translation for those who are not fluent in German.

Every story has a beginning,
But this seems to be the last page.
It is a kind of ... prophecy
Here it says: be without fear,
be fearless and open.
For someone will come to change everything
Either for the good or for the bad I dare not say,
for it is up to you to decide
...
You will recognise the carrier of fire.

Hmm, sounds a bit like Wheel of Time to me. (and possibly a hundred other books)

Too clean

[Anonymous Coward]

It's too clean. Real equipment has dirt on it. Especially aviation equipment.

It's also too symmetric. Real human artifacts have at least some assymetry. The ECO's alone would guarantee a difference in left-right rivet patterns.

It's like the CGI human faces that always have left/right identical ear shapes.

.

Slashdot effect and downloadable material

[Oriumpor]

It is your moral obligation if you slashdot a server, to compress the material, and put it on your favorite P2P

Soundtrack

[dave1212]

Somewhat interesting, it will be hard to follow without subs.. here's hoping for some serious fans!

ok.. so Filter's arrangement/cover/mix of the Crystal Method's "Trip Like I Do" isn't credited to Filter?
Being one of the most innovative music technologists in industrial rock, Richard Patrick deserves more respect.

As well, borrowing the "Armageddon" (akpth!) theme by Hanz Zimmerman? I'll leave that one with you to ponder.

Thunderbirds

[cybpunks3]

Back in the 60s there was a show that many of you may remember called Thunderbirds. It featured puppets as the main characters, where the best you could get was simple lip synch and some eye movement. That's fine for kiddie fare, where the plot and the action is all that counts, but you can hardly emote through that. And that's the problem with CGI these days because all the focus is on the textures and the models and not enough on the animation. There are too many muscles in the face alone to truly get a performance out of a computer animated character. Gollum was about as close as we've come and that took a TREMENDOUS amount of effort. There is simply NO REASON to do this from a financial standpoint vs. shoot live action. Even considering how bad TV acting tends to be, it's still capable of better performances than you see from things like the Starship Troopers show that was on a couple years back, and even that was chock full of motion capture cheats. You really do only achieve a kind of "Thunderbirds plus" or "Weekend at Bernies" like effect with very realistic looking objects that simply do not have that breath of life to them, at least with the faces. We are able to accept more stylized characters because our minds are programmed to fill in the blanks and accept various exaggerations and such (squash and stretch for instance) to accentuate mood that don't make sense with realistic characters. That's why the Pixar films, and to a lesser extent, even things like Jimmy Neutron, worked, whereas Final Fantasy didn't. And for those who would like to defend FF, I think the box office and the current financial troubles of Square speaks for itself.

Art.

[Anonymous Coward]

Our world would be a vastly different place without it.

Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it kind of doomed when people will be watching this and going "Well, it's no Final Fantasy..."

3D photorealism may have its place

[Anonymous Coward]

But to replace human actors? I don't see the point. Gotta pay someone to read the lines. If you want to save money, go indie. Most "realistic" 3D animation does not have the sheer artistry of well crafted hand drawn 2D animation.

exactly

[sirshannon]

that's like having an article saying "greatest television show ever coming soon to TNN". Just because someone is trying to do it doesn't mean you should talk about it like they achieved it. If it isn't photorealistic, then it shouldn't be referred to as "a photorealistic computer-generated TV series".

Re:exactly

[mabinogi]

What I meant is that 'photorealistic' CGI, is like Final Fantasy.
Non photorealistic is like Shrek, or Monsters Inc.

It's not a claim of quality, it's an indication of style.

The point is...

[Dread_ed]

...to quote Dennis Miller:

"If some unemployed punk in New Jersey, can get a cassette to make love to Elle McPherson for $19.95, this virtual reality stuff is going to make crack look like Sanka."

Ever notice that "simulate" and "stimulate" are almost the same?

Better than FF?

[tgrigsby]

Looks pretty cool, better than those CGI cartoons I've seen - although definitely not even Final Fantasy quality.

How can you tell? The stupid movie is 180x144 -- I can hardly tell what I'm looking at. From what little I could see, the quality of the CGI was just as good as FF if not better. The mouth movements of the speaker were definitely better. One thing that bugged me all the way through FF was how they managed to speak while barely moving their mouths. It would have been more realistic if they'd all had Southern accents...... ;)

impossibly smooth skin

[lingqi]

Apparently you've never been to japan ;^)

Many girl here are VERY meticulous about skin-care.

It wasn't Final Fantasy...

[phorm]

I don't know about this. I've been an avid FF fan, anime fan, and a large fan of Japanese culture in general. While I dig the concept of Gaia and life-force... the plot still seemed weak.
I mean, the base-idea was good, but the characters lacked depth and events were somewhat predictable.

Perhaps as a fan of the game series, I was expecting something more (something intriguing, or unexpected) from the movie.

I mean, if you look at the plots of FFIV, FFVI... some things are hokey but the otherall idea was really cool. Espers, a half-esper. Crystals and dark crystals. Even in games like FFIX and FFX, with the main character in IX being basically a genetically engineered robot, and FFX being a dream... there's a bit of things unexpected and interesting - not to mention FFVII (exempting now-hokey graphics)

And the classics... an Omega Weapon.... swords over guns...magic... etc. This was an animated movie, but it wasn't Final Fantasy, it was a sci-fi animated CGI movie.

spiderman CG

[undercanopy]

actually, Toby relly got that ripped for the movie. The CG was the wimpy body in the mirror and the transition into the real body.

In fact the CG models of spider man were built to match him for continuity, iirc.