Comment by thereddaikon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thereddaikon | Hacker News Reader

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A common and worthwhile counterpoint to that is that people only notice bad or rushed CGI. Properly good CGI is never criticized because nobody can tell its CGI. The digital artists have the same problem as IT staff. People only notice you when something goes wrong. When everything is going right, you might as well not exist.

A timely example is Disney's Book of Boba Fett. The show is almost entirely CGI except for the actors. There have been some criticisms about particular assets like the biker gang's speeder bikes. But I've yet to hear anyone complain about the environments looking fake. Mos Espa is almost 100% CGI and it looks like a real set.

When it works your brain just accepts it. CGI is incredibly good at environments. I'd go as far to say that it has been indistinguishable from reality for the better part of a decade now. Where its gets noticed is in places where it doesn't do so well or when there were time or budget limitations. Fully CGI humans are still not believable and will probably be the last thing to get right. CGI non-human creatures have varying success. Compositing can still be difficult. Often its better to replace an actors entire body, save for the face, and create a CGI version in a fully CGI environment. Compositing a real person in a CGI scene is prone to floating body syndrome and lighting issues.

The real answer isn't necessarily that one is better than the other. But these are tools which should be used together to make a better product. And I think you'll find that modern films with the best overall effects do blend the two. Mad Max Fury Road is a good example, the vehicles are real with real stuntmen climbing on them but the environment is artificial. Shooting a film in the middle of a desert with nothing in sight is not practical. But shooting the scene on a sandy path and compositing in the CGI desert is.

You don’t have to not notice it for the cgi to make the film worse.

You could certainly for example, film ‘once upon a time in the west’ in a green room and overlay the actors upon a western themed cgi environment, and have it look believably realistic.

But are the actors going to act as if they were under the burning sun as believably ? Will they avoid looking at the sun ? Will they tend to seek the shadows ? Will they sweat ? Probably not, and the feeling you’ll get from the film will be different, without you being able to know why

I do think the Dune film suffered from this problem. I didn't really believe the actors were actually in an environment like Arrakis.

Arrakis was mostly filmed in a desert, how did it not feel real? The CGI in Dune was pretty decent IMO and the highlight for me was the ornithopters wing flapping. The motion blur of the wings was simply amazing.

From the making of I can see online it seems most of it is actually filmed in studio, especially when actors are involved up close.

It is noticable that it’s not filmed in a hot place because the actors are never sweating, they move too fast, their skin doesn’t have the color and texture of a strong tan, they don’t seem affected by transitioning from hot to cold, they touch sand with naked hands, etc. Compare with western movies that are actually filmed on location, they somehow feel like they’re filmed on a hotter planet than arakis

EDIT: seems that most of the scenes in the desert filmed in situ were also in relatively cold deserts as the filming crew is wearing down jackets

I can't imagine not using on Arrakis any head cover and sunglasses.

Would you sweat on Arrakis? I've never been to a dry desert, but I've heard that sweat can evaporate there very quickly and it's very hard to become sweaty.

As someone who grew up in the United Arab Emirates, being sweaty is your default state of being for most of the year.

Not to defend the practice of "CGI everything," but there's a new-ish technique which I first became aware of from the Mandalorian, where the actors actually see the rendered CGI on massive screens around them - think the holodeck from Star Trek TNG. The physical props exist between the characters and the huge display, and the projection is even bright enough to (partially) light the scene. You can see this technique in the "Making of the Mandalorian" documentary series.

I do think CGI is often overutilized, much to the detriment of many shows and films, especially in genres where practical effects get the job done (i.e. - not sci-fi). However, these techniques are evolving, and the actors can at least start to see visual cues and interact with the same digital elements that the viewer will ultimately be shown.

It's called "The Volume" and it's a true game-changer.

Because the environment projects its own lights, reflections are automatically correct and don't need to be added in post. It also gives huge freedom to the DP for shots because they don't really have to light anything specifically.

And the best thing is that it's comparatively cheap so they can punch way over their budget effects-wise.

To be fair, the volume looks extremely goofy if you're there. The perspective shifts with the camera, and apparently can be close to nauseating if the camera moves too fast, and doesn't feel like a holodeck but instead a room covered in screens. It's game changing for being able to integrate vfx, but it's arguably more distracting for actors than a green screen.

Does that mean they have to do a take per camera? Or have every shot pre planned rather than editing them together I suppose.

Yeah, it's a fundamentally single camera operation.

I think you are confusing CGI with post effects. You can have CGI "in camera" as they call it. The Mandalorian pioneered this. The system uses massive LED displays and Unreal engine. They call it "The Volume". https://ascmag.com/articles/the-mandalorian

On the other hand you can do non-CGI effects in post as well. In fact its super common. Bluescreens, compositing, rotoscoping, etc were all common techniques well before computers had anything to do with film making and can all introduce the problems you describe. It was actually a common problem. People would spend a lot of time tryng to get lighting to match and to line up composited elements.

So its not a CGI problem at all. Its an in-camera versus post effects problem.

Yes! I remember a Game Of Thrones CGI breakdown reel, can't find it now, which showed the Lannister camp and it was very interesting how much of it was actually real but at the same time how much was augmented by CGI. You absolutely couldn't tell.

> A common and worthwhile counterpoint to that is that people only notice bad or rushed CGI.

And similarly, people don't bring up the vast amounts of bad or rushed practical effects being produced at the same time films like Star Wars and Lawrence of Arabia were produced.

There are also far less obvious examples of CGI not being noticeable. These days a filmmaker, especially a highly opinionated one like David Fincher with the necessary resources, can decide that they want something like an extra car parked on a street and add it in post with CGI. The audience never even considers the car wasn't there the day of filming.

So, you're saying that there is tons and tons of CGI that never gets noticed. I can totally see that. Something like replacing a missing button on a characters coat, or adding a clock on a wall in the background. As CGI gets better, bad CGI stands out more.

Most non-fantasy, non-sci-fi is CGI and has been for over a decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k

There is a difference between CGI and using a green screen. I didn't watch the whole video but I didn't see any Computer Generated Imagery.

That's not necessarily a counterpoint: it doesn't matter how much great CGI doesn't destroy the reality of a film, so long as there is any bad CGI which does. It's like how nobody talks about all the oysters that didn't make them sick.

I don't really think that bad CGI ruins films in most cases, but I think the author of this article does.

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