# Cgi movie stars **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2014, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929 "2014-04-12T09:50:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Daz\_the\_burner\_Rush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dc4da7/32.png) [@Daz\_the\_burner\_Rush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daz_the_burner_Rush)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/1 "2014-04-12T09:50:00Z")
When, if ever, will most movies at the cinema star computer generated actors/actresses? And will there be a point where the demand for real movie stars is so low that any movie ‘stars’ that did exist only earned a minimal sum fpr a movie? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/2 "2014-04-12T10:32:50Z")
Something important to consider about this: Although huge strides have been made in CGI visuals, nearly to the point of a photo-realistic human character, there has been essentially no progress (or AFAIK even any attempts) at creating computer generated _vocal performances_. Seems kind of odd when you consider that audio should be much easier to create than visuals. I guess it’s because it in fact would involve some serious advancement in A.I. (artificial intelligence) to create a convincing artificial voice. But without this, regardless of how good CGI continues to get, it’s still essentially just a digital [‘waldo’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_manipulator) completely dependent on a human actors vocal performance. And as the saying goes _‘two thirds of the picture is sound!’_. ---
**Author:** ![Harg\_Fargusen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/da6949/32.png) [@Harg\_Fargusen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harg_Fargusen)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/3 "2014-04-12T10:37:54Z")
James Coburn for you on line 2. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/4 "2014-04-12T16:01:33Z")
Never. Take a look at animated films. They’re extremely popular right now, but no one expects them to replace live actors. It’s like asking when we think stage plays will be replaced by movies (the stage still manages) or when stage actors are going to be replaced by robots. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/5 "2014-04-12T16:13:04Z")
I wouldn’t say “never” because seventy years from now I’ll be quoted along with comments about how much memory we’d ever need and why anyone would want a PC in their home. I will say that I don’t think we’re close yet. As mentioned above, matching CGI to voice acting still has a way to go and, “acting”-wise, I haven’t seen a real convincing performance from a CGI human including facial expressions, body movement and that sort of thing. Certainly nothing that’d fool me into thinking I’m looking at a real human being instead of a glorified cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/6 "2014-04-12T16:16:48Z")
Not sure about most, but in no more than 10 years we’ll see the beginnings of animated characters indistinquishable from actual humans. The problem now is getting past the [Uncanny Valley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)where the slightest trace of unnatural appearance is detected and gives rise to unease in the viewer. It can all be done now in a labor intensive process of tweaking the images frame by frame, but for practical purposes natural motion must be programmable. There will be intermediate phases along the way where post-production enhancement of actual people increases until the need to use real faces dwindles away. Don’t be surprised to see porn lead the way, the customers will be less picky about the details and the producers can leverage the technology for profit more easily. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/7 "2014-04-12T16:23:55Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Something important to consider about this: Although huge strides have been made in CGI visuals, nearly to the point of a photo-realistic human character, there has been essentially no progress (or AFAIK even any attempts) at creating computer generated _vocal performances_. Seems kind of odd when you consider that audio should be much easier to create than visuals. I guess it’s because it in fact would involve some serious advancement in A.I. (artificial intelligence) to create a convincing artificial voice. Well, there is Hatsune Miku, a Japanese pop “star” that is actually a computer generated hologram with vocals provided by software called Vocaloid. Computer generated stuff tends to fall into the uncanny valley when it gets too close to human. Current computer generated actors don’t quite look and move like a real human. Computer generated voices are surprisingly difficult. Google “oddcast text to speech demo” and you can play around with a demo of a pretty good program, but it will mangle certain words and phrases and the emotion just isn’t there (except for a few key phrases). When the movie Final Fantasy, the Spirit Within cam out, the creators of that movie were hoping to spawn a new industry where actors and actresses would be created digitally and would have acting “careers” like real humans where they played different roles for a fee. The animation and digital production proved to be far too costly at the time. We’ve made pretty good improvements since then, but the industry seems to be staying on the one-off SFX budget model instead of switching to a reusable actor financial model. (ETA - TriPolar ninja’d me on mentioning the uncanny valley - his post wasn’t there when i started typing) ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/8 "2014-04-12T16:33:56Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Well, there is Hatsune Miku, a Japanese pop “star” that is actually a computer generated hologram with vocals provided by software called Vocaloid. No danger of her being mistaken for a real person though nor worrying about the vocals actually matching her mouth/face except in the simplest of senses. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/9 "2014-04-12T18:35:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, there is Hatsune Miku, a Japanese pop “star” that is actually a computer generated hologram with vocals provided by software called Vocaloid. She’s not a hologram. She’s just an ordinary 2D image projected onto a screen. The only gimmick is that they use a translucent screen to make her image appear to not be on a screen. Actual live-rendered animated animated holograms are still a long ways away. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/10 "2014-04-12T18:44:28Z")
Hatsune Miku doesn’t look like a real person, though. She’s essentially a very high-tech puppet. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/11 "2014-04-12T18:45:07Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Something important to consider about this: Although huge strides have been made in CGI visuals, nearly to the point of a photo-realistic human character, there has been essentially no progress (or AFAIK even any attempts) at creating computer generated _vocal performances_. Seems kind of odd when you consider that audio should be much easier to create than visuals. I guess it’s because it in fact would involve some serious advancement in A.I. (artificial intelligence) to create a convincing artificial voice. Are the voices in google maps computer generated? I’ve been assuming they are, based on the kind of mistakes Ana makes in Spanish, and the ones she makes when encountering Catalan signs. If she is computer generated and considering how often she gets the stresses wrong, it seems like it will be a while until she can sing Ring Around the Rosie without sounding like an alien. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cgi-movie-stars/685929/12 "2014-04-12T19:17:01Z")
Animation companies usually get the credit for animated actors.