I recently watched Shrek again, and, aside from the fact that it scared my three-year-old, I really enjoyed it, again. One thing that I noticed when I saw the movie in the theatre and which continues to vex me, is the lack of depth in the animation. There are several scenes where it it is absolutely impossible to tell that two characters are supposed to be right next to each other, until they touch or walk in front of the other, or some giveaway like that. (For example, I’m thinking of when Fiona and Shrek and Donkey are on their way back to Duloc. Fiona has a couple conversations with Donkey where I notice it. And others, I just can’t remember them right now… )
Is this all in my head? (I do have crossed-eyes so my own depth perception is hindered, but I’ve never noticed anything like this in any of the movies or CGI films or other animated movies or cartoons I’ve seen in my 34 years.)
Is this a symptom of computer animation I’ve missed in other movies? Is it a failure of the animators in Shrek? Of the technology used?
One problem is the lack of atmosphere–literally. In the real world, the air has a subtle haze in it due to moisture, dust, heat, etc. You can approximate this in computer animation using artificial fog, but it seldom looks right, so CGI movies often have a strange “airless” look to them.
Another problem is radiosity. When light strikes an object, part of that light is reflected back, where it strikes other objects, is reflected again, and so on and so on. So in the real world, light and shadow interact in very complicated ways that help define our perception of depth.
In a CGI movie, these complex light interactions are only approximaxed, and thus everything looks a bit flatter (especially when the shapes involved are stylized to begin with, as in Shrek.)
I can’t say that I noticed any lack of depth cues in Shrek, though it did have that “airless” look.
You know, StarWar 2 left me feeling “airless” too. The whole movie nothing but CGI places. GL: “Ok guy, run in place in front of the green screen”. … “No No! More movement.” “ok… that’s it…we’ll use JarJar.”
On the Shrek DVD, there are a couple of features about the making of the movie. In one of them, one of the directors comments that they turned down the graphic realism quite a bit (especially with Princess Finoa) so that it would look like an old-fashioned fairy-story.
Now this may be making a virtue out of a necessity, but it might also be that the specific “flat” look in Shrek as by design.
I thought Shrek tried in many instances to mimic real-world light and movement–one scene in particular featured that bright halo when the camera is pointed at the sun–but in the end, it only had the effect of making things look flatter and less realistic. I thought A Bug’s Life looked awesome, though.
Bug’s Life better than Shrek? Haha. Bug’s Life looked a lot simpler and flatter than Shrek. I still consider Shrek to be the greatest achievement in CGI, besting even Final Fantasy (and don’t even get me started on Star Wars).
Shrek is nothing on Pixar. Certainly it was funny, but too topical in its humour style to really become a classic, but even in CGI standards it’s too… much.
Pixar has an understanding of colur and light that really makes their work distinct. And Blue Sky, who made Ice Age, has a proprietary radiosity plug-in that is amazingly realistic. Both of them, though, deliberately go for stylised character design, because it allows for a more cartoony approach, and they don’t have to emulate reality. But the Dreamworks CGI people really have a long way to go. Their attempt at more realistic humans didn’t work very well, and made for a stilted and sometimes really bad style.
Sully’s fur from Monsters, Inc was the most amazing piece of CGI I’ve seen thus far. Although I think Shrek is and will be an important step in CGI animation’s progress, as well as a very entertaining movie, but overall I still prefer Pixar’s style. Bug’s Life and Monsters, Inc are two of my favorite films of recent years.
And Ice Age just didn’t measure up script-wise, except for Scrat. It was well-done, but I thought it was not nearly as entertaining as Pixar’s or Dreamworks’ films.
----(damn this webtv interface, it wont let me navigate in the msg field!)—You know, I was about t mention this as well. For some reason, I have a hard time ‘susending my disbelief’ when a film goes into heavy CGI effects.
One scene in particular in AOTC that presents this very problem (for me, at least) is when Obi-Wan and Mace Windu are walking more or less toward the screen slowly, with Yoda on some hovercraft alongside them. Yoda circles around from next to Obi-Wan, to in front of Obi-Wan and Mace. But it really looked like Yoda was even with, if not behind, the other two for the whole sequence.
I wholeheartedly agree with the O.P. here. I went to see Episode II in IMAX in the desperate hopes that it might feel like a movie on a HUUUUUGE screen, since it sure as hell didn’t feel like one at my local GigaPlex.
You are struggling to compete with the phenomenon of dimension as captured by silver halide crystals. There is inherent depth that our brain has learned to “believe” is there. Are we more sophisticated than moviegoers were 100 years ago? Sure we are, nobody believes that the train barrelling towards us is really going to plow off the screen and through the crowd of viewers.
You as the digital filmmaker have a tough row to hoe. You are attempting to duplicate the persistence of vision that has made films LOOK like they do since Day 1.
I know someone who has seen Episode II at the Skywalker Ranch. It was shown digitally, straight from Hard Drive to projector to screen. They said it was extremely difficult to look at; there is no sense of depth at all since the image has not been transferred in the end step to motion picture film.
You can take Progressive Scan 24P and stick it in yer ear, film is here to stay.
They had this one scene with a bunch of CGI battleships cruising along in the middle of a storm. They went to great lengths to make the ships look realistic. They filmed a real ship plowing through real water and used the footage of the water (and the ship’s wake) as the backdrop. They filmed real actors acting like crewmen, and projected their images as seen from a long distance (i.e. really really tiny) onto the ship’s deck. They showed 3 other CGI battleships in the background, each of which had their own realistic-looking wakes. They superimposed no less than 4 layers of rain to make the storm as convincing as possible.
And then they ruined it with this cheesy-looking “civilian Harrier jet” CGI, which maneuvered about as realistically as a hubcap-on-wires flying saucer.
I haven’t seen Monsters, Inc. yet, but I thought the detail of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was pretty amazing. Body movements were incredibly lifelike. One time I came upon it and thought I was watching live acting. That was mostly because I couldn’t see the person’s face. They still need to work on that. A lifelike human face has to be the hardest thing to animate. I think ocean waves come in a close second. I haven’t seen anyone do that convincingly. Apparently the relentless pursuit of detail bankrupted the company that produced Final Fantasy. It’s definitely worth a look-see even if you can’t entirely stomach the story.
I can’t remember how they did it, but the people who did Popeye created a depth of field for a couple of epic 'toons that was astonishing for it’s time.
That’s because they used motion capture exclusively for body motion.
The facial expressions were the only animation that they seemed to be concentrating on, and they were trying to be subtle. Unfortunately they were way too subtle, and it came out like cardboard cutouts.
That’s because they used motion capture exclusively for body motion.
The facial expressions were the only animation that they seemed to be concentrating on, and they were trying to be subtle. Unfortunately they were way too subtle, and it came out like cardboard cutouts.
I think much of the problems of lack of depth in CGI animated films (which I agree with, for the most part) is that they’re still exploring the medium itself. They may start out with a pretty good story, though even that’s questionable in some cases… but somewhere along the line the story often takes a back seat to the “cool new thing.” As in, “Ooh, look at this cool new thing we can do!”
This seemed to be the problem in Shrek, Titan A.E, Final Fantasy, and others. It seems to me that Pixar doesn’t fall into this trap as easily, though… perhaps because they’ve already been playing with the medium for so long. Bug’s Life had a bit of this problem, but both Toy Story movies and especially Monsters Inc. were very strong on story, even though there were some cool animation tricks in them, too. Also, Pixar’s short work (such as the excellent “Geri’s Game”) is some of the best I’ve ever seen.
Don’t get me wrong… all of these films are visually stunning, Final Fantasy in particular. But somewhere, the story seems to lag in most of them. Keeping in mind, the work of Pixar, and the amazingly evocative animation of Gollum in The Two Towers, it’s clear that CGI films can have depth as well as technical skill, but often the former suffers in order to showcase the latter.
With all due respect, the movie The Perfect Storm made use of proprietary software that was created for that film. The water effects are , to my fairly seasoned eye, indistinguishable from real life ocean water. It was a pretty staggering accomplishment, and one that speaks well of the artists who also know how to write such code.
I’m not a big fan of the idea that this stuff will replace live actors ( although clearly that day is not very far off ), just as I am not a fan at all of the idea that filmmaking is becoming videomaking. But, ya gotta call it what it is- The Perfect Storm did indeed have perfect waves.
Now, I’ll go with you if we’re talking about a waterfall, or frothy bubbly water in a river. THAT is wicked hard, but if the ocean can be plotted and moved, then a waterfall can’t be far behind.
Imagine for a moment the uses of such technology in the adult video industry. :eek:
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