I saw “Inception” today. One of the previews was for “Tron Legacy”. Both movies looked totally realistic with their special effects. Compare that to the original “Tron”, which looks laughable now, and though I didn’t see it until the late 80’s (and I was a kid), I wasn’t very impressed with it. Looking back at it now, I know it’s nearly 30 years old, but I can’t imagine something like “Inception” looking that date 30 years from now. For example, even in 1982, “Tron” might have looked cool, but it didn’t look real, and required some suspension of disbelief, right?
Of course, this comment could be the equivalent of someone thinking a Nintendo was the pinnacle of video games. So where do we go from here? Are things going to continue to improve? At what rate? and how?
My WAG is that instead of looking at a screen every will put a set of goggles and images will be projected directly onto out retinas so it lookes exactly as if we were sitting in the middle of the movie and looking at things in real life.
Visual effects are still improving, even though it’s sometimes hard to tell. I have been watching a few DVDs from five or so years ago, admittedly with a practised eye, that now have a few rough edges I hadn’t noticed before, and only show up because things have improved since even then.
For example, in Lord of the Rings, the art direction attempted to be very painterly, but now comes across a little flat and staged. If Weta Digital were to try to do it all again, which they shall be with The Hobbit (if it ever goes ahead) it will be improved in any number of small ways that will add up to a visible transformation.
The animation in the Spider-Man movies is really quite loose-limbed and poorly executed, but now when similar animation is done, for example in Avatar (not all of it was 100% motion capture), there is vast improvement in realism.
And the same sort of subtle improvements will continue. In 2020 you won’t be able to look at a 2005 film without wincing at its crude attempts at digital set extensions and facial motion capture.
I loved Inception, but the effects were mostly very obvious. I do not think it will age well.
Some effects are probably as realistic as they can be. I’m thinking really fast moving effects like explosions. Other effects have a ways to go - facial movements, realistic body (human or animal) movements, water, hair, and probably more I cannot think of.
Well, there’s two classes of visual effects: those you shouldn’t notice, and those you should. Albeit, there are gobs of CG in Inception of the latter class, you probably didn’t even notice the VFX in the former class in the same movie.
I’m in VFX, and after seeing Benjamin Button and Avatar, I’m convinced we’re not all that far away from almost imperceptible 100% CG humans. However, most of the realism, once you get past the physical look and details is all in the micro-subtleties in our expressions, behavior and movement. An animator can only take this so far all on their own. I think performance capture will be the one aspect that will not only have to stay a part of the process, but will over time become easier technically and cheaper.
There’s always plenty of room for improvement, both in the technical development and art of it, as well as what the audience sees as the final result. But the tools, artists and computing hardware will eventually see diminishing returns (especially once achieving immaculate realism becomes fast, cheap and good).
Special effects are tricks that happen in-camera, during photography, things like makeup, squibs, pyro, miniatures, etc.
Visual Effects are tricks that happen largely all in post production (even though there is a tremendous amount of preplanning and in-camera necessities that need to happen before the final result can be pulled off). A lot of this was done using mattes, optical printing techniques, chromakeying, and painstaking rotoscoping (see Tron ) in the old school days. Now, almost all of the VFX has been taken over by leveraging computer imaging, even going so far as to overstep where Special Effects would have normally been used.
Oh yeah, I just realized there’s already a phenomenon for this: when the fake becomes so commonplace, it replaces the reality. For example, we’re so used to seeing fake forensics on TV that when we see real forensic teams, they look fake.
Sometimes I feel like they’re almost too good. Like, I just felt like watching all the bugs and dinosaurs in King Kong that it felt like watching something that had been painted on. Real life just isn’t that smooth.
Or, like watching the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Everything just felt too good to be true. In the old one (Willy Wonka), the special effects are dated by today’s standards, but since there wasn’t CGI everywhere, it felt grounded in the real world. It felt like this was stuff that could happen. I just don’t feel that way with any CGI. None of it feels like it could really happen. The only movie where I don’t feel like it was made in some studio is probably Jurassic Park.
I think cymk makes an important point when mentioning the “art of it”.
The tools may be improving, but I think the usage is going downhill in what I’d term “action” scenes (chase scenes, stuff blowing up), particularly when it comes to scale and perspective. I see stuff that’s just ridiculous. Editing in those types of scenes is also a pet peeve of mine - there’s too many shots that aren’t even long enough for your brain to really register what the hell you saw.
Well, there’s the “feelies”, from Brave New World. I figure the porn industry will take the lead in this regard.
Incidentally, the Genesis Simulation sequence from Star Trek II still looks kinda nifty, nearly 30 years later.
) in the old school days. Now, almost all of the VFX has been taken over by leveraging computer imaging, even going so far as to overstep where Special Effects would have normally been used.