Technology is always evolving and improving. Eventually computer-generated movies will replace live action movies. In present time there are both CG movies and live action movies. A lot of CG movies use actors to model after such as their personality, emotions, or even just them. Back in the year 1970 there was very few movies with CGI. CGI started out as 2D pixel images of an android's point of view. The Tron movie in 1982 was a major breakthrough with 3D animation and administrated the power of 3D animation. The main use of 3D animation and CGI in movies were for special effects. Movies are not like books. As a reader reading a book, the author can draw a picture with their words and your imagination will fill in the rest. Words are unlimited and can be stretched and used to form any kind of fantasy the author wants for the reader. Yet, for a viewer watching a movie. The picture is already painted for you. The director can only paint the picture with what their have, which is very limited when the director can only use physical material. While a producer that draws cartoons, like authors can recreate the images they want on the screen. But not everyone wants to watch a cartoon or read a book, but they want to watch a movie with real people while having the fantasy aspect to it. When the director or producer wants something that can not be created with real world objects, they use CGI. For example a giant robot fighting aliens or as simple a an alligator that shoots laser guided killer bees out of its mouth.
With 3D animation continuing to become more advanced and life like as time passes its important that technology advances with it. Now that high definition is becoming the standard and companies are pushing for higher and higher quality the amount of storage space required keeps increasing. Media storage has also been steadly increasing with 3D animated films being a strong driving force behind with media storage market to virtually double in the next five years. Aside from media storage more powerful hardware and software are becoming avaliable all the time to make rendering a 3D film a faster and cheaper process then ever before. With newer processors avaliable with more cores and higher thread count what used to take eight hours to render a single frame is being completed in several minutes as well as better heat distribution which require less power and save on cooling energy. All these factors working together to give the animator more flexability and power to increase the realism in 3d animation.
CGI can improve a movie with well detailed physical texture to make a dinosaur life like. The technologies CGI and 3D animation has improved enough to a point that a company like Weta can use a mo-cap suit and an actor such as Tom Hanks and model an almost realistic human in a movie like Polar Express. Although CGI is almost able to create perfect realistic objects, humans are the last obstacle to get over. Trying to model a perfect human can result in landing yourself in the Uncanny Valley. The Uncanny Valley originated in robotics, but recently been showing up more and more in CGI films. The Uncanny Valley is the area where the CGI looks real and you brain thinks it is real, but knows something is off. This messes with your brain and causes a creepy feeling when looking at the CGI. Most causes of the Uncanny Valley are the eyes in the CGI. The eyes look emotionless and souless, but with the motion capture tools and techniques Weta developed for the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Weta was able to capture and model eyes for the apes that showed emotion which is the breaking point to surpass the uncanny valley.
With 3D animation continuing to become more advanced and life like as time passes its important that technology advances with it. Now that high definition is becoming the standard and companies are pushing for higher and higher quality the amount of storage space required keeps increasing. Media storage has also been steadly increasing with 3D animated films being a strong driving force behind with media storage market to virtually double in the next five years. Aside from media storage more powerful hardware and software are becoming avaliable all the time to make rendering a 3D film a faster and cheaper process then ever before. With newer processors avaliable with more cores and higher thread count what used to take eight hours to render a single frame is being completed in several minutes as well as better heat distribution which require less power and save on cooling energy. All these factors working together to give the animator more flexability and power to increase the realism in 3d animation.
CGI can improve a movie with well detailed physical texture to make a dinosaur life like. The technologies CGI and 3D animation has improved enough to a point that a company like Weta can use a mo-cap suit and an actor such as Tom Hanks and model an almost realistic human in a movie like Polar Express. Although CGI is almost able to create perfect realistic objects, humans are the last obstacle to get over. Trying to model a perfect human can result in landing yourself in the Uncanny Valley. The Uncanny Valley originated in robotics, but recently been showing up more and more in CGI films. The Uncanny Valley is the area where the CGI looks real and you brain thinks it is real, but knows something is off. This messes with your brain and causes a creepy feeling when looking at the CGI. Most causes of the Uncanny Valley are the eyes in the CGI. The eyes look emotionless and souless, but with the motion capture tools and techniques Weta developed for the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Weta was able to capture and model eyes for the apes that showed emotion which is the breaking point to surpass the uncanny valley.
Some movies found ways around the Uncanny Valley by improving the techniques and quality of the details in the expressions such as what Weta did or as the video stated Disney Pixar made them more cartoon like. DreamWorks did that very thing. DreamWorks uses animals and cartoon like characters for their films. This does not mean that the film is any less impressive as the live action movies with CGI in them. It is even more impressive that, because the entire film is CGI. The time, detail, and effort that went into the film can be seen in the fur of the tiger from Kung Fu Panda.
Many concerns about the ever developing CGI technologies. Is that many actors might lose their career to a CGI counter part. Software is being developed to automatically match, morph, map and render a 3D model of a person's face just from a picture.
Many concerns about the ever developing CGI technologies. Is that many actors might lose their career to a CGI counter part. Software is being developed to automatically match, morph, map and render a 3D model of a person's face just from a picture.
The fear of jobs lost is not to be concerned. CGI can never full take an actor's job. Tools like stop motion capture needs the assistants of actors to wear the mo-cap suit. Characters in movie will always need voice actors. The improvement of CGI and 3D animation will create new jobs for people to partake in. Although one thing can be said and that is Movies have became better due to CGI and will only get better from here on.