Mog and Chips

I’ve got a craving for creativity at the moment. Really rather bad timing since I can’t see enough to draw without giving myself eyestrain, and the RP forum’s practically dead, and most of our books have gone to the bookbank because our ceiling was caving in over the weight of all my sister’s books.

But I have done some drawing, and I’d like to take a look at Softimage so I know what I’m doing next year at uni. Providing, of course, that we have a tutor for said part of the course, and considering their prospectus said it covered all bases, the shit will hit the fan if we aren’t taught that properly, not matter whether they lower the pass grade.

The current state of the CGI industry bothers me. I think, stuck on the problem of the “Uncanny Valley” when it comes to making something that is so close to human we notice all the unhuman qualities, rather than something unhuman that we notice human qualities in, the industry is churning out one animal-comedy after another. And while these might be entertaining for a short time, there’s nothing epic about them. There’s your little morals about how important friends are, there’s moderate peril, but there’s nothing like the old Disney movie or even big live action movies like Gladiator and such.

And then you get the arguements. “CGI has no life” “CGI films are awful” “2D is better than CGI”. They’re two different materials, one isn’t better than the other, it’s just one’s being used in a better way. There’s 3D in the Hunchback of Notre Dame for the backgrounds. Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron and The Road to El Dorado - they’re all 3D films, but they’ve been made with a layer that makes the characters look 2D. Ok, the 3D is probably for saving money, and once you’ve got the studio set up it’s cheaper to make CGI than 2D feature films (or claymation), and that’s why there’s the big interest (And probably why Dreamworks pushed Aardman into CGI)

All you avid CGI-haters read up about toonshaders, then go look at behind the scenes on El Dorado or Spirit, then come back to me and tell me again how much 2D rocks and 3D doesn’t. Because it’s pissing me off you won’t give 3D a chance just because it’s being used badly.

On the other hand, dear producers of Polar Express, stop saying “3D is the only way forward”. It’s not the ‘only’ way forward, it’s one way forward, and if you can have the nerve to say that when you worked backwards (they stuck movement sensors on people, like with gollum in Lord of the Rings) and still get things wrong… gah. If there was ever an example of the Uncanny Valley, that film is it.

Apparently we’re estimated about 10 years off ever getting photorealistic CGI people.

http://www.vetorzero.com.br/kaya/kaya1.html Actually, I’d say we’re pretty close. It think the problem is more to do with the movement. I saw this a couple of years ago, soI don’t know where they are now.

On the other hand, looking at the mouth, there’s something off about the way it moves, and I’m thinking perhaps it’s the way it’s been modelled, but when I look at the wireframe, it looks about right, so maybe not. (The making of) There’s also a bit under her eye when she moves that’s shiny where it shouldn’t be, which may be the eyeball literally popping through the skin (god knows that’s annoying, when I tried to make a person in Maya before) but I would have thought they’d be more careful than that. In addition, it’s flesh coloured, not white.

I may go look up some soft image tutorials and have a mess around, since that’s what we’ll be using at uni. The principles will be the same, but the interface looks more like Max, which I’ve always found difficult.

Trackback URL