Has television CGI caught up with Jurassic Park?

[inlimbo]

this has been covered, but it's all about the right animation, lighting and composites. jurassic park isn't perfect, but it never crosses into the uncanny valley because, as hugh said, it never overreached for the sake of pure detail.

cg is a such a crapshoot now because the industry is driven by technology first. in its infancy it was driven by artists

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Er... not really. If anything is a problem it's the director and studio head attitude towards it. They expect unrealistic amounts of work to get done in laughable amounts of time, they change their mind about shots far too many times, and so on.

When a good director like Fincher, Neil Blomkamp, Scott, or James Cameron is on board, then CG is used well. It's the new breed that generates most of the bad stuff like Green Lantern. And Lucas, too.

Oh and as surprising as it might sound, Peter Jackson is also a quite bad director from a CG standpoint. Things got so rushed on LOTR and Kong it's a small wonder the movies got more or less completed.

 

[swaaye]

One transition to CGI that impressed me back in the day was Star Trek TV shows. They had their motion control models for years and only went to CGI after they had tested the waters thoroughly and were sure it wouldn't cost anything in the visual quality of the shots. When they finally switched, the CGI was almost always a clear improvement over the motion control work. Also interesting was that the CGI was primarily produced by Foundation Imaging, the same company that worked on the very fakey Babylon 5 CGI.

BTW, that new Terra Nova show is another good example of how far TV is behind movies when it comes to animation. More TV dinosaurs for ya. The pilot also had a painfully obvious blue screen digital set outdoor vista moment. Of course part of the problem today is we're watching in HD on a large TV instead of SD on a 25" TV...

 

[inlimbo]

Er... not really. If anything is a problem it's the director and studio head attitude towards it. They expect unrealistic amounts of work to get done in laughable amounts of time, they change their mind about shots far too many times, and so on.

When a good director like Fincher, Neil Blomkamp, Scott, or James Cameron is on board, then CG is used well. It's the new breed that generates most of the bad stuff like Green Lantern. And Lucas, too.

Oh and as surprising as it might sound, Peter Jackson is also a quite bad director from a CG standpoint. Things got so rushed on LOTR and Kong it's a small wonder the movies got more or less completed.

i get that, and jackson doesn't surprise me at all, but even competent cg produced under a reasonable timeline varies from studio to studio. i don't know what the working conditions were like for the incredible hulk, but it's a good example of well-produced cg that hits all the wrong notes.

maybe leterrier shares some of the blame in what he asked for, but i doubt he exercised the kind of control that cameron does, so the rest falls on the artists. and cameron's working style is good even under imperfect circumstances because he's a both a pragmatist and perfectionist and his background as an illustrator/painter/matte artist helps in working with others to realize his vision.

 

[Davros]

It's the new breed that generates most of the bad stuff

Thats why in the last Jurassic park they used real dinosaurs

 

[suryad]

I am quite surprised about the Jackson comment. Are there articles or something that I could read on the web that talk about stuff like that? I am quite fascinated

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Well, not really, it's more like a few little remarks in blogs, email lists, or in a pub...

The CG industry has a very fast rotation of people all around the larger studios. Whenever a big project starts a lot of people get hired from many countries but usually only for that one gig. So there are a few thousand guys maybe who have been at a lot of such studios, seen and heard a lot of things, and that's how such info spreads.

 

[homerdog]

Regarding TV CGI quality, I think for the vast majority of cases it comes down to limiting the scope of what they're trying to do. As noted in this thread, Jurassic Park still looks good because they chose their battles wisely. Even with today's vastly more advanced technology, if the director overreaches with the CGI it will show. Especially on a lowish budget TV show.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Good time to start talking about Jurassic Park special effect with the release.

Watching it in HD, I notice in brightly lit scene, the picture quality turns to crap whenever they had to use CGI. Everything looks find at night or dimly lit kitchen.

 

[Arwin]

Thats why in the last Jurassic park they used real dinosaurs

It IS worth noting that they used replicas for some of the scenes rather than CGI, so in that sense you're right.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Compositing and digital image processing wasn't as advanced back when they did JP 1, proper gamma management and linear workflow and such weren't even thought of.

 

[homerdog]

It IS worth noting that they used replicas for some of the scenes rather than CGI, so in that sense you're right.

No they actually found it cheaper to retrieve dino DNA from an ancient mosquito trapped in amber and recreate the dinosaurs from that DNA sample. True story. You did watch the movie, right? They explain it all there.