Alien Isolation

[London Geezer]

Aliens' was made in 1986. CGI was virtually non-existent then, and when used was obviously CG. There's nothing CGI could have contributed to Aliens beyond the computer displays themselves. It couldn't handle realistic creatures.

I'm pretty sure Terminator 2 was in '91 and that made a huge noise because of the CGI metallic guy, which today looks like PS3 level of graphics - from memory!

So creating a super detailed CGI model like the slimey alien would indeed have been pretty tough 5 years prior to that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

T2 was famed for its CGI, but most of what I thoguht was CGI, like the exploded T1000 at the end, were created with traditional tech. It was only the morphing metal that used CGI, at considerable time and cost.

First use of CGI for creatures that I recall was Jurrasic Park, for a few minutes of dino shots. It's only the latest applications that convincingly blend CG with real world where one can easily envisage computer graphic aliens fighting real actors. In the 1980s, it was rubber suits and miniatures all the way!

 

[Phil]

Sorry, I stand corrected, but perhaps I'm a bit alien to the terminology of what is included in CGI and CG. I was under the impression that there were some effects during the late 70 and 80s that used computer generated content, even if in a very primitive form. The original Star Wars 1980 comes to mind for example. I didn't think there was a big distinction (in terminology) in what was done then and what followed in the 90s with T2 at the forefront.

Anyway, my main point was more along the lines that in 79 when Alien was shot, the design of the Alien must have been somewhat influenced by the filming techniques available at the time, which IMO attributed to the Alien being portrayed a bit like a biped, due to necessity of using clever angles, lighting and a rubber suit (even though they tried to mask this). I was under the belief, that more advanced filming techniques (falsly assumed to be party due to CGI) 7 years later (and a higher budget) contributed to the Alien being changed a bit to be portrayed more like the original vision, something that to me looked a bit more like a Raptor - e.g. quicker, more dangerous, scary and less like a thing that looks a bit like a mutated humanbeing with an Alien head. I thought the Queen at the end portrayed this quite well, though that was obviously quite a different model and different technique being used than the other Aliens throughout the 1986 movie...

Anyway, this and everything made me wonder if the Alien in this movie is modelled accurately after the constraints of the '79 movie or what I believed to be more of the design in the later sequel. I guess it's a complicated question with an even more complicated answer, as there are different hypothesis on a fictual being (like the intepretation on what the tail does etc) and the actual limitations of filming such a movie in the 80ties... What originated in H.R. Gigers head and ultimately ended up on the screen must have been quite different (due to the limitations), even if the latter is still to this date one of, if not the, scariest incarnation of an Alien design.

IMO - I prefer the Alien being portrayed more like a Raptor being - or perhaps even in the direction of the design that was used in the 3rd movie, even if that was more dog like due to where it came from. In other words, as far away as possible from that burnt in scene I still have in my head from the original movie where it just screemed "rubbersuit Alien". I will definately re-watch the movie though and perhaps grab a screen of the scene that I am refering to.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Aliens' was made in 1986. CGI was virtually non-existent then, and when used was obviously CG. There's nothing CGI could have contributed to Aliens beyond the computer displays themselves. It couldn't handle realistic creatures.

I can't recall anything substantial done in CGI, as we accept it now, from the mid 1980s but in 1989 came James Cameron's The Abyss with the alien water tentacle. Quite an advance in a few years!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

First movies to use some sort of CGI in key scenes:
Tron (although a lot of the movie is actually traditional animation and rotoscoping)
Star Trek II (Genesis device terraforming scene)
The Last Starfighter (space scenes)
Star Trek IV also had some scanned head models of the crew appear in some kind of clouds during the time travel scenes

Star Wars used some wireframe renders for the Death Star plans and attack briefing. Those systems were so ancient, there was no framebuffer and the comupter was drawing stuff directly on the screen. Then it was filmed with a camera. Tron was filmed from a computer monitor, too.

 

[London Geezer]

Star Wars used some wireframe renders for the Death Star plans and attack briefing. Those systems were so ancient, there was no framebuffer and the comupter was drawing stuff directly on the screen. Then it was filmed with a camera. Tron was filmed from a computer monitor, too.

That's mental! Your info is always gold. You're like B3D's Santa.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Hehe, thanks

I've actually attended a talk by one of the original animators on Tron, it was of course awesome.
They've planned the entire lightcycle scene on paper, and calculated both the cycles' movement and the camera position on paper. He even had some of the sheets scanned, curves and grids and all.
Now they were in LA and the studio rendering the sequence in NY, so they phoned there and dictated the coord data for each frame. Up to 6 lightcycles and a camera, translations and rotations. The guy entering the numbers ended up directing the Ice Age movies later, by the way.

Once the data was in the computer, they rendered out the sequence and filmed the screen, then sent the actual reel back to LA. The animators then went to a theatre to see what they actually did.
Today what we do is clicking on the timeline in Maya to hw render a 'playblast' in a few seconds. Back then it took weeks.

Later on, they got a modem and they were able to watch a local computer draw wireframe scenes in a few minutes at the studio. The animator was also the first guy to appear in a magazine as a guy sitting in front of a computer doing graphics.

I guess it's obvious that the room was completely full for this talk...

 

[Jedi2016]

The first CGI xeno was in Alien 3, and it was only one shot. In fact, I don't think it was even the entire alien, I think it was just the head.

 

[DieH@rd]

The first CGI xeno was in Alien 3, and it was only one shot. In fact, I don't think it was even the entire alien, I think it was just the head.

Yeah. They talked about that in Alien3 behiund the scenes documentary [it was hard to see how FOX consistently destroyed Fincher's production on daily basis].

 

[milk]

All that behind the scenes info is very new and fascinating to me. The original Alien's design sure was very inpired. Looked up some pics of it on the web now, and wow, what an artist.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Oh, the funniest thing about Giger was watching the actual interviews on the DVD set. See, I originally thought the guy likes this crazy scary stuff the way we ordinary people like nice and good things. But it turns out, he's just as repulsed and scared - but apparently he likes to feel these things.

Then again, the fact that people can be like this might be news just to me

 

[Jedi2016]

I think he mentioned once that it's a way of coping with nightmares, to get them out of his head and onto paper or canvas. He's a hell of an artist, though, I'm definitely a fan. In fact, I have a couple of his books downstairs.

 

[Nesh]

If I remember right I think he was disappointed with the Alien adaptation in Aliens 3 because his involvement in the design and feedback was limited by the producers

 

[Cyan]

You should really watch Aliens again, your memories seem to be confused a bit. Or maybe you just didn't look into the movies that deeply; I had to, back when were making a trailer for Colonial Marines (but it's never been completed or released). In fact you should re-watch all the movies, the first two are still quite good and the third isn't so bad either

So, the first alien was designed to look as much different from a "man in suit" as possible. The guy playing the creature was 7 feet tall and extremely thin so he could usually look strange enough on his own. Sometimes they also had him squat and crouch, but the most important trick was to hide most of the body in shadow or outside the camera's view.

The "Aliens" creatures are all just humans in very primitive suits, they were dancers and acrobats. But there are many clever tricks to sell the illusion that they're inhuman - hanging from wires, flipping the camera upside down and so on. Also, the tubes on the back of the creature and the tail itself really help to confuse the silhouette, especially with the quick editing, fast movement, and clever lighting. They're also flopping around a lot because of the costume's simplicity And of course Cameron was clever enough to keep hiding most of the creature in shadow and smoke the same way Scott did.
The suits were this simple:

By the way, the dome was ridged because all the action scenes would have broken a smooth dome in minutes. The ridges reinforced the costume enough to withstand a little beating. Some of the surface or skin details were also a bit more organic compared to Giger's "biomech" design.

The Alien 3 "runner" or "dog alien" is inconsistent in the movie - some shots are played by a man in suit and there it's constrained to human anatomy. They try to hide it as much as possible, but the limbs are shorter and the entire creature is much thicker in these shots.
Full body shots are created with a stop motion puppet which runs on all fours, has digitrade back legs, and the four tubes are gone from the back. It is actually very different from the creatures in any of the other movies.

It is a pleasure to read your posts, Laa. So in the end they were actors and aliens walk among us. :smile2: I wonder if there were male and females aliens, not counting the alien queen.

As you can see in male and female human skulls there are differences -specially the brow ridge-, I wonder if they could somewhat translate that to the movie... if they didn't already. (gotta admit I am not much into Aliens movies, but I really really liked them when I watched those movies)

 

[Cyan]

Hehe, thanks

I've actually attended a talk by one of the original animators on Tron, it was of course awesome.
They've planned the entire lightcycle scene on paper, and calculated both the cycles' movement and the camera position on paper. He even had some of the sheets scanned, curves and grids and all.
Now they were in LA and the studio rendering the sequence in NY, so they phoned there and dictated the coord data for each frame. Up to 6 lightcycles and a camera, translations and rotations. The guy entering the numbers ended up directing the Ice Age movies later, by the way.

Once the data was in the computer, they rendered out the sequence and filmed the screen, then sent the actual reel back to LA. The animators then went to a theatre to see what they actually did.
Today what we do is clicking on the timeline in Maya to hw render a 'playblast' in a few seconds. Back then it took weeks.

Later on, they got a modem and they were able to watch a local computer draw wireframe scenes in a few minutes at the studio. The animator was also the first guy to appear in a magazine as a guy sitting in front of a computer doing graphics.

I guess it's obvious that the room was completely full for this talk...

Hey Laa, just curious.... Have you played the original AvP game? It was one of the best FPS games I've ever played and I didn't acknowledge its existence 'til I purchased an expensive soundcard and the game was bundled for free with it.

The Predator campaign was very fun, and the Marine campaign was plain memorable, like an horror film, it scared the hell outta me. One of my favourite campaigns made in a game to date.

The Aliens campaign was one I never got into because I had a hard time controlling the alien with the fish-eye lens view and the updown thing.

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On a different note, have you watched this awesome very recent video (more than a million views already) of an Hungarian musician called Csemer Boglarka?

It shows what Photoshop can do to people in order to look better, but the most amazing thing is that it is done in real-time!! not in a still photo.

Have you ever done that? I wonder.... I thought that this wasn't possible.

Sounds cool in French. I would love to listen to the version of this song in her native Magyar language for the variety, too.

EDIT: found the song in Magyar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qrGOi41iwE

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Of course I've seen the video

That "realtime" photoshop work is actually 4 months of post production and it involves 5 different takes of the song, with various stages of make-up (where the first involves shadows under her eyes and a few artificial skin blemishes, which are then "erased").

It's impossible to do stuff like that for the most part. You can do certain tricks in high speed compositing workstations where software and hardware are closely tuned together, but still nothing like that.

Some post production artists already expressed fears that many people (including clients) will interpret the video as real...


As for AvP, I remember, even though it was really lowres it was way too scary for me.

 

[AlNom]

dem facehuggers, man.

*scritch* *scratch*....

.....


...*scritch* *scratch*...

 

[Cyan]

Of course I've seen the video

That "realtime" photoshop work is actually 4 months of post production and it involves 5 different takes of the song, with various stages of make-up (where the first involves shadows under her eyes and a few artificial skin blemishes, which are then "erased").

It's impossible to do stuff like that for the most part. You can do certain tricks in high speed compositing workstations where software and hardware are closely tuned together, but still nothing like that.

Some post production artists already expressed fears that many people (including clients) will interpret the video as real...


As for AvP, I remember, even though it was really lowres it was way too scary for me.

I somewhat knew you knew... Besides the fact that you are an artist, Aren't you Hungarian after all? :smile2:

Thanks for telling me how they made the video. You seem to have worked on it, didn't you? :smile2:Just curious....

This is the song in her native Magyar language, btw.

That's one of the things I like about being European, the variety.

Be it English, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French, etc... For instance, my mother's tongue is only spoken by around 2 million people in the world.

dem facehuggers, man.

*scritch* *scratch*....

.....


...*scritch* *scratch*...

:smile: Oh man... that's it, now I recall even better.

That certainly brings many memories. I remember playing this game at night quite a few times during the cold and humid Autumn and Winter nights and it was the game that managed to pump my adrenaline in the most intense way any other game ever could. Sheer horror, but so great in the end.

Condemned on the Xbox 360 was also one of those scary games, but it never came close to Alien vs Predator on the PC.

 

[AlNom]

Always tried to save up those pulse rifle grenades and nuke the room as soon as I heard the fhugger. >_<

 

[Sigfried1977]

Yeah. They talked about that in Alien3 behiund the scenes documentary [it was hard to see how FOX consistently destroyed Fincher's production on daily basis].

I'm pretty sure that wasn't even in the original theatrical release. It was added years later for the director's cut's birth scene. It's the scene where the newborn Alien stumbles away from that giant Cow-lookingthing it just burst out of. In the theatrical release it's a dog and a puppet.