Definition of 'CGI' *spawn
- Thread starter davis.anthony
- Start date
Whether it has or hasn't, what words mean on this forum is paramount to being able to communicate with our specific dialect. If it doesn't make sense to you and you think we're all nuts, just keep using 'realtime' instead yourself and revel in your intellectual superiority...
Words change meaning! All the time. In this case, I think it's changed away from what it naturally meant, a distinction derived when there was a world of difference between movie CG and computer games, towards a more homogenised meaning where workloads now overlap considerably.
Ultimately, words exist to facilitate communication, and the changing meaning of words is what gives us a different language from our ancestors. A natural change to a word, which happens all the time ("Awesome!" Or the greatest travesty in language, "literally!"), isn't necessarily a bad thing to be resisted, and you can't stop it anyway. If it improves understanding and shortens effort to communicate, it's typically a good thing and why the language changes that way, adapting to new contexts. Although sometimes it's wrong and pedants must unite. But not in this case.
tl;dr - just go with it.
How do you differentiate between realtime and non-realtime graphics in conversation?
Oh, with just that, precisely: realtime or non-realtime.
Again, I understand all appreciations on this matter, though.
Cynicalking
Regular
Real-time and pre-rendered.
DavidGraham
Veteran
I agree, CGI is a term coined by the movies industry to distinguish between actual live action scenes and computer graphics.
When discussing current movies, it's valid to use that term, whether real time or pre-rendered, it's all the same, they are graphics generated by the computer vs live scenes.
But when discussing games, CGI is a no longer valid term, it's either pre-rendered or rendered, as all images in games are computer generated. Pre-rendered encompasses scenes generated using in-engine or outside engine graphics.
When discussing current movies, it's valid to use that term, whether real time or pre-rendered, it's all the same, they are graphics generated by the computer vs live scenes.
But when discussing games, CGI is a no longer valid term, it's either pre-rendered or rendered, as all images in games are computer generated. Pre-rendered encompasses scenes generated using in-engine or outside engine graphics.
Guys the "real time" footage of the Unreal Engine 5 Keanu Reeves is also prerendered CGI because it's a video on Youtube.
Also after some point when real time graphics will be indistinguishable from prerendered it will all be rendered in "real time" therefore CGI will be extinct
Also after some point when real time graphics will be indistinguishable from prerendered it will all be rendered in "real time" therefore CGI will be extinct
It's worth adding that in relation to the context of the original use that spawned this discussion, the Keanu Reeves clip, CGI is used to differentiate between computer generated visuals as opposed to photography, and not between realtime and non-realtime. Ergo, 'CGI' to mean computer imagery is fine, and the distinction then between realtime or prerendered should use a different phrasing to not confuse.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
This thread is hysterical.
Can we just go back to using FMV. I miss all the hype around FMV, as a child of the 80's. Those were the days.
Maybe with ML-AA they wouldn't blur as much?The lines are truly blurring
That's old tech now. Nvidia's new "Deep Blurrning SS/AA" tech is the future!
Of live action, or CGI?
Maybe live-action CGI where the puppeteers are donned with motion capture suits?
Real-time, or when you have time to consider it later at your leisure?
