Some serious problems with character artists?

[wesserbro]

Recently I'v watched Jurassic World and latest Terminator... Well, as a CG guy i probably must blanch over our Hollywood's, New Zelands or whatever mates, but I'll just support regular people and say this: cg arnold looks like rendered with standard arnold|mray skin shader, has some major motion blur issues, not that great deformations and some 'jeff lew' style animations (even though they've used mocap extensively).
New raptors from JW have awful head shapes (just no style at all, like some manager drew the concepts), some 80's style skin details, animated with no heart and 'not-so-good' rendered.
....FOR A SUCH A BIG PROJECTS ! It would be good for a commercial or TV series, it still requires big skills, but do you think there is no one who could do it better? Why they are hiding, why they are not hired by major studios? Why-why-why?
Ok, with JW there was some big production issues, but that goddamn Schwartz, one main CG character everyone to examine most, why?! ^))

[MauricioPC]

Because it was made in maya!

Joking aside ... I think it's because the budgets for VFX are getting shorter and shorter, as well as the time available to do the shots. So that makes it look worst than it could!

I didn't see the movies so I don't know ... but the trailers didn't make me want to watch it.

[ActionArt]

Money.

It's very simple. Studios don't want to pay a nickel more than they have to to make the average viewer happy.

When I saw JW I noticed there was such a variation in quality. Some was great and some was really bad.

[Hirazi Blue]

Could the subtlety lie with a general approach. shying away from specialists?

[luceric]

the theory that getting ILM and MCP working two years on these is somehow about cutting corners and wanting things cheaply done: fail.

btw, here is some background on the terminator arnold http://www.fxguide.com/featured/termina ... s-new-vfx/

[wesserbro]

btw, here is some background on the terminator arnold http://www.fxguide.com/featured/termina ... s-new-vfx/

well, i was almost right, that famous multi-layered sss model, which for some reason is considered by everyone to be very realistic despite the fact that even silicon make-up has more fleshy look (in terms of shading) ))

[Mathaeus]

Yeah, pic of generated Arnie looks like something from post on forum, titled 'my shader is too too waxy, how I can fix that', or 'should I change renderer' .
It's not first one, anyway. First time I've been disappointed by work of big players, it was a character animation in Attack of Clones, 2002 or so, especially walks, some of them looked like plain loops (someone was riding some huge animal), Kaminoans movement was also so so, not really inventive... Or, looks-like-nothing hulls of all flying machines in Avatar, also a lot of cartoonish look from same movie. Some were total disappointment, like complete shading and lighting in Polar Express. Have to admit, that I never ever been a fan of anything from Pixar's and Disney's, over-sugared cousine.

But, in my conspiracy theory, it's not that they didn't know how to do the right thing. I think it's more a result of corporation policy, bad compromise between many interests, so the final become that infamous 'chewed by a cow' result (sorry for phrase form my native language, but I think it's understandable). That''s why products of mid-level teams, doing game trailers, often are looking far more advanced...

Anyway, movies are movies, but these articles like FXGuide are really top of nothing, these days. No any usable information - 'we did this or that using in house software called Chupacabra' - so the hell what with this. Unusable for slinging, when everyone could make a great looking thing with, let's say Octane and Blender combo. Not believable, as there is no one negative in them. Not even an interesting style of propaganda. Usually I'm reading only few sentences, do a search, which words are mentioned, then I'm switching to anything more interesting, far away of 'big boys 3d'. Who cares, today...

[MauricioPC]

Would it be cool to have a show like Top Gear for 3D VFX. Where they actually picked down the work done and criticize where it should.

I loved when they tested a Ferrari or a BMW and said: "well ... this car isn't worth it what it costs", etc. Do that in VFX and nobody will ever give you a trailer for you to review.


Now ... I haven't seen the movies, but it's not because it's ILM or WETA or MPC that they always get it right. Budgets are shrinking and time as well, so I feel we'll see more of this "half-done" results.

[luceric]

Nobody at that level of budget brand recognition half-assed the hero shot of CG Arnold that the audience is looking for because of shrinking budget. If things looks a certain way, it's a creative decision between the cg sup and the director.

btw fxguide does have an even more in-depth podcast with the cg sups, and another one, called the "vfx show", which takes a more critical eye at the effects of a movie.


---

there is something that's gone out-of-whack with dramatic lighting, color grading and post-3D conversions, none of which having to do with "character artists". That's a more interesting discussion, imho. It's also dangerous to paint things with a broad stroke, and not take shots individually to dissect it. For example, in jurassic world they used an actual prop/animatronic dino for some scenes, to get back to the look of the original film. Also, every "weird shape head" dino probably has a reason behind it that is more complicated than "a manager drew it", with scientists on staff. It's not very good to first assume that everyone is incompetent/lazy/cheap

[MauricioPC]

That may be the case, but then, as a spectator, I feel the decision was bad.

Its the same with the Hobbit films. I find the quality of the VFX better in the old Lord of the Rings.

I don't know, there's something about the new look in the last big films that don't please me that much.

Just to point out, I didn't see Terminator, but I read online in many places people complaining about the CG look of Arnold.

[wesserbro]

It's not very good to first assume that everyone is incompetent/lazy/cheap

Yeah, that was a little bit of provocation asking if something is wrong with artists. I also believe its a process to blame. Its more about who makes the final decision. I saw this little documentary about R&H bankruptcy, and it was pretty clear that artists are unhappy with the process when you make something, your supervisor approves it then sends further to director but before the director there is some mediator folks which can turn the result back without director even seeing it. And all this going back and force, wasting time and resources. And moreover, plan is constantly changing, director comes with new ideas, bunch of "creative" folks on a film-company side also compete with each other to prove who's more creative and also come with ideas, and this whole mess looks more like raping the VFX-company.
Also I remember when i was watching this fxguide interview with Tissue developers one of them said: "..and when we showed it to Sam Worthington (actor who played main character) he said he wants his avatar to be more realistic, so we were forced to create a new muscles system based on finite elements", and I was like "WTF, supervisor tells you what he wants to see, director tells, and now you must do what a goddamn actor wants! what a drag.... "

[wesserbro]

Also, every "weird shape head" dino probably has a reason behind it that is more complicated than "a manager drew it", with scientists on staff.

Nature is beautiful in all its forms being it horse or rat, that guys were ugly. Here is my guess what happened: talented concept artist drew a cool raptor, someone of "decision-makers" (DM) said he don't like it, artist drew another one, cool as well , DM said it resembles raptor from JP III and that's not good, artist drew one more, but DM with no feel of shape said "why don't we just replace this badass curved jaw with a straight-line toy-like bullshit, because paleontologists say raptors had a straight beak and feather, but we don't want them to have feather and beaks, so lets just end up with this retarded frog muzzle"

[wesserbro]

Would it be cool to have a show like Top Gear for 3D VFX. Where they actually picked down the work done and criticize where it should.

+ for that
I also dont understand why you can say what you don't like about a car, or shoes, or a sandwich at restaurant, but about vfx you allowed to say only good things, otherwise you are rude, ignorant bastard with no soul.

[SamHowell]

I always thought this post from CG Memes summed up the problem with how modern VFX looks quite nicely.



You can't really judge any VFX in either movies or TV without knowing more about the budget, pipeline and creative cow chewing that happens. Every production is almost a self contained world with various (often arbitrary) creative factors coming into play every time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[luchifer]

As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Im not sure how any of these criticism can be constructive at all. If a client tell me that my dino skin texture looks like the '80s (???)... im not sure how would I "fix" that.

[wesserbro]

deleted
reason: to fat trolling, i'm ashamed