believable CG effects

S

Saleh Omar

New member
Just watched War of the WorlRAB and the CG overload ruined the film to me, too much of it looked like something out of a computer game and didn't fool my eyes into thinking it was really taking place.

What do you guys reckon are the most realistic CG effects ever seen in a move, and howabout votes for the worst as well.
 
Worst = SS Doomtrooper, B-movie usually on Sky Movies the wrong side of 12am. Involves Nazi's, genetically modified mutant soldiers, rubbish acting and the most unrealistic sfx this side of the 1980's. What's not to like :)
 
It's almost impossible to know what the most realistic CG effects in a movie are as the very best most realistic effects are often invisible.

Obviously it's different if the effects are done to make a dinosaur or something, then that would be different as you'd know that they'd have to use SFX.

Often the best SFX are only apparent when you see a 'making of' TV show which shows how a special effect was put together.
You think "Wow, I didn't even know that was a special effect, I thought it was real".
Those are the most realistic CG effects because they completely fool the viewer.

So I'd say something like either the underground tubeway fight scene in The Matrix, because I just assumed that the environment that they were fighting is was completely real when I first watched it. It turned out the the entire environment which they were fighting in was actually a 3D computer generated environment.
Very impressive, you could watch it again right now and still swear that it was real.

And also the CG effects to recreate a fictional version of Manhattan, New York, in Spiderman.
I believe that some parts were real buildings which were mixed in with 3D computer graphic buildings, and were seamlessly blended together when Spiderman is swooping around swinging by his web amongst the New York skyline.
Outstanding CG effects.

The recreation of 1930's New York in King Kong, and the jungle itself, were also some of the best CG effects I've seen around recently.
 
Agreed. I'm a CGI/Animatronics lass (one of about four of us in the entire industry, I think!) and you'd be shocked as to what's CGI. A lot of scenes in the movie Hostel incorporated a fair amount of CGI and even I (knowing the tricks of the trade!) didn't notice some of it.

I thought Davy Jones in POTC 2 was VERY well done. Obviously he wasn't real, but many people mistook the CGI for prosthetics.
 
Jurassic Park, and even some of it was dodgy....

CGI is always overused in a movie, I would much prefer real props used rather than prople acting to something that isn't there and is superimposed on the film later on. The Thing being a great example, beautifully disgusting special effects there and they work really well.

No more CGI, use stop motion and real props!

Paddy :D
 
It's not always practical to use real things, and sometimes things quite frankly just cannot be done. Additionally, it can be cheaper in this day and age to CG model something than to create an animatron or prosthetics to do the same task. $$$$, baby!
 
Gladiator has some of the best effects I've ever seen, so many you don't notice until you watch how they did it and you go, wow, that was a effect.
 
Jurassic Park, by far the best use of CGI. Film makers these days rely far too much on it, and makes it too 'glossy' and unbelievable. The whole point of a film is to make you believe it's real for as long as possible. You can't watch some movies for 5 minutes now before thinking "Is this a computer game or something!?".
 
I would agree with King Kong, superb CGI.

The worst for me are the fights with Doc Oc - both after the bank raid and on the train - in Spiderman 2. It's so obviously not Alfred Molina. Also the CGI of Keanu Reeves in the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions is absolute pants.
 
yer i agree i think cgi is over used, sometimes its better to film it using other techniques but it takes time and costs so now everyone uses cgi ;p
 
The problem now is that big effects movies have to overuse CG to call themselves a big effects movie. You could call Terminator 2 a big effects movie, yes? And yet there's only a handful of CG shots with the rest of the effects done either practically, with model work, animation etc. It makes the CG shots more special, and because CG isn't overused (well, in those days they COULDN'T overuse it) it doesn't feel like you're in a game rather than a movie.

Jurassic Park probably has around a 10th of the number of CG shots that a movie of it's size made now would have.
 
The best = Battle Royale, Director's Cut. Wow.
The Worst = The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - they overused it, so the continuity errors were glaringly obvious. There was a rather large hole blasted in the side of Captain Nemo's ship, and in between cuts it was fixed and even had an extra coat of gloss!
 
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