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I think there's a lost magic to practical SFX, but nostalgia aside, the single most important flaw I see in CGI that still remains unfixed to this day is... ..

by the_af 5y ago

I think there's a lost magic to practical SFX, but nostalgia aside, the single most important flaw I see in CGI that still remains unfixed to this day is... ... bad lights/contrast. In almost every CGI scene, barring honorable exceptions, you see the CGI portions are fake because the lights are all bad. The comparison shot in the article between Steppenwolf and Tim Curry's Darkness from "Legend" is telling: while Darkness is shrouded in, well, shadows with sharp contrast, it looks as if Steppenwolf is brightly and uniformly lit. Things that lack contrast and are uniformly lit are less visually interesting, especially when they don't match the environment. I notice this flaw in everything: Jurassic Park's dinosaurs, Star Wars ships, monsters in Lord of the Rings, mostly every modern creature effect. I know CGI artists must know this, so I wonder... why is it so difficult to fix? (The honorable exceptions are mostly due to showing the CGI creature more sparingly, or where the light conditions by coincidence really match the creature).

saltminer 5y ago
Lighting in general seems to be underappreciated, even without CGI. I'm reminded of Fifty Shades Freed, which starts with a wedding scene that's lit with green. Green lighting is basically nonexistent in nature, so when you see it, it's not an accident - someone had to mess with it, and it's usually to indicate something is wrong/unnatural. You can really see the care put into films like The Matrix with how they use green lighting, which is in stark contrast with films like Fifty Shades Freed which use it mindlessly. But when the author says > Every movie now takes place as if it were in The Matrix, appearing in deep greens or blues or in gray shades, like the complex colors of the world have been bleached out. I don't think he really gets it. Sure, unnecessary color grading is easier than ever to accomplish, but intentional use of lighting to help tell the story is probably going over his head.

by the_af 5y ago

saltminer 5y ago

Lighting in general seems to be underappreciated, even without CGI. I'm reminded of Fifty Shades Freed, which starts with a wedding scene that's lit with green. Green lighting is basically nonexistent in nature, so when you see it, it's not an accident - someone had to mess with it, and it's usually to indicate something is wrong/unnatural. You can really see the care put into films like The Matrix with how they use green lighting, which is in stark contrast with films like Fifty Shades Freed which use it mindlessly. But when the author says > Every movie now takes place as if it were in The Matrix, appearing in deep greens or blues or in gray shades, like the complex colors of the world have been bleached out. I don't think he really gets it. Sure, unnecessary color grading is easier than ever to accomplish, but intentional use of lighting to help tell the story is probably going over his head.