12 ms·

“I believe CGI is getting worse even as the tech advances.”

57 points by Flatcircle 5y ago

Flatcircle 5y ago
An example of the real scale of the pyramids. https://twitter.com/digbylidstone/status/1511165586344194055?s=21&t=YR7Yt1pUS3UZfk14xTbK1w https://twitter.com/digbylidstone/status/1511165586344194055...
tpmx 5y ago
Software development advances have enabled worse and smaller teams of artists to produce sorta publisher-wise good-enough CGI, in greater volumes than ever before. It's essentially the same thing we're seeing in e.g. web/service/app development: An explosion in the number of people working in the field along with an explosion in the tool space "advancements". I find it all kind of depressing.
- noahtallen 5y ago
  Alternatively, you could see it as a good thing because more people can access a previously “elite” field. There are so many examples of this. The alternative is that fewer people who might be excellent can’t overcome the barrier to entry. The raw number of very good coders or CGI artists now is probably significantly higher now that more people can access the field.
MBCook 5y ago
When characters really stand out from the background, isn’t that more an issue of the lighting in the scene than the CGI? I mean this isn’t really “CGI“, is it? I guess maybe the backgrounds are computer generated. But it just seems like unsuccessful compositing.
- greenknight 5y ago
  This is the thing, if they screw it up on set with the lighting, its the 'CGI' peoples fault that it looks bad. Going on from this, I am sure for every shot that looks 'CG', that there are atleast 100 amazing VFX shots, which are seamless and hidden from people. But these are never picked up or discussed, because people dont realise they are CG.
charcircuit 5y ago
It looks fine, what am I supposed to notice?
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
It’s not the technology. It’s lack of vision, talent and passion combined with executive meddling. Most directors hired consistently these days are low talent “yes people” who won’t rattle cages and will do what the execs want, produce milquetoast inoffensive movies that can be successfully marketed to China.
- ikr678 5y ago
  Execs probably feel CGI crews are 'easier' to manage too, given the unionisation of a lot of traditional film set crews.
  - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    Worth keeping in mind with things like Marvel movies the CGI fight scenes are all being created while the rest of the movie is still being decided and the bits between them are written after they’re finished to connect them. This is why the tone in some of them is so weird and everything feels weightless and without consequence.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tracerbulletx 5y ago
All the examples look to me like they might have been made to intentionally look like theatrical back drops.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I agree it appears intentional. A reply on Twitter says it looks like they intend a stylized 50s look/feel, and that’s definitely plausible to me. Granted I don’t watch a lot of movies, but the production quality of TV I watch has improved by leaps and bounds over the last couple decades and continues to do. I don’t know if that automatically extrapolates to movies but I’d be shocked if they’ve had such sharply different trajectories. If anything, I was expecting this to be some kind of an uncanny valley sort of complaint… not a pretty obvious creative choice. It seems like what keeps getting worse as the technology improves is the pervasive, uncharitable hot takes.
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  Yeah, this looks like a very deliberate effect to me. I don't think I'm a fan of it, but this isn't what trying and failing to blend the background and foreground looks like.
blobby14 5y ago
One of the major contributors to this is the increasing number of VFX studios and artists that have never done physical effects or camera work on set. Early CGI was made, or at least supervised by crews with extensive experience on real props and costumes. Theres a lot more than detailed textures and "physically based rendering" that go into making an effect look real, such as framing the effects shot with recongnizable features for scale and "presence". A poor quality 3d model with bad textures can feel convincing if the director and VFX artists coordinate to fully integrate the effects. Likewise a super detailed and well animated CG character can be ruined by poor shot placement and floaty camera movement. Honestly, so many otherwise fantastically rendered CGI scenes have been destroyed by virtual cameras that accelerate and fly with zero regard for physics. Cutting edge hair physics and multimillion polygon models still need the cinema basics of good camerawork, blocking, and editing.
danamit 5y ago
Not gonna watch a movie with a star with such a pro-genocide background.
lupinglade 5y ago
The same thing is happening in video games and even software. Technology is advancing but quality and talent are vanishing.
thatswrong0 5y ago
Disagree. CGI is getting "easier" in the sense that even low budget films can do things that used to only be reserved for large budgets. And there's so much CGI in use that you don't notice these days because it's so seamless / not the center of attention (e.g. check out this before/after about Wolf of Wall Street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP2sJqoZD7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP2sJqoZD7g). But at the end of the day, you still need good direction and editing that involves understanding the limitations of doing things on the computer vs. in camera. I think this video about Dune provides great examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKupTibxKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKupTibxKQ. One example provided is that using green screen can sometimes result in "flat" unrealistic lighting because the camera doesn't expose the image the same if representative lighting isn't used to actually capture the shot.
- viraptor 5y ago
  I really don't get the part around 1:20 with the house swap. It's not some crazy location - why would they CGI that? Cutting the cost of actually filming away from the studio?
  - DoctorOW 5y ago
    Exactly. Film equipment is heavy and expensive. Why pay everyone to move however far away the desired house is, for a few shots of the exterior?
- lc9er 5y ago
  I think you can see a similar effect in the music industry. Technology has practically eliminated the barrier to entry for recording. On top of that, sales are down, recording budgets are slashed. Why spend valuable studio time tweaking amp settings and mic positioning when you can record direct and scroll through a list of plugins - or so the logic goes.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    To be frank, "tweaking amp settings and mic positioning" was never a requisite for good music. Just an obsession, inspired by the Beatles and later bands "use the studio as an instrument", that often worked to the detriment of traditional musical skills, and is part of what turned the focus from songwriting to production, that enabled today's "just scroll through presets".
miiiiiike 5y ago
To be fair, who’s watching Death on the Nile for the special effects? The only thing the film wants you to remember about the pyramid shot is that the kite guy’s coat is red. It was fine.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
adamredwoods 5y ago
There is a saying in film production: "We'll fix it in post!" The high number of compositors in the credits of a film shows you how many people were needed to fix 'fake' looking scenes such as this. Compositors easily smooth this out, and add fake environment, hair, clothing, or even limbs to hide the excess green-screen cropping. Also, a well-placed cut to a close-up shot can hide awkward actor movements on poor sets.
throw7 5y ago
The example does NOT point out objectively how the CGI is worse even as the tech advances. The artistic aspect could be fine i.e. this is what the vision of the movie entailed.
russellbeattie 5y ago
The advances they've made in virtual production studio backdrops are amazing. Camera-linked floor-to-ceiling 180° LED screens and synced lighting is just amazing. The stuff they're able to do in The Mandalorian is incredible. Though once you know what to look for (the camo hiding the floor/wall seam) you can tell they're using it a bit too much. But still it's incredible. https://youtu.be/gUnxzVOs3rk https://youtu.be/gUnxzVOs3rk
smcleod 5y ago
The Marvel / Disney effect, CGI is so commoditized that you have far less truly passionate, highly skilled individuals working on CGI as an 'art', rather than to knock another scene out the door.
- noahtallen 5y ago
  I think it’s more about the business need rather than the art. Many blockbusters these days are in a pretty extreme crunch. The business “can’t afford” to release late, and there’s so much CGI that everything needs to get done as quickly as possible. I’m sure many (most?) CGI artists would enjoy taking more time, but the business need (and their need for a job) trumps that. You can draw parallels to software development there too
- krapp 5y ago
  If you actually follow any CG or effects artists and listen to them discuss their work, you'll find they are extremely passionate and skilled, and tend to care a great deal about the quality of their work. However, they also aren't at all in control of the time or budgetary constraints they work under. You also have to consider that 99% of digital effects nowadays are unnoticed because they supplement the scene (like vehicles or crowds or physics simulations) rather than act as a point of focus. You don't notice all of the things that work right, you just notice the things that don't. And nine times out of ten, that's just because of crunch. These people are the hackers of their domain and it's disappointing to see people on HN dismiss them as hacks simply because they work for large studios. Meanwhile having FAANG on your resume in any capacity automatically signals you as an elite among elites.
- modshatereality 5y ago
  lol who downvoted this
notjustanymike 5y ago
CGI is like Squarespace: beautiful, powerful technology commoditized into the hands of fools.
kazinator 5y ago
Maybe it is exactly this: "Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you." - Salvador Dali What Dali was likely referring to was the difficult photo-realistic techniques of the great masters, combining perspective, detail and understanding of shadow, light, color, texture, refraction, and everything else. The computer-graphics-in-movies industry proved itself by mastering photo-realism, and so now nobody questions whatever it does.
- jaimebuelta 5y ago
  The interesting thing about old paintings is that they are not “photorealistic”. They don’t replicate photos, as they weren’t invented yet. They paint reality, as seen by the naked eye. When seeing some of the portraits of the great masters in a museum, at real scale, with your own eyes, the effect is profound, as you perceive that it works in a very different way than a photography.
HelloNurse 5y ago
If the barrier to entry to CGI use lowers, for a given new production lack of artistic skill and experience (not necessarily incompetence, failing to predict challenges and not having the budget to do a good job is enough) can vastly offset superior technology.
TrackerFF 5y ago
The good CGI, you don't notice. David Fincher is famous for using A LOT of CGI in his movies, and I'd bet good money that you don't notice the vast majority of said CGI in his movies. Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY But there are lots of vids that show the use of CGI in his movies.
skocznymroczny 5y ago
I don't really see these as examples of bad CGI. But I noticed that I rarely notice "bad CGI". Maybe it's because I play a lot of videogames so I am more used to computer generated graphics? I keep reading online and my friends tell me how "the surf wave in Die Another Day looked horrible and I can't watch this movie because of it", "how fake Smiths look when Neo is fighting them in Matrix Reloaded" and I never really notice those things.
torginus 5y ago
I think CGI is getting worse for the same reason video games are getting worse - reaching 70% of a result can be done with 10% of the effort it took decades ago, but reaching 100% is not getting easier - you need tons of incredibly talented and dedicated engineers who have a very deep understanding of CG and come up with a bespoke solution. An example in movies would be the video the Corridor guys did on the Terminator 2 shot where the T-1000 phases through the prison bars - the VFX team on the movie essentially built a fluid simulation engine to get it right. The fact that they were able to recreate the effect on a shoestring budget speaks volumes of their talent and the evolution of tooling, but it doesn't look nearly as good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXehBx0Yc_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXehBx0Yc_w Another example from the field of video games would be Back 4 Blood vs Left 4 dead - the insane amount of care and effort Valve put into minute details cannot be replicated by faster tools and more computing power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8
t0bia_s 5y ago
Just lack of skill or talent. Nowadays technology is available almost for everyone. But that doesn't mean that quality increases. To be really good in some craft you need to invest a lot of time. Be specialized in any art department means that you have to work for company. But I can say from my experience, that really talented people don't want to work for companies that create commercial products like entertainment films. But if you want to be independent (freelancer), you need more skills to know and therefore be less specialized. It is a vicious circle.
bradgranath 5y ago
Disagree. As resolution increases the time to render increases by something like a power of 3. That takes time to catch up to. And it means shortcuts that used to work can't be cut short anymore. Also, no amount of render muscle will ever compensate for the idiot writer or director who wants superman to yank a helicopter out of the sky without holding on to the ground. That shot will look fake no matter how photoreal you make it.

57 points by Flatcircle 5y ago

An example of the real scale of the pyramids. https://twitter.com/digbylidstone/status/1511165586344194055?s=21&t=YR7Yt1pUS3UZfk14xTbK1w https://twitter.com/digbylidstone/status/1511165586344194055...

tpmx 5y ago

Software development advances have enabled worse and smaller teams of artists to produce sorta publisher-wise good-enough CGI, in greater volumes than ever before. It's essentially the same thing we're seeing in e.g. web/service/app development: An explosion in the number of people working in the field along with an explosion in the tool space "advancements". I find it all kind of depressing.

noahtallen 5y ago
Alternatively, you could see it as a good thing because more people can access a previously “elite” field. There are so many examples of this. The alternative is that fewer people who might be excellent can’t overcome the barrier to entry. The raw number of very good coders or CGI artists now is probably significantly higher now that more people can access the field.

MBCook 5y ago

When characters really stand out from the background, isn’t that more an issue of the lighting in the scene than the CGI? I mean this isn’t really “CGI“, is it? I guess maybe the backgrounds are computer generated. But it just seems like unsuccessful compositing.

greenknight 5y ago
This is the thing, if they screw it up on set with the lighting, its the 'CGI' peoples fault that it looks bad. Going on from this, I am sure for every shot that looks 'CG', that there are atleast 100 amazing VFX shots, which are seamless and hidden from people. But these are never picked up or discussed, because people dont realise they are CG.

charcircuit 5y ago

It looks fine, what am I supposed to notice?

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

It’s not the technology. It’s lack of vision, talent and passion combined with executive meddling. Most directors hired consistently these days are low talent “yes people” who won’t rattle cages and will do what the execs want, produce milquetoast inoffensive movies that can be successfully marketed to China.

ikr678 5y ago
Execs probably feel CGI crews are 'easier' to manage too, given the unionisation of a lot of traditional film set crews.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  Worth keeping in mind with things like Marvel movies the CGI fight scenes are all being created while the rest of the movie is still being decided and the bits between them are written after they’re finished to connect them. This is why the tone in some of them is so weird and everything feels weightless and without consequence.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tracerbulletx 5y ago

All the examples look to me like they might have been made to intentionally look like theatrical back drops.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
I agree it appears intentional. A reply on Twitter says it looks like they intend a stylized 50s look/feel, and that’s definitely plausible to me. Granted I don’t watch a lot of movies, but the production quality of TV I watch has improved by leaps and bounds over the last couple decades and continues to do. I don’t know if that automatically extrapolates to movies but I’d be shocked if they’ve had such sharply different trajectories. If anything, I was expecting this to be some kind of an uncanny valley sort of complaint… not a pretty obvious creative choice. It seems like what keeps getting worse as the technology improves is the pervasive, uncharitable hot takes.
plorkyeran 5y ago
Yeah, this looks like a very deliberate effect to me. I don't think I'm a fan of it, but this isn't what trying and failing to blend the background and foreground looks like.

blobby14 5y ago

One of the major contributors to this is the increasing number of VFX studios and artists that have never done physical effects or camera work on set. Early CGI was made, or at least supervised by crews with extensive experience on real props and costumes. Theres a lot more than detailed textures and "physically based rendering" that go into making an effect look real, such as framing the effects shot with recongnizable features for scale and "presence". A poor quality 3d model with bad textures can feel convincing if the director and VFX artists coordinate to fully integrate the effects. Likewise a super detailed and well animated CG character can be ruined by poor shot placement and floaty camera movement. Honestly, so many otherwise fantastically rendered CGI scenes have been destroyed by virtual cameras that accelerate and fly with zero regard for physics. Cutting edge hair physics and multimillion polygon models still need the cinema basics of good camerawork, blocking, and editing.

danamit 5y ago

Not gonna watch a movie with a star with such a pro-genocide background.

lupinglade 5y ago

The same thing is happening in video games and even software. Technology is advancing but quality and talent are vanishing.

thatswrong0 5y ago

Disagree. CGI is getting "easier" in the sense that even low budget films can do things that used to only be reserved for large budgets. And there's so much CGI in use that you don't notice these days because it's so seamless / not the center of attention (e.g. check out this before/after about Wolf of Wall Street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP2sJqoZD7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP2sJqoZD7g). But at the end of the day, you still need good direction and editing that involves understanding the limitations of doing things on the computer vs. in camera. I think this video about Dune provides great examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKupTibxKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIKupTibxKQ. One example provided is that using green screen can sometimes result in "flat" unrealistic lighting because the camera doesn't expose the image the same if representative lighting isn't used to actually capture the shot.

viraptor 5y ago
I really don't get the part around 1:20 with the house swap. It's not some crazy location - why would they CGI that? Cutting the cost of actually filming away from the studio?
- DoctorOW 5y ago
  Exactly. Film equipment is heavy and expensive. Why pay everyone to move however far away the desired house is, for a few shots of the exterior?
lc9er 5y ago
I think you can see a similar effect in the music industry. Technology has practically eliminated the barrier to entry for recording. On top of that, sales are down, recording budgets are slashed. Why spend valuable studio time tweaking amp settings and mic positioning when you can record direct and scroll through a list of plugins - or so the logic goes.
- coldtea 5y ago
  To be frank, "tweaking amp settings and mic positioning" was never a requisite for good music. Just an obsession, inspired by the Beatles and later bands "use the studio as an instrument", that often worked to the detriment of traditional musical skills, and is part of what turned the focus from songwriting to production, that enabled today's "just scroll through presets".

miiiiiike 5y ago

To be fair, who’s watching Death on the Nile for the special effects? The only thing the film wants you to remember about the pyramid shot is that the kite guy’s coat is red. It was fine.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

adamredwoods 5y ago

There is a saying in film production: "We'll fix it in post!" The high number of compositors in the credits of a film shows you how many people were needed to fix 'fake' looking scenes such as this. Compositors easily smooth this out, and add fake environment, hair, clothing, or even limbs to hide the excess green-screen cropping. Also, a well-placed cut to a close-up shot can hide awkward actor movements on poor sets.

throw7 5y ago

The example does NOT point out objectively how the CGI is worse even as the tech advances. The artistic aspect could be fine i.e. this is what the vision of the movie entailed.

russellbeattie 5y ago

The advances they've made in virtual production studio backdrops are amazing. Camera-linked floor-to-ceiling 180° LED screens and synced lighting is just amazing. The stuff they're able to do in The Mandalorian is incredible. Though once you know what to look for (the camo hiding the floor/wall seam) you can tell they're using it a bit too much. But still it's incredible. https://youtu.be/gUnxzVOs3rk https://youtu.be/gUnxzVOs3rk

smcleod 5y ago

The Marvel / Disney effect, CGI is so commoditized that you have far less truly passionate, highly skilled individuals working on CGI as an 'art', rather than to knock another scene out the door.

noahtallen 5y ago
I think it’s more about the business need rather than the art. Many blockbusters these days are in a pretty extreme crunch. The business “can’t afford” to release late, and there’s so much CGI that everything needs to get done as quickly as possible. I’m sure many (most?) CGI artists would enjoy taking more time, but the business need (and their need for a job) trumps that. You can draw parallels to software development there too
krapp 5y ago
If you actually follow any CG or effects artists and listen to them discuss their work, you'll find they are extremely passionate and skilled, and tend to care a great deal about the quality of their work. However, they also aren't at all in control of the time or budgetary constraints they work under. You also have to consider that 99% of digital effects nowadays are unnoticed because they supplement the scene (like vehicles or crowds or physics simulations) rather than act as a point of focus. You don't notice all of the things that work right, you just notice the things that don't. And nine times out of ten, that's just because of crunch. These people are the hackers of their domain and it's disappointing to see people on HN dismiss them as hacks simply because they work for large studios. Meanwhile having FAANG on your resume in any capacity automatically signals you as an elite among elites.
modshatereality 5y ago
lol who downvoted this

notjustanymike 5y ago

CGI is like Squarespace: beautiful, powerful technology commoditized into the hands of fools.

kazinator 5y ago

Maybe it is exactly this: "Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you." - Salvador Dali What Dali was likely referring to was the difficult photo-realistic techniques of the great masters, combining perspective, detail and understanding of shadow, light, color, texture, refraction, and everything else. The computer-graphics-in-movies industry proved itself by mastering photo-realism, and so now nobody questions whatever it does.

jaimebuelta 5y ago
The interesting thing about old paintings is that they are not “photorealistic”. They don’t replicate photos, as they weren’t invented yet. They paint reality, as seen by the naked eye. When seeing some of the portraits of the great masters in a museum, at real scale, with your own eyes, the effect is profound, as you perceive that it works in a very different way than a photography.

HelloNurse 5y ago

If the barrier to entry to CGI use lowers, for a given new production lack of artistic skill and experience (not necessarily incompetence, failing to predict challenges and not having the budget to do a good job is enough) can vastly offset superior technology.

TrackerFF 5y ago

The good CGI, you don't notice. David Fincher is famous for using A LOT of CGI in his movies, and I'd bet good money that you don't notice the vast majority of said CGI in his movies. Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY But there are lots of vids that show the use of CGI in his movies.

skocznymroczny 5y ago

I don't really see these as examples of bad CGI. But I noticed that I rarely notice "bad CGI". Maybe it's because I play a lot of videogames so I am more used to computer generated graphics? I keep reading online and my friends tell me how "the surf wave in Die Another Day looked horrible and I can't watch this movie because of it", "how fake Smiths look when Neo is fighting them in Matrix Reloaded" and I never really notice those things.

torginus 5y ago

I think CGI is getting worse for the same reason video games are getting worse - reaching 70% of a result can be done with 10% of the effort it took decades ago, but reaching 100% is not getting easier - you need tons of incredibly talented and dedicated engineers who have a very deep understanding of CG and come up with a bespoke solution. An example in movies would be the video the Corridor guys did on the Terminator 2 shot where the T-1000 phases through the prison bars - the VFX team on the movie essentially built a fluid simulation engine to get it right. The fact that they were able to recreate the effect on a shoestring budget speaks volumes of their talent and the evolution of tooling, but it doesn't look nearly as good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXehBx0Yc_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXehBx0Yc_w Another example from the field of video games would be Back 4 Blood vs Left 4 dead - the insane amount of care and effort Valve put into minute details cannot be replicated by faster tools and more computing power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdRLNUGmFC8

t0bia_s 5y ago

Just lack of skill or talent. Nowadays technology is available almost for everyone. But that doesn't mean that quality increases. To be really good in some craft you need to invest a lot of time. Be specialized in any art department means that you have to work for company. But I can say from my experience, that really talented people don't want to work for companies that create commercial products like entertainment films. But if you want to be independent (freelancer), you need more skills to know and therefore be less specialized. It is a vicious circle.

bradgranath 5y ago

Disagree. As resolution increases the time to render increases by something like a power of 3. That takes time to catch up to. And it means shortcuts that used to work can't be cut short anymore. Also, no amount of render muscle will ever compensate for the idiot writer or director who wants superman to yank a helicopter out of the sky without holding on to the ground. That shot will look fake no matter how photoreal you make it.