Avatar - James Cameron Returns! (Spoilers in thread, obviously!)

You know they are not humans right? Who says their skin doesn't shine like that? Why should they have more wrinkles? Who says that?

And whoever says that avatar doesn't look more impressive than ingame videos from PS3 is just blind.
 
IMO closest to most realistic CGI ever was first jurassic park , even now compared to new movies.Scenes with t-rex in rain will be very hard to beat for a long time.
 
bwwd said:
IMO closest to most realistic CGI ever was first jurassic park , even now compared to new movies.Scenes with t-rex in rain will be very hard to beat for a long time.
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That's because it wasn't CG.


  • The full-sized animatron of the tyrannosaurus rex weighed about 13,000 to 15,000 pounds. During the shooting of the initial T-rex attack scene that took place in a downpour and was shot on a soundstage, the latex that covered the T-rex puppet absorbed great amounts of water, making it much heavier and harder to control. Technicians worked throughout the night with blow driers trying to dry the latex out. Eventually, they suspended a platform above the T-rex, out of camera range, to keep the water off it during filming.

Watch the making of for more info.

MAH
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
That's because it wasn't CG.


  • The full-sized animatron of the tyrannosaurus rex weighed about 13,000 to 15,000 pounds. During the shooting of the initial T-rex attack scene that took place in a downpour and was shot on a soundstage, the latex that covered the T-rex puppet absorbed great amounts of water, making it much heavier and harder to control. Technicians worked throughout the night with blow driers trying to dry the latex out. Eventually, they suspended a platform above the T-rex, out of camera range, to keep the water off it during filming.

Watch the making of for more info.

MAH
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The full body shots were CGI. And even 15 years later they are 100 percent convincing. Not that I agree with the posters original statement.
 
Batutta said:
The full body shots were CGI. And even 15 years later they are 100 percent convincing. Not that I agree with the posters original statement.
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Yes, but the shots in the rain are mostly head shots. He mentioned the T-Rex in the rain. They look the most real.
Tons of head shots in that entire scene. Spielberg used the practical head for a reason, even though it was obviously a huge headache as stated above.

The full body shots look like every other CG dinosaur to me. Great work but not half as real as the closeup head shots in the rain and there are plenty of them. It looks real because it is. In a practical effect sort of way. :)
The rain rolls off the face as it should. It doesn't look shiny or fake. It looks wet and pissed off.

I still remember very clearly watching parents walk out of the theater with their little ones when the T-Rex showed up and starting attacking the kids in the car. This was not a cute little dinosaur movie and it seemed very real.

All the other stuff still looks like CG to me. The T-Rex attacks on the other dinosaurs felt far less impressive in comparison. Never felt real.

MAH
 
Batutta said:
The full body shots were CGI. And even 15 years later they are 100 percent convincing. Not that I agree with the posters original statement.
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This is funny because I just watched the JP trilogy. And, honestly, JP 3's raptors were even better than the T-Rex in the first Jurassic, though considering it's from 1993 and really nothing (maybe even including Avatar) beats it is pretty astounding.

As most people know I haven't sat in a theatre and watched the movie yet, but if the effects are as profound as people say, I should be able to tell by all the trailers I've seen on my HD television. Heck, I don't even have JP on bluray, so I'm comparing DVD quality to broadcast 720p Avatar trailers, and having seen the blue people, having seen shots of their flying lizards and mechanical walkers...is this better than JP? Are the walkers as convincing as the ACTUAL walker used in Aliens?

People keep saying stuff like, "But it looks real!" Um, yeah. It's supposed to. If they had used real people they would look real too. CGI looking realistic, to me, doesn't carry a lot of weight. I thought Spiderman, when in full costume, looked real too, but people weren't tripping over themselves to see it because of the CGI (the way it's happened with Avatar).

I love Cameron and I'm glad his movie is making a bundle. I love CGI animation and effects. And maybe if people had behaved this way about the effects in Final Fantasy: Spirits Within I would feel differently. But Avatar became the thing that people "must see", the thing that if you don't see it there must be something inherently wrong with you as a human. That taints the movie for me. It's more than hype, it feels cultish and foreboding and still makes me apprehensive to actually go into the theatre and watch this movie. I'm starting to wonder if they didn't put something funny in the kool-aid. You say 3-D, I say brainwashing. ;)
 
Chamber005 said:
And maybe if people had behaved this way about the effects in Final Fantasy: Spirits Within I would feel differently.
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The effects in FF were good but lifeless. What people are responding to in Avatar is a combination of the quality of the CGI, and the convincing performances of the Na'vi. In the latter regard, the work in Avatar is so far beyond FF it makes those characters look like wax dummies.
 
I talking about full body shots of T-rex, lights from jeep on t-rex body look so real ,shadows on t-rex body look amazing even today,its very good that they kept such details in mind ,it looks great ,if someone seen more convincing CGI of animal/person in movies then i would like to know the title.So far jurassic park 1 is most convincing for me.
 
bwwd said:
I talking about full body shots of T-rex, lights from jeep on t-rex body look so real ,shadows on t-rex body look amazing even today,its very good that they kept such details in mind ,it looks great ,if someone seen more convincing CGI of animal/person in movies then i would like to know the title.So far jurassic park 1 is most convincing for me.
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Well that's interesting.

Because as good as those scenes look the practical effects are by far the best.
Nothing beats the shots of the head around the car and smashing through the roof.

A good mix of practical and CGI is still the way to go. All full CGI shots still look off to me.

RIP Stan Winston.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Well that's interesting.

Because as good as those scenes look the practical effects are by far the best.
Nothing beats the shots of the head around the car and smashing through the roof.

A good mix of practical and CGI is still the way to go. All full CGI shots still look off to me.

RIP Stan Winston.
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Did you ever get around to checking out JP 3? Certainly the weakest in the series story-wise, but I literally cannot discern between the CGI raptors and the practical raptors that were actually in the scene with the actors. In JP 3 I felt that the larger mechanised creatures actually hurt the film because the CGI effects' movements were more fluid and life-like (probably a budget issue as JP did not have that problem with the T-Rex).
 
For me it the complexity of their character or interest in the story that makes things come alive. For example, in the film Persepolis, the animation is very simple, yet the characters were very real to me. Much more real than Avatar. It was very suspenseful. I think that if I get drawn into the story and the characters, then it brings everything to life.

This is a funny dig on Avatar, just being a ripoff of the Pocahantas story set in space: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/avatar-pocahontas-in-spac_n_410538.html
 
Chamber005 said:
Did you ever get around to checking out JP 3? Certainly the weakest in the series story-wise, but I literally cannot discern between the CGI raptors and the practical raptors that were actually in the scene with the actors. In JP 3 I felt that the larger mechanised creatures actually hurt the film because the CGI effects' movements were more fluid and life-like (probably a budget issue as JP did not have that problem with the T-Rex).
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Yes I did.

While some of the CG looks great I never got the feeling that I could reach out and touch it. That's the problem with CG, it just doesn't look real. I'm always thinking about the mechanism they used to knock over <insert practical object here> as the CG dinosaur interacts with it. The creatures do move really well though.

I still have to get out and see Avatar. I hear it looks pretty damn good in IMAX.
 
JP1 was very very good in how it sold the dinosaurs (real and CG) ... that first reveal, as they get out of the Jeep, is done so well with the buildup, that they could have had Dumbo stood there and you would have believed it was a dinosaur because of the way they made you expect a dinosaur.

Final Fantasy was different ... the graphics quality was astounding, tack sharp and lots of detail. However, and I think it was the style of the movie, it didn't ever feel real. But I don't think it was supposed to.

Whereas Avatar has aspects from both. The story works to sell to your eyes what you see. And the CG backs it up 100%. It might not look like a video game render, but that's because it's not a video game. The animation quality - especially in the rigging and it's results - combined with the ability (& results of the technology used) to capture the actors emotions work to bring it out to a point where you can connect with it.

FF clearly was, well, fantasy. And the JP dinos looked great and took you there; but they where your stereotypical monsters. But the Na'vi - as with the majority of Pandora - came across as something that could be real somewhere. Of course, the irony here is that Dinosaurs really did exist; though we don't really know what they looked like.

Avatar isn't about just the imagery, or just the story, or just the acting; but the ability to bring them together. It's supposed to make you feel the same as Jake does discovering his new life, and I think that for the majority of the audience; it does.

- Mikko
 
Gord.T said:
It only played here 4 days ending Dec 24. Not great timing for me. I had a few bucks afterwards where I could have seen it. Just saying, I know, they think "how could someone not have 10 bucks". Well, I didn't, so I missed it. Some of us aren't Mr. Money Bags. Maybe a Jan 1'st opening might be better in the future. Ya know, if you want to suck up all of the little pieces from the pan, money wise.

Just saying...they could have made a couple more bucks but had to try sucking Christmas out of me and I'm sure a few others. Didn't happen. I don't think that was the best plan. Imo. I'll catch it somewhere though.
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Quoting myself beeeecuhhuuassssse...

It's still playing apparently. The web site I check only gives updates from Mon to Fri or something.
So, I still have a chance to see it.
Until then, a few comments from previous views I found interesting...

Is it completely realistic? Hell no. Is it the best CGI so far? Hell yes ;)

But I agree about the hair. Also, why are they so shiny? Real skin doesn't shine like that. And they need more wrinkles.
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You know they are not humans right? Who says their skin doesn't shine like that? Why should they have more wrinkles? Who says that?

And whoever says that avatar doesn't look more impressive than ingame videos from PS3 is just blind.
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Yeah, I think Simon summed it up for me there.


As for some posters I've seen regarding it looking like video games, well, I sort of know what you mean.
From the previews I've seen, fine, but in reality there is no video game that could come close to the prev's I've seen so far.
But I understand the connection between reality and fantasy. I think your wrong though.

Well that's interesting.

Because as good as those scenes look the practical effects are by far the best.
Nothing beats the shots of the head around the car and smashing through the roof.

A good mix of practical and CGI is still the way to go. All full CGI shots still look off to me.

RIP Stan Winston.
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Yeah, again, I don't think people are letting thier imaginations run free. Consider any Walt Disney animation movie.
No problem letting go and getting into it there. 3D takes a beating when it gets closer to realism. Everyone knows that.
Pixar is fine because it stays in wonderland.

The crits of these CGI films makes me want to give up. Or at least focus my 3D energy on animations instead of VFX where people's brains are not so critical of what they're seeing. If the hollywood big budget films can't pull off convincing VFX, why would I think I can? poo poo that.

It's just a movie. I guess humans will always question anything that looks real but doesn't feel real visually.
That human nature reflex again of facial recognition. I understand though.

Boy, there are doing well though in the sales though. I still may see it yet, lol.
 
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Its about using different way to achieve the same thing what animators were doing already with very similar outcome.
Would be sad if whole movies would be made this way,it would be disappointing for people during watching behind the scenes stuff like this.
Or kinda like this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R0QK8GyFDc
 
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Rodney V. Smith said:
I think that BTS video should really let a LOT of people understand what Avatar really is.
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But I've seen this done before? This is really nothing new. If you watch the BTS on other films you will see actors sitting in that cage getting photographed by thousands of tiny cameras from thousands of different angles. And motion capture is anything but new. They are just refining current techniques.

Hell, Benjamin Button looked pretty damn good and it's tougher to pull off a human face than a shiny blue one.

Just saying. Nothing new here. Not from what I can see.

MAH
 
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