Should Trek do an all CGI show?

Discussion in 'Future of Trek' started by Romulan_spy, Oct 14, 2021.

  1. Romulan_spy

    Romulan_spy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2000
    Location:
    Terre Haute, IN. USA
    CGI has gotten really good and very realistic. I feel like it would be cool to have a Trek show that is all CGI. It would have the advantages of being animated while not looking cartoony.

    Here is an example of the CGI that I am talking about:



    I feel a Star Trek animated show would look great like this.
     
  2. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 5, 2008
    Location:
    A type 13 planet in it's final stage
    I'm not a fan of the uncanny valley CGI. It will never ever look truly real.

    I'd be more curious of a Star Trek series with real-life characters and all-CG sets.
     
  3. Gepard

    Gepard Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2007
    I mean, technically, Lower Decks and Prodigy already are all-CGI.

    As for creating really photoreal human characters, I don't see the point?

    [​IMG]

    (It gets worse the longer you look at it.)
     
    Richard S. Ta likes this.
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Huh? You're talking as though Prodigy doesn't count as all-CGI just because it isn't photorealistic. Since when? The initials stand for "computer-generated imagery," period. Nobody ever said it had to be realistic. That definition would exclude most of the CGI movies ever made by Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, Polygon, etc.

    Besides, what is the point of using computer animation to create something that looks exactly like reality? If that's what you want, get something real and point a camera at it. That will always, always give better results than faking it. Especially where human beings are concerned. There is nothing harder to do than convince a human being that an artificial face is genuine, because a huge amount of the human brain is devoted to the perception of faces. It's enormously simpler and better just to use real actors. Put them in an all-virtual environment? Fine. That gets done a lot already. But replacing them with entirely CGI people that look exactly like real people anyway? What is the point? It would be an enormous waste of effort to do something that can be done far better with real people.
     
    DEWLine likes this.
  5. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    I do not understand the opposition to cartoony look.
     
    Richard S. Ta and Tim Thomason like this.
  6. Kor

    Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2001
    Location:
    My mansion on Qo'noS
    Yeah, the "photo-realistic" CGI people always have that uncanny valley fakeness that makes me want to puke, even when others insist that it looks really really good. That includes the Starship Troopers trailer up above. I would not enjoy Trek that looked like that. I would much rather have a stylized, cartoonish look.

    Kor
     
    Timofnine and Gepard like this.
  7. Romulan_spy

    Romulan_spy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2000
    Location:
    Terre Haute, IN. USA
    I happen to like the style of photoreal CGI characters.

    I am not saying they don't count as CGI.

    And yes, we have live action too for the best realism. But we also have animated shows. It's a different style. I like the style of the "photoreal" animated shows.
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    What you said was, "I feel like it would be cool to have a Trek show that is all CGI," as if Prodigy either didn't exist or didn't count. So that certainly seemed to be what you were saying. Maybe you should rephrase that, laddie.
     
    Romulan_spy likes this.
  9. Romulan_spy

    Romulan_spy Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2000
    Location:
    Terre Haute, IN. USA
    Sure. I meant "it would be cool to have a Trek show that is in the photorealistic CGI style".
     
  10. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2001
    Location:
    Earth
    I'm fine with photo realistic CG aliens, but it's still creepy with humans. I think we're still a few years away from that working.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    I think it already can work, if there's enough time, money, and talent put into it. Lots of big stunts in movies and TV these days are performed by digital doubles of the actors, and at best, it's very hard to tell the difference.

    That's the thing about CGI -- how good it is depends on how well it's done. It can be nearly perfect, but it's very, very hard to get it right. Which is why it's so much smarter just to use something real when you want something that looks real, and to save the CGI only for the stuff you can't do for real. CGI is a powerful tool in the kit, but it's unwise to try to do absolutely everything with the same tool.
     
  12. Serin117

    Serin117 Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2013
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia, Earth
    If Paramount has a squillion dollarydoos to burn on a photorealistic animated show... Absolutely.
    Back when I was just starting out in 3D, I had dreams of doing something along the lines of Halo 4's Spartan Ops cutscenes by Axis Studios.
    But... Its an insane amount of highly skilled and specialised work that costs an insane amount of money.

    Still... The state of the tech these days...
    Take this example from Snow in the Desert by Unit Image for Love, Death + Robots.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2021
  13. Serin117

    Serin117 Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2013
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia, Earth
    Though, being completely honest... I would not scoff at something Trek at this level of fidelity released in 2012.

     
  14. Yistaan

    Yistaan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2018
    I think everyone criticizing the CGI as creepy might be a bit too nitpicky, but that's just my opinion. I think they certainly look better than the full facial mask plastic Orions currently showing up in Discovery, which basically kills the attractiveness of what's supposed to be an insanely attractive species. Even just the snapshot of the Starship Troopers trailer in the first post, which has CGI from a few years ago, caught my eye because the CGI character is really pretty.

    For those still saying that CGI is too ugly etc. we're all probably too used to having insanely attractive actors and actresses on our movies and television. Most people don't look like that. I'm fairly certain that if they take a look at what I look like in real life, the CGI critics are suddenly going to realize that the CGI characters they've been criticizing suddenly don't seem that ugly anymore. :eek:
     
  15. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    Yeah, no. Give me the Orions over the CGI lovefest.
     
    jos3s likes this.
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Surely that's a false dichotomy, since those aren't the only two options. Traditionally, Orions were just actors in green body paint. No idea why DSC needed to change it, but it's hardly a endorsement of CGI.

    Indeed, my objection to realistic CGI humans is the same as my objection to DSC's full-face-mask Orions: Why bother? If you want a character to look convincingly like a real person, obviously the best, simplest way to do that is to bloody well get a real person. Anything else is going to more trouble than you need to get a worse result, which is just pointless.
     
  17. Captain Crow

    Captain Crow Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2009
    Hard pass on a CG Trek series using photo-realistic human models. They're like puppeteered corpses.

    They've got dead eyes. They lack any real facial expressions (points at the stiff emotionless facial animations in the vids posted up-thread). They've got stiff body animations that lack any subtle movement a living human being has.
     
    Richard S. Ta and Kor like this.
  18. Yistaan

    Yistaan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2018
    I literally just got flashbacks of Scotty trashing the transwarp in Star Trek 3 reading this.
     
  19. Captain Crow

    Captain Crow Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2009
    Modern CG aliens, buildings, vehicles, and environments can be rather convincing, but when it comes to humans they've got a long way to go.

    Just because one can build a realistic looking human head doesn't really mean anything if you can't animate the damn thing realistically. Again points to the vids posted in this thread. They've got mouth movement but no real facial expressions and stilted movement.
     
  20. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2014
    Location:
    Journeying onwards
    Engineers. Always changing things.