TREK and CGI effects

[RobertScorpio]

I know that some of you really liked the effects of Insurrection and Nemesis. As I write this post I am watching Insurrecion on Showtime. And I stand by my first impression..the CGI of this movie, and Nemesis, sucks.

The ships look cartoony, especially the scene where Data is in the shuttle singing. His singing is bad enough, but the effects are worse.

I hope the new movie improves. We know now that there will be a combinatin of physical and CGI effects. I hope they build a kick ass real model, and use it for most of the shots of the Uss Enterprise.

 

[T'Baio]

I'm watching Nemesis now...God knows why...and the CGI Enterprise is ridiculously bad. It borderline looks hand drawn.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Must eventually watch it.

 

[archeryguy1701]

I will say that I liked the CGI ships more than the models actually. I don't know, they looked just as real to me, but they could do more with them. I thought the final 45 minutes of Nemesis's CGI was phenominal.

 

[Maurice]

archeryguy1701 said:
...I thought the final 45 minutes of Nemesis's CGI was phenominal.

-i +e

 

[Son_of_Soong]

I thought Nemesis had the best visual effects of any Trek film, not surprising concidering until now it was the last one made.

Granted its a lot different from models, but you might as well start getting used to it because models arn't being used much these days.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Well there is a different visual experience from big screen to small. The Enterprise E looked good to me on the big screen, as I recall, it was so long ago.
I'm with the OP in that the models usually look better to me. The Enterprise D shots in Generations, I'm not sure but I think that is the final appearance of the 6 foot TNG model?
I feel the same way about Star Wars ships.
But, CGI has developed a lot since the time of Insurrection. Nemesis was current with Two Towers, which can easily be argued to be ahead of the curve for that year. With Star Wars you can really see the development, of say, Episode I Yoda to Episode III Yoda.
I think it's really a question of getting real world grit and diffusion into a CGI model, which I believe is there with 64 bit multiple core workstations as I'm sure are being utilized by the big FX studios.
I think the CGI is going to smoke in ST:XI.

 

[Son_of_Soong]

Thats true, the Enterprise D in generations looked great but it also looked 'used'.

The Enterprise E however is all shiny and untouched, even when battledamaged it looks shiny :-P

 

[Warp Coil]

I've always felt that the Enterprise-E looked its best in FC, when it was an actual filming model. The CGI versions created for INS and NEM never held up (though the NEM version is light-years ahead of the craptastic CGI model built for INS).

However, CGI has become the industry standard and people aren't really using model miniatures anymore. Technology has also improved dramatically and continues to evolve. I think the CGI in Trek XI will look great.

 

[T'Baio]

Warp Coil said:
I've always felt that the Enterprise-E looked its best in FC, when it was an actual filming model. The CGI versions created for INS and NEM never held up (though the NEM version is light-years ahead of the craptastic CGI model built for INS).

God, I shouldn't watch Insurrection any time soon, then.

I watched First Contact a couple days ago, then Nemesis last night, and the difference in the way the ship looks is just incredible. It looks horrible in comparison in Nemesis. No weight, no substance, no nothing.

 

[Delta1]

In Nemesis's defense, the ship is in zero g most of the time, so it really should have no weight.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

lol, Delta1. I do think not everything needs to be CGI.

 

[T'Baio]

Delta1 said:
In Nemesis's defense, the ship is in zero g most of the time, so it really should have no weight.

That's not quite what I meant. Perhaps "substance" is the better word, then?

 

[EyalM]

T’Baio said:

Delta1 said:
In Nemesis's defense, the ship is in zero g most of the time, so it really should have no weight.

That's not quite what I meant. Perhaps "substance" is the better word, then?

Mass?

 

[ATimson]

CaptainStoner said:
With Star Wars you can really see the development, of say, Episode I Yoda to Episode III Yoda.

Not really, seeing as how Yoda's a puppet in The Phantom Menace.

I think it's really a question of getting real world grit and diffusion into a CGI model, which I believe is there with 64 bit multiple core workstations as I'm sure are being utilized by the big FX studios.

This is so not technical sounding, but to me it's always been a problem with the lights; CGI lights, on the nacelles and in the windows, are too perfect to seem real. In models, there's small imperfections to differentiate one from the next, because they're real, imperfect things. But with CGI, that's not the case, and it shows.

Though when viewing CGI made for the big screen on my television, it's a hell of a lot harder to tell; what shows on the big screen won't show there, though the CGI for the TV shows will have those flaws visible (because it wasn't rendered for cinematic resolutions).

 

[Turd Ferguson]

archeryguy1701 said:
I will say that I liked the CGI ships more than the models actually. I don't know, they looked just as real to me, but they could do more with them. I thought the final 45 minutes of Nemesis's CGI was phenominal.

The idea of being able to do more with a CGI model than a physical model is all well and good in theory, but with Insurrection and Nemesis, all I saw were the same lame-ass flyovers done in TNG redone in crappy CGI.

 

[Manticore]

I think that 'bad CGI' or 'bad modelwork' is more what you're used to than anything else. I was born in '85, so I've basically grown up with CGI, and I thought that the CGI in Nemesis was gorgeous. Meanwhile, I've grown increasingly disenchanted with model-work for ships. The two move differently and are lit differently, and real models just look small to me, unless they're lit exceptionally well.

Presumably, most (not all, but most) of the people who complain about CGI are used to model-work, and grew up with it, while most who prefer CGI grew up with it as well.

YMMV of course.

(The Enterprise-D was beautiful in Generations though.)

 

[CaptainStoner]

Phantom Menace was a puppet wasn't it. Now I remember because in one of the interviews I remember them mentioning Yoda saying a lot of "off color" things in between takes.

 

[FalTorPan]

One shot of Yoda in The Phantom Menace was CGI -- near the end of the film, we see a long shot in which Yoda's walking.

I recall one of the DVD extras for either AOTC or ROTS showing a CG Yoda uttering the TPM "Fear leads to anger" speech, suggesting that, at some point, TPM might get special-editioned to use a CG Yoda. On the other hand, that shot might have just been an internal "screen test" for the CG Yoda.

 

[Kegek]

ATimson said:

CaptainStoner said:
With Star Wars you can really see the development, of say, Episode I Yoda to Episode III Yoda.

Not really, seeing as how Yoda's a puppet in The Phantom Menace.

That counts as evolution. Though his dialogue in the Prequel Trilogy never reaches his dialogue in Empire Strikes Back, the puppet in Episode I is a significant technical improvement over the original puppet, and the CGI Yoda was superb, a lot of nuance in his expressions were given that none of the earlier puppet versions attained. I was initially very sceptical when I heard Yoda was going to be CGI in AOTC - to put it mildly - but the end result worked. Unfortunately, the film did not, but that is another story.

Now, I'm not a technical person at all, but when it comes to sci-fi SFX, I ask simply two questions of it:

1) Does it look interesting?

By which I mean is it aesthetically appealling or impressive in some sense. This is very important, especially if a film dwells on its SFX a bit.

2) Does it look real?*

By this I do not mean, 'could it really be built' or 'would such a creature evolve?'. Looks real is that it looks like the real, physical object it pretends to be. A Star Destroyer may be a ludricous design from the position of actual spacecraft, but it can look as if it really exists.

The order of the questions is important. Point 1. is always more important than Point 2. I've seen interesting SFX from all eras, one of my favourite sci-fi films visually remains Metropolis. Point 2., I've seen both modelwork and CGI that could apply. I've also seen plenty of modelwork and CGI which could not.

I think the film that fits both criterion the best of the Star Trek films remains Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the film that most conspicously fails on both counts would be Star Trek: The Final Frontier.

*Assuming the intention is to look real. Some films are intentionally stylised and unrealistic, athough by the criterion of 'realism' I outlined the Star Trek films do not intend to be so.