pferreira1983 wrote:No, to actually composite something within a frame that has been built requires actual artistry. Creating something in a computer is dealing with calculations. The imagination gets lost.
It is not just "dealing with calculations", as 80sguy explained earlier, a computer is only part of the process, to create a digital scene, whether it's the backdrop, 3D modelled elements, additional effects (like 2D fires, explosions, sparks etc), you need the human mind, and its creativity (and by proxy to that, its artistry and imagination). It is not a case of "click and paste" and you're done.
pferreira1983 wrote:No I haven't however I've read and seen enough to see it's to do with calculations, not actual craft. If you're good at Maths, you're good at CGI.
With all due respect, as you have no background in the field, you don't really know what you're talking about in relation to creating CGI elements. I've read up a lot about the
Titanic, but it doesn't mean I have inside knowledge in shipbuilding.
Mathematics is a good skill to have with some aspects of CGI, but it is not essential. Mathematics is without a doubt the subject I struggled the hardest with at school, but that struggle hasn't impacted my ability to create 3D models and to animate them. I believe what I made was to a pretty good technical standard, and I would say if anything, my skill as an artist and my eye for 3D visualisation were what I relied on more heavily than any skill for multiplication or long division.
I do believe that if you'd studied CGI as part of a university or college course, you'd know it to be true that maths skills aren't the be-all/end-all in computer graphic imagery.
pferreira1983 wrote:Then perhaps what I should be saying there a complete lack of good artists working with CGI today.
Or it may be a matter that some are more specialised in certain areas of CGI, and have been asked to create stuff they're less experienced with.
pferreira1983 wrote:It's laziness on part of the director and the studio.
That's your opinion and we're going to have to agree to disagree in that being the case in all instances. Not everything can be effectively executed with practical effects, and some times it's better to employ CGI rather than potentially waste a lot of money on a tricky and ultimately unsuccessful practical effect. CGI also allows someone to tweak something after the principal photography has wrapped, you'd be looking at having to request a reshooting schedule and extra time if the practical effect doesn't look as good in review as it did when the scene was being shot.
pferreira1983 wrote:Any examples of good CGI?
For the 2016
Ghostbusters, there's the set extensions (I'd also propose Gertrude Aldridge but I know we won't agree on that), Rowan's Destructor Form, the ghosts in the mirrors in the basement of the Mercado, the proton streams, the parade balloons.
Then there's the close-up of the Proton Pack in the first trailer, which has been revealed to be fully CG.
Beyond
Ghostbusters, there's all of the work on
Mad Max: Fury Road,
The Avengers,
Oblivion,
The Edge of Tomorrow and
Saving Private Ryan are good examples of CGI I believe, there may be more out there I could cite, but I might not be aware of because those CGI elements were so well-made I didn't know they were CGI.
And if we're accepting fully CGI features,
How to Train Your Dragon 2,
The Good Dinosaur,
Rise of the Guardians,
Wreck-It Ralph,
Ratatouille,
Wall.E and
Up would probably be some of the best examples we've seen in recent years.
pferreira1983 wrote:That's all well and good but the more you rely on CGI for everything the more thinly you're spreading the quality of it. Look at it this way: spend a whole movie over a year doing CGI for it and it'll look crap, there's no way the quality will be great all the way through. Spend one scene doing CGI over a year and chances are it'll look good. This goes back to what I was saying about quantity over quality. The problem is making everything CG asks more from the crew working on the movie. It's overloaded in one area and not another.
I don't believe always inherently true, especially as it's commonplace now for multiple studios to work on a big-budget production. The biggest constrictions will be the time and the money available, if a CG house has plenty of both, they can make a more elaborate or involved production better.
To that point you've raised though, poor effects as a result of too much work with too small a window to work in, and too small a budget, isn't something unique to CG, it's also present in the practical effects world,
Star Trek: The Final Frontier and
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace both suffered in their effects work either because the reputable effects houses couldn't be gotten at the time, or because they had their effects budgets slashed.