CGI in movies

Movies provide millions each year with entertainment. It gives the viewer a chance to forget whatever he/she is going for and allows him/her to focus on the movie. Everything from script to acting is important when judging a movie. Something that has seen a rise in recognition is special effects. Due to technological advances of the past decade, special effects have seen a massive advancement. The effects that are used in making many of the movies that we love would not be possible if not for the technological evolution.

The popular special effect used today is known as computer generated images (CGI).  CGI is defined as is the application of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, films, television programs, commercials, videos, and simulators. The visual scenes may be dynamic or static, and may be two-dimensional, though the term is most commonly used to refer to 3D computer graphics used for creating scenes or special effects in films and television. It’s a very lengthy and difficult process.

The first step when making a CGI animation is to make a script of the scene. This is a written list of all of the backgrounds, characters, dialogue, and poses that are going to be used in a scene, going in chronological order. Trying to animate a scene without a logical plan isn’t a good idea, since the animators won’t have a clear idea of what to animate. They will have to then come up with a story as they animate, which can result in a sloppy, unorganized mess. Coming up with a script for the scene will help in the long run.

The next step in CGI Animation is the Storyboard phase. In this step, a scene is drawn out in several 2D drawings, showing a rough idea of the environments, characters, and camera angles that you would see in the finished film. The script is usually shown at the bottom of each drawing to show what is happening. In a big-budget CGI film, like the upcoming Avengers film, the animator pitches out the storyboard to the other people in the animation crew. The professional voice-acting typically isn’t done at this stage, so the animator usually does a rough impression of each character while pitching out each scene.

The third step of CGI animation is the layout step. Here, the characters and backgrounds for the scene get rendered in 3D. Animators use computers to build a basic model of each 3D character in the scene. Animators will usually use a reference source while creating the 3D model. Detailed features of a character, such as hair or lighting effects, aren’t created yet. Once the characters and backgrounds are made, the layout step truly begins. Here, characters are placed in the correct spots, and the camera angles for every frame are decided. Then, a rough cut of the scene is played out in 3D. This is kind of like a 3D version of a storyboard; although the dialogue and camera angles are finalized, nothing else is. There is no lighting, details, or motions on the characters yet. All of the characters are also stuck in their basic poses. This step gives animators a basic idea of how the scene will look in 3D. After a screening of the scene, some things may be altered and tweaked. Scenes can be omitted at this point, but it is a lot less common to cut a scene now than it is during the storyboard phase. After getting the layouts done, it is time to begin the actual animation of the scene.

The next step is the animation step. The basic character models are now posed and moved to their finalized movements. Everything from mouth flaps to footsteps are created at this stage. Similar to 2D animation, each frame is created and then tweaked very slightly from one frame to the next. When played in order, the individual frames make a complete animation. This is, essentially, a rough draft of an animation. Nevertheless, finishing this step will have the film completely animated.

Once that is finished, it is time to move onto the final revision step. Here, the more complicated parts of CGI, such as hair, lighting, and textures, are placed onto the animation. These complicated parts are saved for last since they are typically the most difficult parts of CGI. Animating hair is very complicated, since there are hundreds of thousands of unique hairs to keep track of. They also have to be animated for effects such as wind and movement. Full hair on a character was not tried in a CGI film until Monsters, Inc. in 2001, when Sully  was animated with a full coat of realistic fur.

Other revisions in this step include lighting and textures. Textures are places on various surfaces in order give them a more believable look. Rough surfaces are given bumps, smooth surfaces look shiny and reflective, etc. Applying textures to human characters can be very difficult, and it is very complicated to make a character that looks just like a real person. This is why many CGI cartoons use unrealistic characters, such as inanimate objects (Toy Story), animals (Finding Nemo) and cartoony humans (The Incredibles and Up).

Lighting involves picking a source of light (or sources) in each scene and applying realistic lighting to the scenes. This applies a shadow to every character and object in a scene. The shadow has to be carefully rendered to make sure that it looks plausible and believable. This step can be time consuming, which is why it is one of the last things done to a CGI animation. Once all of these steps are done, the CGI animation is finally complete.

With the rise of super hero and action movies, the amount of CGI is going to increase greatly. Months are spent on post production trying to perfect this process. Smaug, the dragon in the Hobbit, took four months to create. The process of CGI is well worth it, as movies are often held in high regard due to it.

 

One thought on “CGI in movies”

  1. Just last night I was watching a music video from 1994 and realized how bad the graphics were. Its so true that now there are amazing CGI effects – sometimes they are so good that the viewer does not even pick up on the fact that there even is an edit. Like the TV show “Lost” (my newest Netflix obsession)w as made in 2004 and even from then, which was only 11 years ago, there is quite a difference. It crazy to see how much work actually foes into the process, I’m glad that you bought it to light! More people should know about this because we basically see it everyday!

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