CGI special effects or practical special effect.

[Canada]

I've noticed for a long time that practical special effect usually look better for a longer time than CGI special effects.

Case in point Star Wars A New Hope (Original) still looks better than the Phantom Menace when it comes to special effects.

Although things like Sin City and Avatar that are done almost entirely with CGI still look amazing.

[vegeta88]

I have no preference. Whatever gets the job done. I agree that CGI can look dated pretty quickly and some movies get way too ambitious with it, but it can achieve things that practical SFX cannot. Jurassic Park seems to be the prime example.

[Visco.]

Can't I just have a love triangle with both of them?

[remake]

Whatever Prometheus used. That movie was tight, yo.

[Canada]

Originally Posted by remake

Whatever Prometheus used. That movie was tight, yo.

A lot of practical effects with CGI doing what special effects people could not achieve from practical effects alone.

[Duffy12]

.

This thread reminds of when I watched 'Red Tails' a few months back. The CGI was so bad in that one I felt like that I was watching a cartoon through most of the aerial action scenes.

Makes me wonder how they could have cut back on the CGI and used more practical effects to improve it. Or maybe they should have gone with WETA instead of ILM on that one.

.

[Canada]

Originally Posted by Duffy12

.

This thread reminds of when I watched 'Red Tails' a few months back. The CGI was so bad in that one I felt like that I was watching a cartoon through most of the aerial action scenes.

Makes me wonder how they could have cut back on the CGI and used more practical effects to improve it. Or maybe they should have gone with WETA instead of ILM on that one.

.

Models and practical effects are best, with judicious use of CGI thrown in if needed. Top Gun is a great example, the effects look as good today as the did back in '86, 26 years ago, even in a movie theater.

[King Troll]

Practical gives the movie more magic

[GreenGaijin]

I would say to get it done right, both of them working together in harmony.

But to narrow it down: practical for close-up shots and CGI for scenery or action that's too complicated.

[Mandalorian]

You guys hear the news? CGI Muppets in 2015.

[Bluyoda]

How many threads are there about this nonsense already?

Please show me how to do Davy Jones or the skeletons, etc... in The Curse of the Black Pearl as practical guys.

Please show me how to do Coruscant, Geonosis, Kamino, Mustafar, General Grievous, Yoda fighting, Poggle the Lesser, Watto, Sebulba, Hulk, Iron Man, The Mummy, the monster from Super 8, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, etc......practically.

It's the combination that makes it look great.
Also, you have to know how to design VFX sequences, how to direct them, have talented people doing them, and enough money and time do execute them.

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

I have just finished re-watching SW Ep. I and II with the crew commentaries, and I compared the practical creatures with the CG creatures side by side very carefully (E.g.:The Nemoidians vs. Poggle the Lesser), and they while they both look great, the CGI creatures are just much more expressive (lip sync....).

I think the main problem often is that the action is too fast, and we don't get to see the creatures, characters clearly.
I went through many scenes in slow motion (Ep. I+II), and discovered a lot of detail I had never seen before.

CG is here to stay, and it's only getting better.
People just need to use it appropriately.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

[GreenGaijin]

Well for Davy Jones, you would need make-up to cover the actor's face so that's practical. But, to do the tenticals moving (which would be complicated) then combine CGI. Sometimes you don't even notice the difference. The creatures shown in Prometheus were puppets. ET is a damn puppet and look at the expressions on its face.

The stop-motion skeleton army in Jason and the Argonauts, is still one of the coolest and creepiest looking things ever. Also John Carpenter's 'The Thing' is awesome! The fact that computer animation is not involved and it's all in camera, is even more freaky.

Go check out the original Star Wars and Blade Runer - those are all practical special effect shots using models. I'm in love with the look of movies coming out today, and it's all thanks to CGI. But I think there will always be opportunity to do things the old fashion way for little details here and there.

[LordCrumb]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

How many threads are there about this nonsense already?

Please show me how to do Davy Jones or the skeletons, etc... in The Curse of the Black Pearl as practical guys.

Please show me how to do Coruscant, Geonosis, Kamino, Mustafar, General Grievous, Yoda fighting, Poggle the Lesser, Watto, Sebulba, Hulk, Iron Man, The Mummy, the monster from Super 8, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, etc......practically.

It's the combination that makes it look great.
Also, you have to know how to design VFX sequences, how to direct them, have talented people doing them, and enough money and time do execute them.

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

I have just finished re-watching SW Ep. I and II with the crew commentaries, and I compared the practical creatures with the CG creatures side by side very carefully (E.g.:The Nemoidians vs. Poggle the Lesser), and they while they both look great, the CGI creatures are just much more expressive (lip sync....).

I think the main problem often is that the action is too fast, and we don't get to see the creatures, characters clearly.
I went through many scenes in slow motion (Ep. I+II), and discovered a lot of detail I had never seen before.

CG is here to stay, and it's only getting better.
People just need to use it appropriately.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

Hit a bit of a sore spot did it? lol

[Minyainya]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqcR9...outu.be&t=1m5s

[toddly6666]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

How many threads are there about this nonsense already?

Please show me how to do Davy Jones or the skeletons, etc... in The Curse of the Black Pearl as practical guys.

Please show me how to do Coruscant, Geonosis, Kamino, Mustafar, General Grievous, Yoda fighting, Poggle the Lesser, Watto, Sebulba, Hulk, Iron Man, The Mummy, the monster from Super 8, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, etc......practically.

It's the combination that makes it look great.
Also, you have to know how to design VFX sequences, how to direct them, have talented people doing them, and enough money and time do execute them.

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

I have just finished re-watching SW Ep. I and II with the crew commentaries, and I compared the practical creatures with the CG creatures side by side very carefully (E.g.:The Nemoidians vs. Poggle the Lesser), and they while they both look great, the CGI creatures are just much more expressive (lip sync....).

I think the main problem often is that the action is too fast, and we don't get to see the creatures, characters clearly.
I went through many scenes in slow motion (Ep. I+II), and discovered a lot of detail I had never seen before.

CG is here to stay, and it's only getting better.
People just need to use it appropriately.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

People dressed up in costumes, animatronics, old school practical special effects, real sets, painted backgrounds, etc. are a billion times better than all of the examples you listed above. Sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the 1970s-1980s not only look better than most sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the 1990s-2010s but are more memorable. The 1990s-2010 sci-fi/fantasy flicks suffer from quick datedness, sort of like the early ones from 1950s-1960s. The CGI in The Mummy, Star Wars prequels have seriously dated special effects where they look awful now. Movies like Jurrassic Park and Iron Man are good because they are overall good films with balance of everything. If you get a movie with CGI overkill (Star Wars prequels), you'll end up with a quickly dated film, and especially when everything else about the movie sucks as well. Regarding monster movies, there has not been one "holy shit, that's a scary intimidating" CGI monster. Jurrasic Park may be the last one because Spielberg used a mixture of animatronics and CGI. But if a monster is totally CGI, as awesomely animated as it may be, it still looks not real nor threatening as someone dressed in an Alien costume.

You are right that CG needs to be used appropriately. Most of the time, it's not. The last best recent example of perfect harmony of old school effects and new school effects were The Lord of the Rings movies.

[Foggy]

Uh-oh, the ultimate ILM Fanboy is on the case

[JavaJulien]

I prefer a mixture of the two.

[seabterry]

I prefer Practical effects. I know CGI gives more options, but I am old school and respect the people who still keeps things practical.

[Dennis Nedry]

How about a nice mix of both? Like in, oh, say, Jurassic Park.