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CGI that hold up surprisingly or impressively well

jett

jett

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Oct 25, 2017
44,767
Lawd knows in recent years we've had movies with CG that aged like milk the moment they were released, but there's some great, older stuff out there and even from the early days of CGI that stands the test of time. I was re-watching movies like Aladdin and The Lion King and couldn't help but be impressed about how they seamlessly integrated CGI characters with traditional animation.

Let me start off with one of the OG CGI characters, Carpet from Aladdin.

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In order to have a detailed, lively persian rug in the film they had to do it with computer graphics, otherwise the animators would take forever drawing each frame. The way Carpet moves and stretches is classic Disney animation, I honestly wouldn't know any better if I hadn't read about it. Everything but tassels is CG, a genius move that helps Carpet better fit into the movie.

Then there's the stampede from The Lion King

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This is really Disney just flexing. All of the wildebeests in that sequence are computer generated. Essentially perfectly crafted cel-shading back in 1994. The fact that this scene holds up just as well in a big screen in 4K is miraculous. I know how they did it, but I don't know how they did it.

The Sentinels in the Matrix (and use of CGI in general)

zCRddEE.gif


This is just great art design plus judicious use of CGI (the latter is something the Wachowskis would forget about in the two sequels lol). Like the other two examples, everything just fit together just right.

Jake and Neytiri in Avatar

hJEUB7t.gif


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You may think Avatar ain't that old, but this year it will be twelve years old. The Matrix and Avatar are closer to each other than Avatar's release date and today lol. Honestly though, Avatar still looks amazing. We've had a cavalcade of semi-realistic CG characters since then, and a number of technical innovations and improvements have been introduced in the field since then, but somehow, incredibly, Avatar is still top dog for me. Even if you disagree, the fact that it look as good as it does today is mindboggling. Creating realistic human-like CG characters is the biggest challenge there is, and this decade-plus old movie is still among the top tier. At the time it was true movie magic.

What other examples you got of CG that still impresses you? I left out some obvious choices that someone else can fill in. :p
 

Adventureracing

The Fallen
Nov 7, 2017
8,143
I don't have gifs but for me Jurassic park, district 9 and starship troopers are some of the best examples I can think of.
 
Tagyhag

Tagyhag

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,907
It may be cheating due to the dark/rain but rewatched Jurassic Park in theaters a few years ago and the T-Rex CGI held up incredibly well.
 
dodo

dodo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,018


Gollum. For a series of films that has a lot of cutting-edge-for-the-time stuff that looks noticeably old now, it's shocking how well Gollum holds up. One of the only things about his animation that sticks out is the occlusion around his hands and feet in broad daylight shots, occasionally making him look disconnected from the ground--but that's a problem composite animation still has to this day.

This clip is coming up on 20 years old.
 
SeeingeyeDug

SeeingeyeDug

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,023
Stuff from that era that still used practical effects and augmented it with CGI. LoTR trilogy and Titanic comes to mind.
 
Moff

Moff

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Oct 26, 2017
4,885
didn't know about the carpet, that really is a great example that stands up there with the greats JP and T2
 
digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
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Oct 25, 2017
13,124
jett said:
Lawd knows in recent years we've had movies with CG that aged like milk the moment they were released, but there's some great, older stuff out there and even from the early days of CGI that stands the test of time. I was re-watching movies like Aladdin and The Lion King and couldn't help but be impressed about how they seamlessly integrated CGI characters with traditional animation.

Let me start off with one of the OG CGI characters, Carpet from Aladdin.

4dPscvx.gif


iTaHQnx.gif


In order to have a detailed, lively persian rug in the film they had to do it with computer graphics, otherwise the animators would take forever drawing each frame. The way Carpet moves and stretches is classic Disney animation, I honestly wouldn't know any better if I hadn't read about it. Everything but tassels is CG, a genius move that helps Carpet better fit into the movie.

Then there's the stampede from The Lion King

0PmqAuV.gif


Tul2hwW.gif


This is really Disney just flexing. All of the wildebeests in that sequence are computer generated. Essentially perfectly crafted cel-shading back in 1994. The fact that this scene holds up just as well in a big screen in 4K is miraculous. I know how they did it, but I don't know how they did it.

The Sentinels in the Matrix (and use of CGI in general)

zCRddEE.gif


This is just great art design plus judicious use of CGI (the latter is something the Wachowskis would forget about in the two sequels lol). Like the other two examples, everything just fit together just right.

Jake and Neytiri in Avatar

hJEUB7t.gif


K8dzZqj.gif


You may think Avatar ain't that old, but this year it will be twelve years old. The Matrix and Avatar are closer to each other than Avatar's release date and today lol. Honestly though, Avatar still looks amazing. We've had a cavalcade of semi-realistic CG characters since then, and a number of technical innovations and improvements have been introduced in the field since then, but somehow, incredibly, Avatar is still top dog for me. Even if you disagree, the fact that it look as good as it does today is mindboggling. Creating realistic human-like CG characters is the biggest challenge there is, and this decade-plus old movie is still among the top tier. At the time it was true movie magic.

What other examples you got of CG that still impresses you? I left out some obvious choices that someone else can fill in. :p
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I mean, I think the CGI in Avatar is still largely unmatched. Maybe surpassed here and there, but absolutely incredible looking and insane that it's from a 12 year old film.
 
ezekial45

ezekial45

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Oct 25, 2017
6,896
Jurassic Park, easily. I still can't believe the film's CGI from 1993 still beats out some modern movies.
 
broncobuster

broncobuster

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Oct 26, 2017
8,139
2009 isn't that that old, or I don't want to feel old, but yeah, Avatar in general still looks great. Dr Manhattan in Watchmen is another from that year.

And yes. CGI young face and all. Tron Legacy in 2010 overall looks great.

Speed Racer was... 2006? And it doesn't go for realism. But nothing since has really matched what it was going for.
 
Commedieu

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
ezekial45 said:
Jurassic Park, easily. I still can't believe the film's CGI from 1993 still beats out some modern movies.
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They treated CG to integrate it PERFECTLY into film. All that planning, all that lighting, all the process to make it look real and in the environment, the performances of the actors, all that setup. Now you can have 1000 meh-ish good enough to polish up later CG elements in shots to where you literally say you will "FIX IT IN POST." Thats the huge difference between ground-breaking cgi, and cgi that just uses all what was learned to churn out iterations without a real cohesive vision to make sure the thing you're making is telling the story, isn't distracting, and lands on film.

thats why I enjoy the making of of older movies so much. Everyone was on deck and at 100% of their game. You would fix mistakes in post but the difference was, it would be like mistakes or something caught late. Your shoot wasn't just the base level for fixing. They got those dinosaurs to match as close as technologically possible. And in combination with amazing physical sets in camera.

Now you just have 4 people in pajamas and a few set chunks.

one of the main reasons to look forwawrd to james cameron films. unfortunately its for an IP i don't like. But you know its going to be mind blowing.

I enjoy the marvel films, but its always like looking at a really amazing cut scene. I admire the talent behind the textures/renders/physics/etc all that. But its not on the same page as selling you a cgi concept as real life.
 
Ithil

Ithil

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,510
For the very old, the famous glass knight from Young Sherlock Holmes, among the first CG characters of all time.



Given it's from 1985 and they had to invent techniques just to do it for a few seconds of screentime, it's rather impressive from an animation and lighting standpoint. You were seeing much worse CG well into the late 90s in some films.

Trivia note: The effects team at Lucasfilm (called the Graphics Group) that did the scene was headed by a young John Lasseter, and most of them formed the initial crew at Pixar when they founded it in 1986.
 
KAMI-SAMA

KAMI-SAMA

Banned
Aug 25, 2020
5,496
Jurassic Park except for maybe one scene with the brachiosaurus. District 9, I think Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3.
 
Gvon

Gvon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,338
Last Friday the family watched Jurassic Park in 4k. I hadn't watched it in 10 plus years, and never in hd. It still holds up today and my gf 11 year old daughter had never seen it before. The kid loved it and couldn't believe it was made in 93. Tonight we watched Aquaman. Technically it looks a million times better but at the same time most of the movie looked fake and out of place with the live locations.
JP is almost the perfect blend between CG, live action and animatronics.

You can see flaws in certain areas but it is a near 30 year old film.

I'd love to put T2 above JP as It was my favourite movie growing up. I don't think it's aged as well as JP.
 
Soap

Soap

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,851
Some of the ship models from later seasons of DS9, entirety of voyager and enterprise.

I amgoing to say for TV, it hold up really well when compared to the likes of Babylon 5.
 
Maolfunction

Maolfunction

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,871
I'm always impressed by CG shots in films you wouldn't expect there to be much CG. Like, in Brokeback Mountain almost all the shots with sheep are placed with CGI and you'd be hard pressed to notice it in the final film.



(video quality is soup, but can't find it in a better resolution)
 
MoonsaultSlayer

MoonsaultSlayer

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,982
It's not old but considering a lot of cg in, say, Black Panther isn't the greatest, TMNT 2014 has always impressed me when compared to the bigger Marvel/Star Wars films.



The longer takes, keeping everything in frame, the lighting, closeups on facial expressions etc. It's always impressed me and I hated the "ew, Bayturtles" crowd crying about this flick.
 
The Chosen One

The Chosen One

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,988
chandoog said:
Jurassic Park's T-Rex in the rain.

Holy shit.
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Came here for this.

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Still gives me shivers. I'm still convinced Steven Spelberg is hiding that T-Rex in his backyard. That's not fake.

If it wasn't for some 90s quirks like "CD-ROM" and that weird Unix visual UI, my kids would have had no idea the movie was made 30 years ago. It's one of their favorite movies.

I do see a slight resurgence of mixing practical effects with CGI. For example with Mandalorian, the effects on that show look really clean for the most part (ie. CG Luke aside) because they took a page from JP and tried to get a good balance between practical / physical effects and CGI and understanding the limited of CG. Mandalorian has that gritty feel instead of just looking like a video game cinematic sequence.
 
Scullibundo

Scullibundo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,758
Ooo jett's opening post makes me want to find high quality gifs from The Prince of Egypt which is like the pinnacle of marrying 2D with 3D.
 
The Chosen One

The Chosen One

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,988
Jurassic Park was like the moon landing. Like how did they put a man on the moon with the computing power of a wrist watch? And how did they render such photorealistic dinosaurs on computers that could barely run Windows 3.1?
 
Rodney McKay

Rodney McKay

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,458
Dennis8K said:
Pirates of the Caribbean - Davy Jones

Davy-Jones.jpg
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The entire trilogy holds up really well IMO.

The fight at the end of 1 where they fight in and out of the moonlight and seamlessly switch from people to skeletons is still amazing.

3 went a bit overboard in some spots that don't hold up amazing (like when the ocean god lady got really big), some some parts are still incredible, like the slow-mo scene of the ship exploding while the British villain guy is walking in shock. The splinters bouncing off of him was always a cool detail to me.
 
Pargon

Pargon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,249
I'd argue that the best CGI is the CGI you don't see.
For me, things that stand out are usually animated characters, animals, insects. Insects, particularly, often look fake but seem to keep being used for some reason.
CGI blood also tends to look bad. Or at least, the times it stands out, it looks bad.

If you look over VFX reels for movies in the last decade, though, there are many examples where you think, "oh, the CGI was obvious in that movie".
But when you look at the sheer amount of work being done, there's so much more CGI used now that you don't see - where sets are nothing but a couple of props and blue/green screens.
You can pick them apart if you look closely, but there are so many shots now where you don't notice anymore.

The last time I read a thread on this somewhere, The Great Gatsby's VFX reel was brought up.
A lot of that movie looks fake - it's almost part of the style. But then there are shots like these:

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If I'm analyzing the shot, the CGI bushes don't seem to be lit realistically - they don't quite fit. But watching the movie, I doubt you'd notice.
There's so much more CGI being used now than most people are aware of - and you'd have no idea without watching the VFX reel.

jett said:
Jake and Neytiri in Avatar
hJEUB7t.gif
K8dzZqj.gif

You may think Avatar ain't that old, but this year it will be twelve years old. The Matrix and Avatar are closer to each other than Avatar's release date and today lol. Honestly though, Avatar still looks amazing. We've had a cavalcade of semi-realistic CG characters since then, and a number of technical innovations and improvements have been introduced in the field since then, but somehow, incredibly, Avatar is still top dog for me. Even if you disagree, the fact that it look as good as it does today is mindboggling. Creating realistic human-like CG characters is the biggest challenge there is, and this decade-plus old movie is still among the top tier. At the time it was true movie magic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I haven't seen the film again since it was originally released on Blu-ray, but it always felt like they destroyed the video quality for Avatar as a way to try and blend the CG better with the live action footage.
The two examples you posted don't look so bad, but I got bad uncanny valley from most of the film. It's usually the way things move, more than anything else.

jett said:
The Sentinels in the Matrix (and use of CGI in general)
zCRddEE.gif

This is just great art design plus judicious use of CGI (the latter is something the Wachowskis would forget about in the two sequels lol). Like the other two examples, everything just fit together just right.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It looks even better when you don't use the new transfer with its awful color grading:
S3y1yKX.gif


As for shots like these ones. I suppose the thing is that it's obviously CGI, but not in a bad way.
I don't really know how to define that, though. I suppose it doesn't break the suspension of disbelief, because the premise of the movie is inherently unrealistic.
 
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