[Steven Stahlberg]

"We will succeed where Final Fantasy failed..." Yeah, right, about 200 million USD, 150 artists and 5 years, and they're going to do much better. I'll reserve judgement until I see some test renderings.

[Jacks True Self]

Well those $200 mil were used on multiple characters/environments etc... what the article is talking about looks to mostly be just Lee's digital face pasted on top of some actor. So its quite propable that they can pull this off. I could be wrong.

[spooge demon]

A lot of greedy independent contractors were to blame for the cost of FF

As the animation director of FF, Andy Jones, pointed out, and I agree with this totally, the closer to real it gets, the creepier it looks.

When effects teams used to build physical models and fly them around on strings and then composite it all optically, it somehow looked more real to me. An object had weight, the lighting looked accurate, mainly because it was, in a real sense, real. Even an old Buck Rodgers spaceship with the string attached looked like a physical object to me. When it landed, it went thud and bounced a little. Digital stuff looks less real in some ways. With a model, you are missing only scale, and hiding this is amenable to a few neat tricks. If something is digital, EVERYTHING has to be analyzed and duplicated.

I think the movement is where the size of the variable set goes out of sight. I have seen stills that look good. But total moving human reality? That seems to be a long way off.


But I am not sure why this is the Holy Grail, other than as an academic exercise. Movies are not filmed or lit to look real, and digital filmmaking is already well past the point of being able to tell a good story. So simply saying reality is our goal is, well, not sure why it is a worthy goal.

I guess it is worth it commercially to try to do what this fellow is doing.

[Anthony]

I think it's a matter of "we can't do it yet, so let's try." It's a standard exploratory ambition. :] As for making a new Bruce, well, seems like heresy to this long-time martial arts type, but whatever, maybe it'll be cool.

[Steven Stahlberg]

I agree with previous points, let me just highlight that towards the end about 90% of the total rendering time went to render Aki's hair. Her character probably had a whole bunch of those millions thrown at her, the best artists in the world working on her, and still even her still shots look fake. (Except that much renowned closeup.)

The closer you get, the harder it gets. You can get 80% of the distance for 20% of the work and cost, but those last 20% take 80% of the cost. The last 5% can double the pricetag. Of course technology is improving every day, but from personal experience - today it can't be done, not for animation. Maybe in 2 or 3 years. I don't see the attraction anymore though, I used to think it was the holy grail too, but now I'd rather see human characters in cg looking like those great images by Kim Hyung Tae.

[Dr. Bang]

sorry, a bit off topic here, take a look at this closeuppic of a human face. Notice there's alot of hair on her face, these are elements that make a person face looks natural. Try to zoom out also for the full effect.

And characters in FF don't have that, Pic PicTherefore, their face looks too smooth and unnatural upclose. No matter how much you work on the texture, it still looks flat if you don't have those hair on the face. Many ppl said Dr.Sid looks the most realistic, I agree, but sometimes his skin look like a shiny balloon that have tons of texture printed on it.

[MeatyCheesyBoy]

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,48449,00.html

Read this artcle and tell me what you think.

Here's what I think.

Interesting article but it makes me a little uneasy. I don't like the idea of using dead actors who obviously have no way of giving their consent on a project. Its kind of like when they make those duets in the music indurty by inserting someone's voice into a dead singers track. (Lauren Hill did it to a Bob Marley song and Nancy Sinatra did it with a Frank Sinatra song I think). Without getting the actor or singers consent, it just seems like it would be very possible to create a film or song that they would disagree with or that would tarnish the way people percieve the person even though it isn't actually them. We're not there yet but as the technology gets closer and closer to being able to produce photoreal results faster and easier, who's to say they won't start making porno films that star John Wayne or Sammy Davis Jr. I know, thats a little absurd at this point but it still makes me uneasy thinking about it.

[LinaBo]

Also, in FF, they needed more variation in skintone. Aki's was way too even and pale, especially.

[Ahcri]

If they're only going to paste a digital face on a live actor, then I guess it will be pretty believable.

Speaking of Final Fantasy, I actually thought the characters looks very realistic. It is the environment that makes the movie feel like a computer animation. Don't get me wrong, I think all the backdrops of the movie is well-done, but they somehow feels exagerated. It is a science fiction after all, and it is hard to imagine something that looks like that would be real.

However, in Star Wars: A New Hope, they used models to act as the tunnels of the Death Star, that seems to be effective. I'm sure if the environment is not computer generated, it will look more like a live action movie.

[Bg]

I agree that it won't be impossible to accomplish if they're only gonna do the face. The lighting has to be very carefully thought of and it has to help cover the weaknesses of the 3d model. Animating the face can be complicated and they should keep the camera quite far away, but even the close ups could work well, too, if they're short enough a'la the cave troll in Lord of the Rings. The biggest problem in Final Fantasy were the body movements, a bit too stiff and lifeless, but enough to make it unrealistic for my taste. That can't be hidden with lighting, as the human eye is very sensitive to movement. If they're gonna make the whole Bruce Lee I quess they'll fail, but if they decide to make only the face I think it can prove very successful, because after all 50 million dollars is quite a lot of money

[Steelwind]

It sounds to me like they plan to completely digitze Bruce Lee...they mentioned overcoming the hurdle of rendering liquids on human skin, and you really wouldn't need to do that unless you were using a digital character. Also, they are using motion capture on martial artists that can imitate Lee's moves, another unnecessary cost for a cut-n-paste job.

It really bothers me that they are basically attempting to create a Bruce Lee character; it seems to cheapen the fact that he was a real human being, with a family.

Steelwind