I have two movies to recommend. Nobody Knows is terribly touching, and for exactly that reason, hard to watch. It depicts dramatic story-like events, but it doesn’t give the usual cues to suggest you process it in a story-like far mode. The main characters are children, who you see in near mode, up close and personal, mostly without words. If you love children, you will love these children. Things happen to them, but slowly, and without clear “here is a key event” markers. So you process the events as near, with less story-mode emotional distance; you are more naked to the
You know, movies have never been real. The fact that cgi can mimick reality means less than you think because movies have always been reality mimickers.
The real potential of cgi lay in reducing the cost of movie creation so that a wider variety of stories can be told. As it stands not however, cgi adds enormously to the cost of film productions and the high the budget the worse the more banal and retarded the story.
Ryan, Thanks for the info. It took me a while to get back here, but the information you provided was quite interesting. Not knowing much about CGI, I had assumed only some of the special effects were done that way. I am impressed.
Bump mapping definitely simulates the texture of the surface... it mimics the real world almost exact... after all real objects also have a "photo wrapped around them" (the reflective spectrum of the object) but in 3 dimensions. Bump mapping adds the 3D data for accurate interactive simulation of textures with light rays.
As can be seen in comparison to the real world example above, definitely out of the uncanny valley but still maybe a bit too perfect... even with the addition of the blemished...
What really sells that CGI short are the textures, and lighting. What lay people sometimes miss is that all the little details, the chips and scratches, bumps and bruises, are basically just like a flat photo placed onto the model, but with information that modifies how the light plays off of it.
So the grooves between the bricks, and scratches on the camera are not actually being modeled in 3D. For example, the textures have data that say that this area of the brick should be shadowed as if it were lower then the surrounding area.
You do that, plus change how the light plays off of metal versus carpet or wood, and suddenly you can make a very simple flat surface look marked, weathered or bumpy, and incredibly realistic.
Very realistic. The architecture featured in the video is quite rare and is known as Modern/Neo Butalism and is known for the white futuristic look but with a strong retro feel. Briefly popular in the late 60's to 70's for big buildings on university campusses, institutes and some public buildings.I was familiar wit a campus filled with these and it surely features windows looking out on inaccessible spaces where debris accumulates etc. Here is some examples:122
Yes a real building in the shape of a ship.Similar to the one in the video.
Of course what is more striking is what is missing, the absence of movement and life... Of course it is possible as Avatar shows, to animate realistic humanoids at least but still very expensive. Still I won't be surprised to see realistic movement and life added in another 10 years to this video.
Vimeo now allows HTML5 for most videos, including for this video, so you can download it.
1) View the video page in a recent version of Safari or Chrome.
2) View the page, and click "Switch to HTML5 player" in the lower right.
3) Begin playing the video.
4) Right-click on video and select "Save Video As...". This is a built-in browser option, like "Save Image As..." for images.
This will also let the video play if you don't have Flash installed for some reason, as long as you're using a supported browser. (Since they use a patent-encumbered codec, Firefox won't play their videos, as open-source software, although it supports videos in the patent-free Theora format.)
And what you were running into was likely a Flash bug or something anyway, so it probably won't happen if you use the HTML5 video. You can get full-screen by right-click, "Open Video in New Tab", F11, then F11 to exit when you're done -- Safari/Chrome don't have a built-in "full screen" button yet. (Firefox 3.6 does, but it won't work here, as noted.)
Going to YouTube would also work in this case, but maybe this will help you if it happens to you again. Occasionally it can be useful to be a web developer. :) (Now if only this blog supported e-mail replies to comments . . .)
That raises the question, of if these folks had not been told that the movie was CGI, how many would have arrived at that conclusion anyway? In addition, does the fact that movie was done using CGI affect people's assessment of the quality of the movie? In other words, if a person did not know that movie was done with CGI, would they think less of it?
A lot of commenters on the video are saying it's the best or most realistic CGI they've ever seen. If they've seen any recent movies, they may well be mistaken about that---it may only be the most realistic CGI they've ever noticed.
I wish T3&T7 was downloadable. For me the visual would keep getting stuck on one frame while the audio continued, but if I paused and skipped forward or back I could see other frames.
You know, movies have never been real. The fact that cgi can mimick reality means less than you think because movies have always been reality mimickers.
The real potential of cgi lay in reducing the cost of movie creation so that a wider variety of stories can be told. As it stands not however, cgi adds enormously to the cost of film productions and the high the budget the worse the more banal and retarded the story.
Ryan, Thanks for the info. It took me a while to get back here, but the information you provided was quite interesting. Not knowing much about CGI, I had assumed only some of the special effects were done that way. I am impressed.
Bump mapping definitely simulates the texture of the surface... it mimics the real world almost exact... after all real objects also have a "photo wrapped around them" (the reflective spectrum of the object) but in 3 dimensions. Bump mapping adds the 3D data for accurate interactive simulation of textures with light rays.
As can be seen in comparison to the real world example above, definitely out of the uncanny valley but still maybe a bit too perfect... even with the addition of the blemished...
For some reason the links didn't link in the previous posts.Here is the Urls:
Admin 1
Admin 2
Admin 3
Admin 4
Admin 5
3/7 has the best CGI of any movie that cost $20k + 1 man-year.
What really sells that CGI short are the textures, and lighting. What lay people sometimes miss is that all the little details, the chips and scratches, bumps and bruises, are basically just like a flat photo placed onto the model, but with information that modifies how the light plays off of it.
So the grooves between the bricks, and scratches on the camera are not actually being modeled in 3D. For example, the textures have data that say that this area of the brick should be shadowed as if it were lower then the surrounding area.
You do that, plus change how the light plays off of metal versus carpet or wood, and suddenly you can make a very simple flat surface look marked, weathered or bumpy, and incredibly realistic.
Very realistic. The architecture featured in the video is quite rare and is known as Modern/Neo Butalism and is known for the white futuristic look but with a strong retro feel. Briefly popular in the late 60's to 70's for big buildings on university campusses, institutes and some public buildings.I was familiar wit a campus filled with these and it surely features windows looking out on inaccessible spaces where debris accumulates etc. Here is some examples:122
Yes a real building in the shape of a ship.Similar to the one in the video.
Of course what is more striking is what is missing, the absence of movement and life... Of course it is possible as Avatar shows, to animate realistic humanoids at least but still very expensive. Still I won't be surprised to see realistic movement and life added in another 10 years to this video.
Vimeo now allows HTML5 for most videos, including for this video, so you can download it.
1) View the video page in a recent version of Safari or Chrome.
2) View the page, and click "Switch to HTML5 player" in the lower right.
3) Begin playing the video.
4) Right-click on video and select "Save Video As...". This is a built-in browser option, like "Save Image As..." for images.
This will also let the video play if you don't have Flash installed for some reason, as long as you're using a supported browser. (Since they use a patent-encumbered codec, Firefox won't play their videos, as open-source software, although it supports videos in the patent-free Theora format.)
And what you were running into was likely a Flash bug or something anyway, so it probably won't happen if you use the HTML5 video. You can get full-screen by right-click, "Open Video in New Tab", F11, then F11 to exit when you're done -- Safari/Chrome don't have a built-in "full screen" button yet. (Firefox 3.6 does, but it won't work here, as noted.)
Going to YouTube would also work in this case, but maybe this will help you if it happens to you again. Occasionally it can be useful to be a web developer. :) (Now if only this blog supported e-mail replies to comments . . .)
That raises the question, of if these folks had not been told that the movie was CGI, how many would have arrived at that conclusion anyway? In addition, does the fact that movie was done using CGI affect people's assessment of the quality of the movie? In other words, if a person did not know that movie was done with CGI, would they think less of it?
A lot of commenters on the video are saying it's the best or most realistic CGI they've ever seen. If they've seen any recent movies, they may well be mistaken about that---it may only be the most realistic CGI they've ever noticed.
Thanks!
Email me at robertwiblin AT gmail DOT com and I'll send you the torrent file. I'm still seeding but can't find the file on any trackers.
I had the same problem but found a link on youtube which worked fine.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
I wish T3&T7 was downloadable. For me the visual would keep getting stuck on one frame while the audio continued, but if I paused and skipped forward or back I could see other frames.
For those asking what goes into 3d modeling of buildings, the author has a video of the making the model of one building in the film.