The Evolution of film effects from special effects to cgi

By Des Murphy,Mark Naughton,Andrew Lynch

AndSean Fogarty

THE EVOLUTION OF FILM EFFECTSFROM SPECIAL EFFECTS TO CGI

• Rear-view projection in Panic In Bankok 1964

• Stop motion animation in King Kong 1933 and Jason and the Argonauts 1963

• 2001:A Space Odyssey used highly detailed miniatures combined with rotoscopes and careful motion-control.

• First use of 2D CGI in Westworld 1973

• First use of 3D CGI in Futureworld 1976

• Tron 1982, created 20 minutes / 200 scenes with CGI. The computer used had 2MB of memory

• Backlight animation used for costumes

1983-1989

• Stepping stone for evolution.

• The last starfighter = Spaceship Shots.

• “In 1985 you didn't purchase CGI software, you wrote it.” – Steve Wright

• Flight of the Navigator = First time reflection mapping was used.

• Luxo Jr. = CGI shadows, renderman, acadamy award.

• The Abyss = First use of digital 3D water effect.

1990-1999

THE SILVER AGE OF CGI

• CGI of the 1990’s achieved:

• Total Recall(1990): Mo-Cap

• Terminator 2(1992): Realistic movement, morphing effects, etc.

• Jurassic Park(1993): Rendered 3D dinosaurs

• Forrest Gump(1994): Historical footage

• Titanic(1997): Water, Cameron’s test run for AVATAR

• The Matrix(1999): First use of bullet time

• Star Wars Episode 1(1999): Extensive use of CGI

SPECIAL EFFECTS OF THE 1990’S

• Terminator 2: Best Visual Effects Award

• Jurassic Park: Spielberg’s original idea

• Forrest Gump: Best Picture

2000-Present

• The Lord of the Rings

• Trilogy(2001-2003) - CGI combined with motion capturing technology

• The Matrix (2003) - Intro of high definition universal capture (U-Cap)

• fight scene - image based facial animation

• Polar Express(2004) - 1st film to use motion capture to create every character

• 1st use of Performance Capture

• Avatar (2009) - 40% action and 60% photo realistic CGI

• Further developed Performance Capture

CGI OF THE 2000’S

REFERENCES• http://www.stikkymedia.com/articles/a-history-of-cgi-in-movies

• http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/best-cgi-moments-in-movies/

• http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/how-cgi-in-commercials-changed-the-history-of-film-a-creative-cow-magazine-extra

• http://www.digitalair.com/techniques/universal_capture.html

• http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects.html

• Keyframe-based Tracking for Rotoscoping and Animation (Agarwala et al,2004,Vol 23,Issue 3)

• Final Frontiers: Computer-Generated Imagery and the Science Fiction Film(Abbott S,2006,Vol 33,Issue 1)

• Movie-maps: An application of the videodisc to computer graphics(Andrew Lippman,1980,Vol 14,Issue 3)

• http://www.totalfilm.com/features/50-best-movie-special-effects