Exactly !
Its all a mixture of :
A) Motion Capture
B) Animated Puppets (low res grey shaded)Scan the real thing, and then add muscle detail and skin texture. The animator would then programme it to motion.
C) Miniatures: by buildiing a 3d scaled model of a set, its a lot cheaper than waiting a week for the whole set to be done by craftsmen. For example below is a collage of the Separatist ship and i believe that this could have been part of the miniature work
Originally posted by ih8jarjar
right, but what i'm saying is that it's not necessary to have these walking shots. i'd rather see a puppet yoda (but not the ep1 puppet yoda!) at a different angle and not see his feet, than see a whole body of yoda that to me does not look as real. cg yoda looks ok sometimes, but in other scenes, the texture and lighting seems a bit off, like when he says "begun the clone war has." just really look at him there. like i said before, his face almost looks translucent. and like the clone troopers, his movement is just too smooth. watch how he blinks and how he turns his head in the different shots. his cloak looks great, but sometimes the rest of him just isn't up to par. but seriously, watch the yoda sequences in ESB again. computers at this point just can't replace the human element that frank oz gives yoda in his motions.
Now, see, there you go, that is where you are just not looking at things at the way GL is- you are saying,. I want to limit myself in what I do. GL does not WANT limits where he cannot, for example, show a walking Yoda and his feet. CGI is the only way for him to realise this lack of limits. And it looks just fine to me.
Nah, I hate it, honestly. I honestly don't care if we can see Yoda jumping around, being able to see his whole body - because a puppet does so much more for the secene because it actually LOOKS more real.
CGI is next to useless when the illusion of realism is shattered.
I have no idea why certain bits were CGI - especially scenes such as in the Jedi Temple - where real actors placed into the scene look out of place.
Also, CGI is too obvious because they slap on SO MUCH effects. Case in point: Yoda's lightsaber. When Anakin and Obi-Wan use their sabers, the sabers don't emit a blue glow on them (until Anakins fight with Dooku of course). Yoda, on the other hand, is covered in a green glow from his lightsaber. Some say that is realistic - but I say it's inconsistent with the rest of the effects. It just hammers home even more that Yoda is a CGI character.
Sometimes I don't even know why Lucas bothers with real actors and sets any more. He may as well have made it completely CGI like that stupid Final Fantasy movie.
The main problem is with the lack of subtlety. Lucas seems to pack every piece of CGI with in-your-face real time lighting and amazing motion's that literally, look too good to be true (clone troopers movements). A good idea with the clones would have been to try and put more mistakes in there, make movemnets inconsistent, jerky, and LESS flowing.
CGI simply isn't good enough, because people just don't know how to use it properly.
I kind of agree with both sides to some extent, the same way that i like some films shot on film, and others are fine on digital....
for a pro cgi angle think of the bits that people never realise are cg (obi wan being dragged along the ground by jango on kamino - i never would have known that was cg unless i'd watched the making of footage)....when people say the cg is bad they are usually thinking of the couple of bits that didn't work....
however i've never been able to get into the clone battle in aotc, and i don't know if it's purely a cg problem....when the droids all enter the arena it doesn't bother me, neither do the clones....but all the jedi look like they've been pasted in from different takes....when mace introduces them, and all the jedi around the arena light up their sabres, a lot of the movements are innapropriate....some of them are in mid fight with no opponent, some are using force-push against empty air....i don't feel comfortable with it until they leave the arena, and it annoys me that i haven't really been able to enjoy this scene.....so for me, in this instance, it's bad/lazy compositing that puts me off, rather than bad cg....basically, if it looks bad then it looks bad, whatever the method...
and it is kind of sad that they sometimes spend months and thousands of dollars just to make yoda do something frank oz could've done in 10 minutes.....
i love the special effects in the new movies. sorry ih8jarjar, but it sounds like you and some others are still in love with the OT special effects too much. i guess when your in love with something you look at it with a curved eye, which in your case is with yoda. yoda hardly looked real in the OT and its even worse looking back on it now. after seeing the new yoda in ep1 i was so happy to hear about them doing a digital yoda in ep2. as for the clone troopers, alot of folks couldn't tell they were cg until a fanboy pointed it out at the theater and the only reason he knew is because he kept up on the spoilers. that goes for alot of the effects in the PT movies. what i really hope is that one day GL will go back and replace that weed-head looking yoda in ep1with a digital one. i'm not dissin anyone's view but some of you guys need to stop living in the past.
like i said before some of you guys are too in love with the OT. are you seriously saying that a muppet looks more believable than a cgi yoda who can now walk, have facial emotions, and doesn't move up and down like someone stuck a stick up his a**? all those cgi animations you see in the background are there to help create a more believable world. digital yoda was one of the best decisions lucas has made, especially after TPM. don't get me wrong, frank oz does a great yoda voice but the muppet is limited on the performance it can give. like expressing sadness, anger, or joy.
i dunno, i'm not insanely anti-digital yoda, i think it's an interesting experiment, but i definitely get more emotion from the original yoda....and i agree with red superfly, he looks like he's THERE.....if you don't get that, then there's really no better way to explain it....besides i don't need to see anakins feet moving in every scene to buy his performance....
i don't really want to take sides on this and get into a heated debate, when i'm kinda on the fence on this one to start with, but i guess now's as good a time as any to say.....(deep breath).....the yoda duel in aotc has always struck me, on a gut level, as a gimmick.....*ducks for cover*.....
Yeah that's the thing with a puppet - sure his facial expressions are better in CGI - but at least we all know that the puppet is actually ON SET, making eye contact with the actor.
That's another problem I have with CGI - the REAL actors never seem to be having eye contact with the CGI characters, it looks wierd.
I honestly don't care if I can see Yoda walk around, feet and all. In Empire Strikes Back, when Yoda is playfully raiding Luke's food thingy, we see his feet, through some brilliant camera trickery. Because we've seen his feet, and know that he has feet, we don't need to see them ALL THE TIME.
Puppets always look more real anyway, because they ARE real, on set with the same conditions as the actors.
if i sounded aggressive in my last post it wasn't intended.
i don't really want to take sides on this and get into a heated debate
I didn't mean to imply anyone was being aggressive, sorry....i was pointing out that i'm not aggressively anti-cg myself....
when lucas made the original films, he would look at each scene and decide the best way to make it work, whether that was puppetry, stop motion, blue screen or whatever....this is how peter jackson has made the lord of the rings films (can you imagine lucas using forced perspective the way pj did to shrink frodo at the start of the first film? not in a million years).....
people say the effects were better in lotr, i don't think they are at all, but if you do 90% cg, chances are some of it's gonna turn out crappy...i like to see skilled craftsman doing all kinds of different things, but i like harryhausen films, and others may disagree with me there.....
and yeah, i agree the yoda in phantom menace was weird, but i definitely wouldn't say the same for esb....
and while we're on the topic, reliable sources say there is a new version of tpm ready to go, exactly the same but with a cg yoda in place....and that's fine with me (apart from the idea of buying the SAME FILM, AGAIN....
but if he touches esb yoda, i might just begin using words like "childhoods" and "raping"....
I think CGI is necessary in the prequels. I also think it's OK to use it in order to replace real actors, like in clonetroopers scenes. But what I do not like is the overkill in every single shot. In AOTC there is that scene where Padme and Anakin are sitting at the table. Anakin uses the force on some kind of fruit. Was it really necessary to use a CG fruit?! I just thought "WTF?! Were they mot able to use a real apple for that?!". You can't tell me that fruit was real. The way Padme eats it is just... ridiculous. I mean... C'mon... do we really need that? I admit, most of the CG stuff is awesome, but there are moments in the movie where I get the impression that it is kinda cheap stuff where somebody didn't really care if it looks real or not.
yeah, peter jackson is a good example. he really understands cgi and how to apply it, but his movies are set in an entirely different world. a world without flying cars, lightsabers, laserguns. plus the PT is coming out of GL own pocket so course he going to create sets, aliens, and clonetroopers in cg. it beats having to pay someone to make all those costumes and then hire actors and stunt men to wear them. sometimes though i think gl is using the PT to test his ILM company's technology.
If CG Wouldn't excist in the PT Then We Wouldn't See The Clone Armys In The End Of Ep II Or Either Yoda Fightning Or The Start Of The Clone Wars So Dont Get Dissapointed Or Something Folks Because Lucas Did This For The Fans Of The SW So We Could Enjoy...Remember That He Wasn't Interrested For Doing The Pt At First 😎
I agree. I love all the CG and I think it looks great. Why shouldn't they use CG? That's a question that is hardly answered.
And it's not all really CG either, well it is as a final product, but first, they have to make models of what they want, then the animatics look at it and then build it into CG. It's a long and hard process but I think it's well worth the time because on film, it's spectacular.