Is it real or is it CGI? Thread

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Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I think it would be interesting to post images that make you seriously ask yourself if the image is really just a computer generated construct, or an actual photograph. And vice-versa.



My first contribution: is here



In this case, it looks like either a photograph or a painting to me.



It's actually Half-Life 2
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 23
    aquafireaquafire Posts: 2,758member
    "Ask yourself if the image is really just a computer generated construct, or an actual photograph. And vice-versa."



    If thats an example of what your talking about......

    It's total crap...Er..... total computer generated junk...



    These creators never get the skies right..nor the surfaces with light bouncing off them...its way way too complex...

    Long way to go before they fool even a bimbo with a throwaway camera....

    Ps I hope I'm not trashing your work......tho
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  • Reply 2 of 23
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Well, that picture is pretty obviously 3D rendered. Look at the person's hands... it's a dead giveaway. CGI animators can never get the hands quite right, they're just too complex.
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  • Reply 3 of 23
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Wow. #2 is VERY realistic looking. I can't tell that it's computer generated at all. But maybe that's because it's somewhat fuzzy.



    The rest are somewhat obvious but still really well done. I have a feeling that within ten or 20 years, we'll see some very realistic computer renderings used very widely. As it is now, none are quite convincing enough to use in a serious film... the last one like that was Final Fantasy which was amazing back then but is only average for today. There are more films that are less serious and just fun, like Finding Nemo, Shrek, or Monsters Inc, because they don't need to have perfect CGI skills to make them good. Even so, they're pushing the technology quite well... remember Sully's fur from Monsters Inc? Quite amazing.
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  • Reply 4 of 23
    aquafireaquafire Posts: 2,758member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Luca Rescigno

    Well, that picture is pretty obviously 3D rendered. Look at the person's hands... it's a dead giveaway. CGI animators can never get the hands quite right, they're just too complex.





    Yeah, why don't they just give them four fingers like Bart & Lisa, or any runadamill cartoony character...that way we can all have a larf and they can quit the pretence to reality........
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  • Reply 5 of 23
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    with regard to the original halflife2 pic:



    obvious texture mapping on some surfaces (gun, wall, brick bldg)

    suggests insufficient polygon count or inaccurate raytracing of shadows...



    given sun point (shadow on wall of brick bldg) soldiers/guns should have different shadow/depth cues.



    metallic building inconsistent lighting given shadow (backside lit)



    depth cued fog in sky (obscuring tower) inconsistent with lighting effect



    no radiosity (buttercup under chin makes chin look yellow)

    in metal helmet/hands/gun from uniform



    yadda yadda overly picky additional tips this is (average) CGI



    --



    dudesir_hanson_new3.jpg is clearly CG... rock and tree textures give it away



    stool.jpg is clearly CG... hair is the giveaway. stool lighting too.

    otherwise she's very impressive... and hot.



    liquid_arts (JD) and (Bonsai) are tough to call. macro lens effects are convincing.

    might be composites of photo elements, but small inconsistencies, if not artifacts, are giveaways

    if pressed, i'd say "very impressive CG" or "nice photos that compress badly"



    but it's late and my eyes aren't at their sharpest
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  • Reply 6 of 23
    jcjc Posts: 342member
    Here is one of the artist in my online gallery. He is an awesome Photoshop artist. check out his gallery



    http://www.thegivinggallery.com/gall..._zoom/com4.htm



    http://www.thegivinggallery.com/gall...gal/sav_in.htm
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  • Reply 7 of 23
    aquafireaquafire Posts: 2,758member
    The thing that really concerns me about CGI is just how self limiting & immature the vision behind the work is..



    I'm not meaning to bag a newish medium..I am sure all mediums have to go through Juvenelia..But the sad truth is that it hasn't even begun to reach its potential..There are so many possible avenues of creative vision to be explored & yet mostly we just get Borg-ville or femz with big tits & attitude or Psycho-killer types or mayhem scenarios....It's friggn boring.........

    mainly because it was done as much as 80 years ago...See image of Metropolis the grand-mother of all CGI Borg look alikes...



    CGI is at a level of maturity commensurate with a child bashing on a tin drum Vs Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.....It's Crap Vs sublimnity.....

    I know it's an age thing, & there are commercial imperatives driving the agenda, but I can't wait for the day that CGI artists can take their place along side Da-Vinci, Monet, or any other artists in the fine art field.....

    As a trained photoshop artist, I still prefer to go to my studio & paint "real " painting on canvas with oils & brushes....

    Maybe the day will come when CGI artists will break out of the SCi-Fi mold and just paint flowers etc....

    \
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  • Reply 8 of 23
    tmptmp Posts: 601member
    Funny, I was walking up Robertson behind a woman who was so skinny she looked like she was CGI. It was actually frightenng. When she turned the corner I saw who it was: Lara Flynn Boyle.
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  • Reply 9 of 23
    billybobskybillybobsky Posts: 1,914member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tmp

    Funny, I was walking up Robertson behind a woman who was so skinny she looked like she was CGI. It was actually frightenng. When she turned the corner I saw who it was: Lara Flynn Boyle.



    badumdum



    liquid arts... the bottle cap looks a little off, as if it is resting on some other plain....
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  • Reply 10 of 23
    fred_ljfred_lj Posts: 607member
    gosh, the jack daniels looks amazing!



    The guys at WETA digital doing the Lord of The Rings stuff (with now-Apple-owned software Shake) know their thing. Both movies have the most realistic CG elements I have ever seen. Then there's movies like "The Hulk" which are abominations to CG's development. Who would let that kind of trash fly? Just put the guy in a suit, or build robots like Spielberg managed to for so many decades.



    But I mean, the entire Mines of Moria sequence in LOTR and now the Ents in the Two Towers...amazing stuff.
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  • Reply 11 of 23
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    if you don't believe CG can do realistic human forms, check out this guy

    (clickable for full size and how it was made...)



    as for believable natural scenery, specifically plants...

    back in 1989 or 1990 i came across a French company called CIRAD who made an organic plant modelling tool called AMAP. one of their images of a jungle river scene went on to win a CRAY award, at was featured at SIGGRAPH.



    can't find the full size, but this is a peek at what they could do more than 10 years ago...



    PC users might run 3dMark and check out the CGI trees in the latest version... hard to tell it's rendered on the fly as a benchmark tool... looks photograhic
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  • Reply 12 of 23
    squidthingsquidthing Posts: 124member
    How photorealistic a rendering is, is no longer related to the technology used to produce it, but the skill of the artist, it's all about creativeness.



    The problem is CGI is gnerally just too perfect and real life isn't, adding dirt and dents and blurring makes all the difference.



    There have been films with photoperfect CGI, and strangely, it doesn't seem to have much to do with the budget or reputation, ironically, the best effects I've ever seen were in Evolution.



    Andrew
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  • Reply 13 of 23
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  • Reply 14 of 23
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I can't wait for everyone to get sick of "photo-realistic" rendering in favor for more expressive work again.
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  • Reply 15 of 23
    Like what?
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  • Reply 16 of 23
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Like anything. Everything must have perspective foreshortening, everything must be lit and contoured, have specific materials or precise forms. I just miss the days when we could represent ideas in a more abstract manner, so clients wouldn't ask stupid questions like "is that really the door handle we'll be using?" two days into the process. We wouldn't paint ourselves into a corner by forcing certain geometries and materials before they're "cooked." Now everyone insists on photo-real images for everything, and everyone (including the artists and architects) gets bogged down and distracted by inane details before anyone can even settle on a concept, let alone make a cogent analysis.
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  • Reply 17 of 23
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    the maya website had a quiz like this as well, maybe a year or two ago? they just took a lot of images made in maya, and stacked them against real-world stuff and told you to pick 'em, then told you your score afterwards. most were noticeable, but one or two had me just point and guessing.



    p.s. there's nothing wrong with treating a cg image to make it look more real, like that jack daniels' bottle. in fact, where most cg falls down is that it tries to be too perfect, and we notice when there is a lack of imperfections. throw some grain and duotoning in, and bam... good luck finding the fake.



    also, in cg animation, body movements must be planned days, weeks, and sometimes MONTHS in advance. that's why final fantasy bugged me so much. real-world movies take dozens of takes to get the "perfect shot," because there is that unpredictable nature of human expression, where an actor/ress can deliver a line with enough unintentional subtlety between takes that one is perfect, while the other is so-so. for photo-realistic cg, where facial twicthes must be mapped out over a week, you lose all spontenaity.



    more cartoonish cg (like finding nemo) benefit from the fact that all of their motions and expressions are expected to be over the top, and happiness, shock, anger, etc. can be boiled down into predictable patterns. we expect it in cartoons. we subconsciously expect the unpredictable the more realistic it is presented as, ans notice it when it's too perfect.
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  • Reply 18 of 23
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    I remember that quiz that was posted on the 'net!



    Are there any other quizzes similar to that online now?
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  • Reply 19 of 23
    klinuxklinux Posts: 453member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tonton

    This was rendered in Maya:



    http://homepage.mac.com/bentonton/fa..._lily_02_1.jpg




    Nice. Excuse the amateur question but how does one 'render' that i.e. how can you render calliagraphy?
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  • Reply 20 of 23
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac The Fork

    http://www.oyonale.com/ldc/english/family_night.htm



    Gilles Tran's good.




    Does that site ever end? I clicked about 100 pages! Too much story; "I hope I didn't brain my damage." H. Simpson
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