CGI's about to get a whole lot better

[Bmwhtly]

This article (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece)'ll make Beowulf look outdated.

In case you're interested.

[maxmordon]

Hell! Uncanny Valley strikes again!.

But seriously, it's amazing and scary the tought about what this is going to bring... who wants to hire new actors and find new stars when you have Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Jack Nicholson or Shirley McClane at the point of a click?

[Mumut]

Fantastic graphics. Anyone could fake action and place it in a CCTV recording to cover up a crime - and fool anyone with that sort of animation.

[maestrowork]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wtv4bsLWvw

And this (watch the Tom Hanks/Audrey Hepburn sections):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nice6NYb_WA

We actors will be out of the job in 10 years. :) And we'll have a new film starring Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra in about 5 years.

[Bmwhtly]

And we'll have a new film starring Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra in about 5 years.
Yay!

Those two slackers haven't done enough recently.

[dgiharris]

Holy mother of all that is holy.

Tomorrow is today.

WOW!!!

Maestro, those links were in-fucking-credible.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Wow! This is going to revolutionize the internet porn industry!

Um. I mean, that was amazing. My biggest complaint about CGI has always been that it looks like CGI.

[Zoombie]

Neat!

<resists making the obvious and very insensitive comment involving clowns of some kind that shall not go named>

[dgiharris]

INterestingly enough,

this technology could invalidate video tape evidence. You catch someone committing a crime on tape, defense attorney cites that you altered the tape to incriminate his client.

The future is now. Can't believe it.

Mel...

[childeroland]

I wonder if this will outdo James Cameron's 'Avatar' technology.

[maestrowork]

And this one is pretty cool, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DMzD9mNDOI

And so much for aging gracefully...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn2AbYrdjbo&NR=1

[Pike]

This is cool and will make for some wild movies and shows but acting is such a talent. Each actor approaches a role with their own flare and finesse. A group of programmers and directors couldn't make a multitude of distinctive individuals to fill entire movie. They wouldn't have, say Dennis Hopper's energetic splashes or Harrison Ford's cocky swagger down like the originals. They can mimic it but it wouldn't be the same. I think those things wuold get lost in the translation.

[benbradley]

I remember when this "Guy makes a huge humanoid robot from a Mini Cooper" website came online, he had several videos of it on "his site." I was part of a discussion of it on Usenet (http://groups.google.com/group/comp.robotics.misc/browse_thread/thread/cffbbe7fbf7814c9/) - many said it was CGI, some others said it was real. I could tell it was fake because of the "stop test" video that you can see near the end of this video, at about 4:10 into it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vm6p2SAPzI
In that scene the robot is on the left of the car, and the car would have swerved to the left (just as if only the left-side brakes were working) had the robot been actually stopping the car. You can also see the back of the vehicle (especially the back window) drop down as it comes to a complete stop, indicating it's the brakes and not the robot stopping it.

The website is mentioned throughout the video, but is no longer up. Here's what it looked like, though the links to the videos appear to not work (but these are problably available elsewhere):
http://web.archive.org/web/20051222083805/www.r50rd.co.uk/research/internal/v2i/engin/index.html

The whole thing appears to have been put on by the company to promote their Cooper "Mini" car.
Fantastic graphics. Anyone could fake action and place it in a CCTV recording to cover up a crime - and fool anyone with that sort of animation.
Not experts, I'm sure - "photoshopped" (woops, I verbalized a brand name) still images fool lots of us, but experts have many techniques to know when a still picture is doctored (see the thread about that strange creature "found" on the shore at Montauk), and I have no doubt there are many telltale marks in CGI.
INterestingly enough,

this technology could invalidate video tape evidence. You catch someone committing a crime on tape, defense attorney cites that you altered the tape to incriminate his client.

The future is now. Can't believe it.

Mel...
I have no doubt experts CAN detect, through various means I might not know about (and perhaps a few I do, as in the Cooper Mini robot video), whether a scene is real or CGI generated.

This is cool and will make for some wild movies and shows but acting is such a talent. Each actor approaches a role with their own flare and finesse. A group of programmers and directors couldn't make a multitude of distinctive individuals to fill entire movie. They wouldn't have, say Dennis Hopper's energetic splashes or Harrison Ford's cocky swagger down like the originals. They can mimic it but it wouldn't be the same. I think those things wuold get lost in the translation.
No doubt you're right. I'm not much of a judge of acting abilities nor a study of specific actors (I don't watch a lot of movies) so I'd likely be fooled, but certainly serious fans of a popular actor would see the CGI as a caricature of the actor rather than the actor himself.

And even CGI movies with "unknown actors" will have their faults that many movie fans will detect. There will surely be many ways to tell, but these will be evaluated, measured and corrected, and even better CGI movies will later be made.

Things could get interesting in another decade or two, as in having any movie ever made (or one written just to your specifications) with you naming the actor (and age, of course) for every role, created for you for about $10 pay-per-view. I can see these "consumer-specified" movies put on Youtube (Youscreen?) with the more popular ones paying royalties to the consumer-creators. And whoever creates this consumers-make-their-own-movies system will become the richest person in the world.

Now I only need to write this as fiction (but wait, it's already fiction, I've just got to hurry before it comes true) and find a market for it.

[maestrowork]

This is cool and will make for some wild movies and shows but acting is such a talent. Each actor approaches a role with their own flare and finesse. A group of programmers and directors couldn't make a multitude of distinctive individuals to fill entire movie. They wouldn't have, say Dennis Hopper's energetic splashes or Harrison Ford's cocky swagger down like the originals. They can mimic it but it wouldn't be the same. I think those things wuold get lost in the translation.

Plus you still need the actors for the motion capture for their nuances. Like you said, programmers and animators can't get that right on their own. Still, the actors won't be seen on screen and they may get less paid (not sure how the contract works out -- do they get scale or can they negotiate since they won't be on screen?).

I think people by and large prefer real actors, but when CGI actors become so real, it'd be difficult to tell. I think this technology would be very helpful in situations where a) the actors are not available -- for example, to complete some shots after Heath Ledger died, or b) it's dangerous for the actors (for example, the different action shots in King Kong), or c) when they can't find an actor with the right looks (most fantasy characters like the Hulk), or d) when they need to manipulate the actor's face or body (making them bigger, fatter, younger, thinner, older, or ripping off their faces, etc.)

It may take away some jobs from make-up artists, modelers, and perhaps some actors (they'd still need the voice talent, however). But over all, it's still cheaper and preferable to hire real actors.

[kuwisdelu]

Plus you still need the actors for the motion capture for their nuances. Like you said, programmers and animators can't get that right on their own. Still, the actors won't be seen on screen and they may get less paid (not sure how the contract works out -- do they get scale or can they negotiate since they won't be on screen?).

I think people by and large prefer real actors, but when CGI actors become so real, it'd be difficult to tell. I think this technology would be very helpful in situations where a) the actors are not available -- for example, to complete some shots after Heath Ledger died, or b) it's dangerous for the actors (for example, the different action shots in King Kong), or c) when they can't find an actor with the right looks (most fantasy characters like the Hulk), or d) when they need to manipulate the actor's face or body (making them bigger, fatter, younger, thinner, older, or ripping off their faces, etc.)

Yep. Take Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Great CG character. But it wouldn't have been nearly the same without Andy Serkis's great performance.

[Pike]

True. He ran around in one of those fancy bodysuits that mapped his movements and gave the real actors something to work with. There are so many great actors that have their own subtle nuances that I can't see programmers being able to convey.

Of course Ray's points about when this tech comes in handy is true. The Hulk wouldn't be the same if it was a guy in a suit. You can't make a man ten feet tall without it getting sloppy.

[jsmith]

This was the punch line in my novel The Mills of God --- I guess I wasn't nearly as far ahead of the curve as I thought!

In that novel, an Evil Company developed CGI's so good they could fool video experts. Then they murdered people and replaced them with computer images of them saying certain things...