16 thoughts on “The Current State Of Computer Graphics”
“Calm Before” was a little bit too in-focus throughout the entire image to look as real as I had hoped it would look. The only other image that failed to convince me was “It’s Going to Rain”, but only the tractor looks less-than-realistic; the recently-tilled ground is quite amazingly done.
That pic of the two airliners over mountains and clouds just shocked me. I had no idea that CGI had come so far.
One of the things this means; there is no longer any such thing as photographic evidence (in science, law, etc) because anything can be faked. Don’t believe me? Wait a year or so and bigfoot will be on TV to tell you himself…
A couple of them are close enough to fool me but most are obviously fake.
The one with the airplane is fairly obviously fake. You have perfect contrast in the mountain across all distances. It needs some sort of depth of field effect. The albedo of the aircraft is also wrong.
The second seemed to me like a montage since the contrast between the ground and the background is too large to be real.
The one with the house is a pretty good fake. Only the walls of the house seem off.
The bird scene has the usual issue: the eye looks like glass. Simulation of glossy reflections is still pretty bad.
There is a lot of detail in the one with the machine but these scenes are a typical best case for computer rendering anyway.
I have seem more realistic scenes with glass. The fluids and the table are completely off for example.
In the scene with the tractor the dirt is too regular, the sky background is obviously fake, and the tractor itself is too neat.
The scene with the raspberries looks pretty realistic. But it still looks a bit samey.
The last scene is another typical best case for computer graphics with glass, plastic, and shiny metal.
I humbly disagree about the bird looking fake because the eye looks like glass. Any decently close-up picture of an healthy animal’s eye will, indeed, look smooth as glass. A sickly eye? Perhaps more muddled, pitted, and cloudy.
I’m also not sure about the comment about the picture of the glasses on the table, especially with regard to “the fluids”. The glasses are all completely empty.
The tractor image looks even more fake on my 24″ monitor than when I initially looked at it on my poorly-color-corrected 13″ laptop screen, as does the interior of the plane for August 1945. However, even blown up on the larger monitor, most of the rest of the images hold up rather well.
Still it is pretty sad I could not get to go to SIGGRAPH in Anaheim this year. Next year the conference is going to be in Canada so I am probably not going either.
“Still it is pretty sad I could not get to go to SIGGRAPH in Anaheim this year. Next year the conference is going to be in Canada so I am probably not going either.”
I bet a lot of countries don’t let you in what with the potential for property damage and what not.
Hmmm? It is fairly easy for citizens of the EU to get permission to fly to North America. You basically need a biometric passport and to ask for permission on some online site some time before traveling so they can do a background check. The customs in the US are pretty grueling to go through however. Last time I went to the US they broke my luggage trying to open a purposely unlocked suitcase. I guess I should have thrown the excessively large after shave flask in the trash like I said to the nice man who insisted in smelling all my liquid flasks and my toothpaste.
It is certainly not as easy as travelling inside Shengen space. It was a lot easier flying to the US before 9/11. None of this take off your shoes, smell your flasks, biometric passports nonsense.
Godzilla, I have a hunch that what Wodun meant regarding property damage involved you stomping on buses, breathing fire, etc, etc. 🙂
Right. Over. His. Head.
I liked it. 🙂
P.S. Some of those images are breathtaking.
For whatever reason going to SIGGRAPH in Canada doesn’t excite me that much. Their national computer graphics conference seems nice and they used to have a pretty big computer graphics industry. Alias and Wavefront used to be there after all. There is still a lot of people from former ATI too. But SIGGRAPH in Canada? If it isn’t in California it doesn’t feel like SIGGRAPH at all.
If I went to SIGGRAPH in Canada the place would probably be infested by Microsoft critters from Washington state.
Well, those are certainly better than anything I could do.
I think “August 1945” is the interior of a B-29. Probably not the cockpit, maybe the radio operator’s station or something like that. I don’t know that for a fact, though. At least that would be my first guess, rather than “a communist power plant”. (Why would a communist power plant have a calendar in English?)
Could they go back and fix all the crap in TNG and LOTR, then? The wife and I were just commenting the other night how jarring it is that TOS looks more realistic than TNG.
The big problem with many of the early CGI series is that they were only rendered at TV resolution, so although the live-action footage on 35mm film can be re-scanned, the effects shots would need to be completely re-rendered for modern HD TVs. If I remember correctly, the Babylon 5 guys said they’d pretty much have to start again from scratch because they hadn’t saved all the original model and scene files.
I have TOS on Blu-Ray, and I’m still not sure whether I prefer the CG version or the original version of the effects shots. The CG shots in the old Dr Who DVDs are certainly better than spaceships made from old washing-up liquid bottles, but then they stand out against the live-action footage with sets made from cardboard, gaffer tape and bubble wrap.
One of the things this means; there is no longer any such thing as photographic evidence (in science, law, etc) because anything can be faked.
Once again, this is not true. Someone invented digital negatives while you weren’t looking.
“Calm Before” was a little bit too in-focus throughout the entire image to look as real as I had hoped it would look. The only other image that failed to convince me was “It’s Going to Rain”, but only the tractor looks less-than-realistic; the recently-tilled ground is quite amazingly done.
Check out the povray hall of fame.
Wow.
That pic of the two airliners over mountains and clouds just shocked me. I had no idea that CGI had come so far.
One of the things this means; there is no longer any such thing as photographic evidence (in science, law, etc) because anything can be faked. Don’t believe me? Wait a year or so and bigfoot will be on TV to tell you himself…
A couple of them are close enough to fool me but most are obviously fake.
The one with the airplane is fairly obviously fake. You have perfect contrast in the mountain across all distances. It needs some sort of depth of field effect. The albedo of the aircraft is also wrong.
The second seemed to me like a montage since the contrast between the ground and the background is too large to be real.
The one with the house is a pretty good fake. Only the walls of the house seem off.
The bird scene has the usual issue: the eye looks like glass. Simulation of glossy reflections is still pretty bad.
There is a lot of detail in the one with the machine but these scenes are a typical best case for computer rendering anyway.
I have seem more realistic scenes with glass. The fluids and the table are completely off for example.
In the scene with the tractor the dirt is too regular, the sky background is obviously fake, and the tractor itself is too neat.
The scene with the raspberries looks pretty realistic. But it still looks a bit samey.
The last scene is another typical best case for computer graphics with glass, plastic, and shiny metal.
I humbly disagree about the bird looking fake because the eye looks like glass. Any decently close-up picture of an healthy animal’s eye will, indeed, look smooth as glass. A sickly eye? Perhaps more muddled, pitted, and cloudy.
I’m also not sure about the comment about the picture of the glasses on the table, especially with regard to “the fluids”. The glasses are all completely empty.
The tractor image looks even more fake on my 24″ monitor than when I initially looked at it on my poorly-color-corrected 13″ laptop screen, as does the interior of the plane for August 1945. However, even blown up on the larger monitor, most of the rest of the images hold up rather well.
Still it is pretty sad I could not get to go to SIGGRAPH in Anaheim this year. Next year the conference is going to be in Canada so I am probably not going either.
“Still it is pretty sad I could not get to go to SIGGRAPH in Anaheim this year. Next year the conference is going to be in Canada so I am probably not going either.”
I bet a lot of countries don’t let you in what with the potential for property damage and what not.
Hmmm? It is fairly easy for citizens of the EU to get permission to fly to North America. You basically need a biometric passport and to ask for permission on some online site some time before traveling so they can do a background check. The customs in the US are pretty grueling to go through however. Last time I went to the US they broke my luggage trying to open a purposely unlocked suitcase. I guess I should have thrown the excessively large after shave flask in the trash like I said to the nice man who insisted in smelling all my liquid flasks and my toothpaste.
It is certainly not as easy as travelling inside Shengen space. It was a lot easier flying to the US before 9/11. None of this take off your shoes, smell your flasks, biometric passports nonsense.
Godzilla, I have a hunch that what Wodun meant regarding property damage involved you stomping on buses, breathing fire, etc, etc. 🙂
Right. Over. His. Head.
I liked it. 🙂
P.S. Some of those images are breathtaking.
For whatever reason going to SIGGRAPH in Canada doesn’t excite me that much. Their national computer graphics conference seems nice and they used to have a pretty big computer graphics industry. Alias and Wavefront used to be there after all. There is still a lot of people from former ATI too. But SIGGRAPH in Canada? If it isn’t in California it doesn’t feel like SIGGRAPH at all.
If I went to SIGGRAPH in Canada the place would probably be infested by Microsoft critters from Washington state.
Well, those are certainly better than anything I could do.
I think “August 1945” is the interior of a B-29. Probably not the cockpit, maybe the radio operator’s station or something like that. I don’t know that for a fact, though. At least that would be my first guess, rather than “a communist power plant”. (Why would a communist power plant have a calendar in English?)
Could they go back and fix all the crap in TNG and LOTR, then? The wife and I were just commenting the other night how jarring it is that TOS looks more realistic than TNG.
The big problem with many of the early CGI series is that they were only rendered at TV resolution, so although the live-action footage on 35mm film can be re-scanned, the effects shots would need to be completely re-rendered for modern HD TVs. If I remember correctly, the Babylon 5 guys said they’d pretty much have to start again from scratch because they hadn’t saved all the original model and scene files.
I have TOS on Blu-Ray, and I’m still not sure whether I prefer the CG version or the original version of the effects shots. The CG shots in the old Dr Who DVDs are certainly better than spaceships made from old washing-up liquid bottles, but then they stand out against the live-action footage with sets made from cardboard, gaffer tape and bubble wrap.
One of the things this means; there is no longer any such thing as photographic evidence (in science, law, etc) because anything can be faked.
Once again, this is not true. Someone invented digital negatives while you weren’t looking.