By Des Murphy, Mark Naughton, Andrew Lynch And Sean Fogarty THE EVOLUTION OF FILM EFFECTS FROM SPECIAL EFFECTS TO CGI
Rear-view projection in Panic In Bankok 1964 Stop motion animation in King Kong 1933 and Jason and the Argonauts :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
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.
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( ) - 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) - 1 st film to use motion capture to create every character 1 st use of Performance Capture Avatar (2009) - 40% action and 60% photo realistic CGI Further developed Performance Capture CGI OF THE 2000’S
REFERENCES film-a-creative-cow-magazine-extra film-a-creative-cow-magazine-extra 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)