Thursday 11/3/21 - History of CGI

CGI is now at the point where it can seamlessly create realistic visuals that can be difficult to tell apart from what is real and what is not. It can now do things such as simulate how light would hit different objects and surfaces or it can accurately show realistic fluid movement. Often it is now used in cases where it would be cheaper than using practical methods (such as explosions or a large amount of extras) or where it is nearly impossible to create. In the past I researched the more technical side of VFX and CGI by looking at the VFX Company, Corridor Digital. I watched a series of Youtube videos where they reacted to different uses of CGI in film, they gave different insights to how it was made or what went wrong, how they could improve etc. I found it both interesting and also very informative.

However, I wanted to get a better understanding as to how CGI got to the point it is today, how long it took to develop and its first uses in film. According to many, the first film to ever use CGI was Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo all the way back in 1958. In this film CGI was used to create the introductory sequence, it was made by creating patterns onto animation cells. To do this they had to use mechanical computers. Whilst this seems very basic today, it was the first of its kind.

CGI wasn't again used until the 70s with the short film "A computer animated hand" by Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke. It was done by Edwin drawing 350 polygons onto his hand and then he had to animate this in 3D through a program created by Edwin himself. Edwin went on to co-found Pixar and become president of Walt Disney Animation Studios. This was the first ever 3D animation and is widely considered to be groundbreaking for CGI.

The use of wireframes became popular in films, especially after its use in Star Wars to show the plans for the Death Star. It was used frequently in 70s science fiction films such as The Black Hole and Alien. Wireframes are essentially a 3D model limited to just the outlines of the polygons being used, it doesn't even include the faces of the polygons. Today it's useful for a number of reasons, one example is to use wireframes to shape the model to the reference as you can see through the frames.

In the 80s Tron was the next big step for CGI that helped to both popularise it further and develop it. It was a very complex film to pull off, with a vast range and use of CGI throughout. I watched a short video by Corridor Digital detailing how they created the scenes in Tron. The film actually used some real sets when it came to filming scenes inside of the game Tron, they wore black and white clothing on black and white sets. They then used high contrast black and white film, inverted it so that the black lines on the costumes would become white and then used gels to add in the neon colours to the suits. However, they had to edit each shot frame by frame to cut out the person, their face, eyes and mouth in order to keep the lighting correct for their features and also to composit them into the scene. This was all done by hand.

To create the CGI effects such as the lightcycles or other vehicles they didn't have access to the same kind of polygons used today. They had to go to different companies and use different software that all had their own 'primitives', those being the simplest kind of geometric shapes that the software could draw. Only a few companies weren't limited to certain shapes whereas others would only do things such as wireframes.

To actually animate the movement of these vehicles they had to record six values, the x, y and z axis alongside the pitch, yaw and roll values. They did this frame by frame because software wasn't the same as it is today, they could only set the scenes up. They couldn't even see the renders without waiting until it was exposed on film.

The 90s was where CGI got even more groundbreaking, films like Terminator 2, The Matrix or Jurassic Park were able to make even more complex and realistic 3D models. What made Jurassic Park so successful was how they mixed using live action animatronics and CGI in order to create realistic dinosaurs that still hold up quite well by todays standards of CGI. Since then it's always been evolving and getting better, 3D artists are learning from mistakes and know how to implement CGI into films better and more realistically.

Bibliography

A Computer Animated Hand. (1972). Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke.

CineFix (2017). Jurassic Park’s T-Rex Paddock Attack - Art of the Scene. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://youtu.be/oelBtZHkL4c [Accessed 14 Mar. 2021].

Corridor Digital (2020). VFX Artists React to TRON Bad & Great CGi. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ7SevBiT5s&t=847s [Accessed 14 Mar. 2021].

McDonald, A. (2020). What is CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) & how does it work? [online] Discover | The Rookies. Available at: https://discover.therookies.co/2020/04/05/what-is-cgi-computer-generated-imagery-how-does-it-work/#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20CGI%20goes.

Sanders, A.-L. (2020). What Is a Wireframe in 3D Animation. Lifewire. [online] 4 Mar. Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-wireframe-140516.

Ultimate History Of CGI (2018). Vertigo (1958) - First computer animation ever! (HD). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQwp6M2q1NE.