[Keith Lango] 1 has an interesting article on his blog concerning [CG pictures/movies and how they have become boring] 2. Keith is of the opinion that the CG look has kind of worn of. We no longer have the “wow” moments when watching a nice full CG movie. And I must say I know what he means.

Nowadays every guy in the backrow knows about 3D and VFX and that it isn’t a secret art. And that kind of pisses me off. I liked to do magic with pictures. I love the expression on the faces of people watching my (or any cool stuff for that matter) and be completely blown away by the uniqueness or pure beauty of effects. Maybe I am a nerd, but it was fun.

Today all we do is making stuff realistic. Yeah! Bring it on! Let’s do stuff like we see it every day without CG!

I have only one word for that: boring

I really am fed up with someone coming to me saying: “Hey can you do a magazine or CD or whatever object floating in an undefined space doing normal stuff (like opening and closing)? …oh and by the way, can you make it as realistic as possible?”

It is kind of frustrating to work within bounds of one world, when all the candy is in the other world - the CG world - where we can do stuff that is unrealistic and exaggerated.

Or is it just me and Keith?

###Following are the comments from the old blog

stickman Says:

Well, count me in. NPR has long been neglected, with endless raytracing programs on the market yet hardly any true NPR renderers. Hard to believe, for two reasons:

  1. Look. A stylistically relevant yet unique look draws an audience. Madagascar shows the potential. So do most all the coffee-table art books of “boring3D” films where the artistic development looks SO much better than the final version.
  2. Efficiency. The last 10% of finalizing a Pixar-look film can comprise 90% of the effort - just think of hair groomers, particle specialists, geometry doctors. NPR looks are much more forgiving in this last phase and can allow for quicker finaling without compromising the visual impact.

In short: we need releases of software like “JOT”. For indy film-makers, students and even the big studios.

AlexK Says:

Hi David,

I have never heard of JOT. Can you give me a link for it, please? Sounds interesting.

stickman Says:

jot: jot.cs.princeton.edu

also check here for someone doing some recent research. Its just not fair that this ype of software isn’t ready for production use…

www.rendering.de/forum/vie…

and another link: visgraph.cs.ust.hk/MoXi/

AlexK Says:

Wow, JOT seems really awesome. Thanks for the link David.