1. COMPUTER GENERATED
IMAGES IN MOVIES
Stephen Halley - 11060131
Aoife O'Dwyer - 11131888
Mark Eisenberg - 11118482

2. INTRODUCTION
"It is not just that such images [CGIs] raise the
stakes of what can be represented, but that
they are ... more real than the real ... "
Why did we chose this topic?
• Common interest.
• Relevant to our course.
• Explore various aspects.

3. Our Sections
• CGI in Science Fiction
• Realistic Effects
• Non-Realistic Animation

4. CGI IN SCI-FI:
FROM STAR WARS TO
THE AVENGERS

5. THE EARLY DAYS
• CGI & Science fiction go hand in hand.
• 3D CGI first used in 'Futureworld' (1976)
 ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (1977)
used 3D wire frame graphics.
• 1982 – ‘Tron’ - first
movie to have extensive use
of solid 3D CGI.
Very little processing
required.

6. RISE IN POPULARITY
• Sci-Fi movies become more prominent and successful through
the use of CGI.
• CGI has helped make certain elements cheaper to create.
• Younger audiences in a video game culture.
• End of 20th century - New advances in CGI
- 'The Matrix' (1999) - Bullet Time.
• Increase in big budget, CGI
inspired, sci-fi movies.

7. • 'The Lord of the Rings' Trilogy (2001-2003) blended live
action and CGI seamlessly.
• AI used for digital actors
- Eg. Gollum
'Avatar' (2009) - first full length movie to use
performance capture to create photorealistic
characters and environments.
• 'Avengers Assemble' (2012) - Used CGI throughout to make
unrealistic characters and creatures look exactly like reality.

8. Realistic CGI &
Animation

9. Realistic CGI & Animation
• Character - Body Movements
• Personality - Facial Expressiveness
• Polygon Meshes - Fast rendering, common,
lots needed.
• Human Face - Bossels and Depressions,
shading problems, motion and close-up
detail.
• Empathy, Agency (impacting an event)
• No sudden movement

10. Methods
Realistic CGI
• Photographs
• Cross sections - topographic map, contours
• Magnetic-field 3D digitizing - faster
• Plaster, sculpting, projected grid
Making it easier
• Reusing old assets
• Symmetry
• Computer sculpting - Adding, removing,
assembling - "Spaceball"
• Spheres, Cylinders, Points, Moulding

11. vs.

12. Realistic Animation
• Actions follow screenplay and storyboard
• Motion capture - expressiveness
• Suite of emotions/motions
• Not producing a generalization, but working
off a blank slate.
• Reusing animation assets
• Colour, texture eg. blushing
• Intermediate emotions can
be generated by computers.

13. Cartoon Animation

14. Cell Animation
• Traditional method of animation
• Each image is drawn by hand
• Main method until computer animation
Method:
• Artists drew on
transparent pages ("cells")
• Coloured in by hand
• Sections could be moved
without redrawing entirety

15. CAPS
• "Computer Animation Production System"
• Developed by The Walt Disney Company and Pixar in
the late 1980's
• The first computer paint system
• Image outlines were scanned onto computers, then
painted
• Enclosed blocks of images could be painted with a
mouse click
• Improved colour blending, shading, camera movements
• The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was the first film
entirely made using CAPS
• Images were 2D looking and CAPS stopped being
popular in 2004

16. 3D CGI Animation
• Even outline drawings are drawn on the
computer, not by hand
• Small components can be
modified, not just layers
• Improves perspective and
makes the image look 3D
• Cel shading: "toon shading" used to make
computer images appear hand drawn. Gives
a more "traditional" feel

18. Conclusions
• From doing this presentation we have learned that tricks
of the trade are used across specialities.
• Computer Generated Images in movies are improving
at a fast rate. The detail in graphics available now were
not even dreamt of years ago.
• The things we have learned can help us in the future
with projects and in the workplace.