The application of CG technology in movies can be divided into two parts: virtual scenes and virtual characters.
The full CG scene is represented by virtual reality technology. In fact, the breadth and depth of virtual reality technology greatly exceed the scope and limitations of movies. In some developed countries, virtual reality technology is first used to simulate the experience of airplane pilots. The whole scene is dynamically generated by computer in real time, and different situations are simulated according to the behavior of the subjects. The Hyde Planetarium in new york, USA, is said to have the largest virtual system in the world, which can produce immersive effects. Using digital technology, the system can project 500,000 stars, while using mechanical projection system can only project 6.5438+0.2 million stars. This technology was quickly applied to entertainment fields such as computer games. The audience can only watch the movie in one direction, but in the game, the player controls the behavior of the character and lets him interact with the scene. What a wonderful experience!
Virtual characters can also be called virtual actors, and images designed by computers appear on the screen. Directors can use computers to bring virtual stars to life, or they can bring dead actors back to life and return to the stage. Brandon Lee died unexpectedly while filming Crow on 1993, and then the director used the immature montage and CG technology to make Brandon Lee "act" the film. It is not too much trouble to "integrate" a star with rich materials. In an advertisement currently being broadcast, CG technology enables young boxing champion Ali to compete with his current daughter. But at present, CG technology is not mature enough, and it is not as good as real people in personality and expression. Watch Final Fantasy (movie version). Although the characters look good and behave like real people, they lack the aura of real people in any way. Therefore, it is best not to rush to replace the idea of real people. Besides, we can also use computers to create non-existent images, such as the mouse in "Elf Mouse" and the ant brothers in "Little Ant Warrior". Their appearance, skin color, temperament, dress and speech are completely controlled by the behind-the-scenes producers. Limited by the current technology, there is still a big gap between the "acting skills" of virtual characters and real people.
Although CG technology has been used in movies and cartoons for some years, the first animated film made entirely by computer has to start with Toy Story in 1995. Since then, as long as there are three-dimensional animations, hand-drawn animated films of the same period have been suppressed. Disney's hand-drawn animation works Mulan and Mount Tai are eclipsed by Bug Crisis and Toy Story 2. Shrek and Finding Nemo even beat the live-action blockbusters Pearl Harbor and The Matrix 2: Reload.
The struggle between hand-drawn animation and computer animation can also be said to be the confrontation between human brain and computer, and the contest between manual workshops and digital factories. The technical basis of hand-drawn animation is "layering" technology. Animators draw moving objects and static backgrounds on different transparencies, and then shoot together. This not only reduces the number of frames drawn, but also achieves different effects such as transparency, depth of field and refraction. The marriage of advanced computer technology and excellent animators further promoted the development of hand-drawn animation. Each layer can be synthesized directly on the computer, and the computer can draw many pictures that can't be done by hand drawing. Since 1986 Disney produced Detective Vivi by computer, the digital synthesis technology of animation scene has been widely used in hand-drawn animation. Therefore, strictly speaking, completely hand-painted animation has long since ceased to exist, but as long as the animated characters are hand-painted and layered, it still belongs to hand-painted animation.
Computer animation relies on CG technology and simulates reality through the powerful computing power of computers, which needs to complete many steps such as modeling, action and rendering. Modeling is to establish geometric information of objects in the form of points, lines and surfaces. Action is to make the object move according to the requirements through dynamic capture, force field simulation and other methods on the basis of modeling. Rendering is to simulate shooting colorful and textured objects with virtual lighting. Because it involves many operations, CG studio needs to invest a lot in hardware, and a large studio like Pixar needs to combine dozens of workstations to use it. In order to meet the increasingly high visual requirements of the market for 3D animation works, Pixar developed the software RenderMan, and DreamWorks chose MentalRay, which made the difference between CG images and objects more and more blurred. Think about the forest and grassland in Shrek and the underwater world in Finding Nemo, and you will marvel at the amazing effect of CG.