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After reading Cinefex, the making of “matrix reloaded”, it seems like the things that excited me about VFX – creating textures, lighting, animating and creating environments by CG modelling are becoming more automated. Animation plays very little part now in VFX films: MOCAP rules and teqniques such as Universal capture. Animators are not creating motion from nothing, just finessing actors motions. I wouldn’t want to become an animator, the only options are Kids movies now. Another example, the texturing was done by a super camera that captured all the details and automatically did the bump maps and the lighting guy was using all these physicist type tools developed from the airforce or something. Modelling is rather replaced by captuing by scanning now, which leaves less to do for the modeller…And in many movies, minatures dominate..which means that less stuff can be CGI modelled.. It seems like when they need something they just call up scientists or programmers to develop it. What kind of art is that? The backgrounds are just scans of actual sets, which the production designer designs NOT the Vfx staff.. all they do is make sure they scan it right and do the photogrammetry. It seems like programmers/scientists are the ones doing the most inmportant tasks. I’m extremely dissapointed… Do you think the career is going to beecome more technically based in the future? I’m beginning to think that this career is getting more and more techincal and I’m no longer sure i want to go into it. Compositing, sitting in front of a computer all day correcting color, “digital grading” doesn’t sound that fun…What are the jobs in the movies that CREATE the vision..and I can’t draw that well, so I ruled out illustrator type jobs.
There is an enormous amount of craft still in VFX.
The picture you paint is just not an accurate reflection of the work the various artists at ESC, SPI, Tippett, GKR, Animal and others did.
Sure in a major VFX film such as the Matrix it is highly technical – but it always has been. Look at Star Wars and the birth of ILM – extremely technical. But in VFX today, there is still vast scope for artistic expression.
Re colour grading. Colour and light can express the emotional content of a story, traditional oil canvas painters look at form and light. The film digital graders I know on systems such as Lustre are highly expressive visual artist and their work is very interesting – it is also extremely hard field to break into, – as it is a very complex job.
Re 3D – there is an enormous amount of hand animation in the Matrix sequels. A massive amount of data was captured but you’d be wrong to think that ‘scientists’ and not artists were behind those films. It may appear like that, but nothing could be further from the truth.Given your comments and concerns I would suggest you look at digital matte painting. It combines art, composition, tecnical skills and it can be very creatively rewarding.
I happen to agree with you. Indeed it has given me second thoughts about it. However Mr Administrator does have a point. The really good studios are about art, not technology. They see it as the medium. They replaced the paintbrushes not their soul. I think that this situation might be an oportunity for you to make a difference. I think you should try to do things your way and fight for the artistic side of it. If is any consolation, only the great ones would be part of history, the rest, those who think that having technology is enough will be forgotten, just as a studio that thinks they can beat Pixar by buying more computers, they never will because unless the technical part becomes one with their soul and is serving a higher purpose, telling a story, a message etc, they will never succeed. So if you think that you got what it takes, go for it and do things your way, just like any legend did. And remember, History only remebers the pioneers.
Simulation of reality is only the starting point in most visual effects. Just like any character in a film, an effects shot has a storytelling job to do so what is most important in crafting successful visual effects work is an ability to “direct” the performance in that shot. This requires that you have an eye for how the shot should play and no automated technique can provide that. The more advanced that techniques become, the larger part we are able to play in film-making processes because the tools available to us are more powerful.
The most valuable visual effects practitioners are those that have that eye for both what is convincing to an audience and what will best tell the story so I hope you don’t despair that artistry is being replaced by technique. It sounds to me like you have your priorities in the right place so hang in there.
Don’t take what you read in Cinefex literally.
Sometimes people tend to “polish” their stories a little bit when they explain how they did a shot to a journalist.
Having read a Cinefex article about a movie I worked on, I can confirm that what you read is not an exact representation of what happened. There is no doubt that the Matrix sequels are very technical, but rest assured that in the end, artists made the shot look good, not a piece of software.
Remember that the best visual effects work is BOTH highly creative and highly technical.
Don’t worry about physicists and engineers “stealing” visual effects jobs. Every time a new “automatic” tool comes out, that means there is new territory to cover for the artists. It means less time is spent doing “mundane” work and more time making the shot look great.
Also most of the automatic stuff doesn’t live up to the hype when pitted against an expiremented user or an “unorthodox” situation. Motion capture is still bound by the laws of physics on the soundstage, so are miniatures. 3D scanning still delivers lifeless blocks of geometry; not a fully animatable spaceship or monkey or whatever. Optical flow tools (mokey, furnace, etc…) still get baffled by “simple” shots where a good old brain can easily make the difference between stunt wire and electrical wire… etc…. etc…
Good luck!
— Xavier
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