Personally I believe the best Star Wars animation/Battle scenes was done by Genndy Tartakovsky in his perspective of the clone wars.

Not as visually striking as say the intro cinema of SWTOR, what it does have is often missed by the average viewer.

Timing and perspective.

In that animated series he took the time to pace out every scene into a comprehensive view of the current situation.

Take the scene of the troopers sending in a strike team to take out the droids massive artillery canon.

Every part was laid out in a way where the viewer could understand what every character was doing.

Timing in each scene so that no matter if it flashed to the troopers or the battle droids, it was a clear sense of perspective into each situation.

I knew what the troopers were doing, why the droids wanted to drop them. And felt there was a progression in the actual battle itself.

All this was done with literally NO talking involved.

To me that is a series worth watching more than any other based on the facts mentioned above.

*Looks up at the building. Pauses. Looks over at a similar building. Flashes a hand signal over to 3 troopers who instantly leave in the direction given by the hand signal. Pauses. The strike team moves. End scene*

Perfect, no words.

TAke this verse the beginning battle of Revenge of the Sith. We were thrown into a massive space battle involving several fleets in mid combat. As a view I know the perspective was set on the Obi Wan and Anakin but detailing how the surrounding battle was materializing was a key point in building up the remaining story.

Shame that someone didn't say to Lucas "Slow down, lets set up this battle and make the view actually understand and care about its outcome."

Would have taking so little and added so much to the background story.

The phonebook is better than the Star Wars prequels.

Star Wars (the real one) is a classic that will be enjoyed 100 years from now.

ESB is also very good, but loses some points for being a "middle chapter" with no ending.

RotJ was a piece of crap, near scene by scene remake of the first movie. However, it was redeemed by the Phantom Menace, which was so phenomenally awful that it actually made RotJ look like art.

10 million is plausible. The return trailer is more than 6 minutes long. Movies like Wall-E had a budget of 180 million. So with that budget you could have made a more than 120 minute blockbuster.

Theatre quality CGI is a whole other ballgame from anything you'll ever see in a PC or console game. Photo-realism is far more time consuming and expensive.

It seems quite high, but I suppose it's possibly due to EA being optimistic about the product in 2010 and willing to pay for overages.

 

These days, it's pretty common to see SFX hours using sub-contractors, and when the project goes over budget to say, "sorry, there's no more money, and we can't pay you what we owe until you finish the project anyway."

 

I would be surprised if someone could get away with charging 10 million for a trailer short like that today, even one as good as the ones Blur did. There are too many SFX houses desperate for work that will undercut each other to bloody shreds. Even ILM is feeling pressure.

On the contrary it still happens pretty regularly. See the one ESO contracted Blur to do. Their prices have not gone down.

You can see a small sample of their work recently here: http://www.blur.com/

On the contrary it still happens pretty regularly. See the one ESO contracted Blur to do. Their prices have not gone down.

 

You can see a small sample of their work recently here: http://www.blur.com/

Not that I'm disputing this, but how can you be so sure their prices have remained steady?

I've never dealt with Blur, but 3 other SFX houses that I have dealt with have gotten into heavy bidding wars over the last 2 years due to the proliferation of sub-sub-contracting on the super-cheap.

Not that I'm disputing this, but how can you be so sure their prices have remained steady?

 

I've never dealt with Blur, but 3 other SFX houses that I have dealt with have gotten into heavy bidding wars over the last 2 years due to the proliferation of sub-sub-contracting on the super-cheap.

Well I don't work for them nor have access to their numbers so I can't say for sure, but if you look into what is online about them it's pretty clear based on their hiring practices and clientele they're not the kind of studio that deals in 'super-cheap' or 'sub-sub-contracting'. They're pretty much state of the art in that field. They're even doing 3d work in Dubai.

Theatre quality CGI is a whole other ballgame from anything you'll ever see in a PC or console game. Photo-realism is far more time consuming and expensive.

We are not that far away. With the introduction of physical based rendering in the UE4 engine we take a big step foreward. I assume that it is only a matter of about 10 years until we reach a quality that we will accept as photo realistic graphics. A very important role though is how we look at the world we play in. Virtual reality is about to change the way we look at games or multimedia entertainment in general forever.

It will be the biggest step foreward since games went 3D and i am excited that this is one of the puzzle pieces to realistic computer game worlds that is only about 2 years away from becoming a reality.

Where we have to do alot though is how you make a digital world a place that does not only look realistic. But also behaves like you would expect it. And as big as the steps to realistic graphics were in the last 10 years as small were the steps to better ai, better physics or story telling. Thats where the most work has to be done.

Well I don't work for them nor have access to their numbers so I can't say for sure, but if you look into what is online about them it's pretty clear based on their hiring practices and clientele they're not the kind of studio that deals in 'super-cheap' or 'sub-sub-contracting'. They're pretty much state of the art in that field. They're even doing 3d work in Dubai.

No doubt. More power to them if they've raised themselves so far above their competitors to be unaffected by bidding wars.

I've heard that even ILM is feeling heat though ...

We are not that far away. With the introduction of physical based rendering in the UE4 engine we take a big step foreward. I assume that it is only a matter of about 10 years until we reach a quality that we will accept as photo realistic graphics. A very important role though is how we look at the world we play in. Virtual reality is about to change the way we look at games or multimedia entertainment in general forever.

It will be the biggest step foreward since games went 3D and i am excited that this is one of the puzzle pieces to realistic computer game worlds that is only about 2 years away from becoming a reality.

Where we have to do alot though is how you make a digital world a place that does not only look realistic. But also behaves like you would expect it. And as big as the steps to realistic graphics were in the last 10 years as small were the steps to better ai, better physics or story telling. Thats where the most work has to be done.

Well it's relatively simple, and cheap to get "photo realistic" on a 22" monitor, a 50ft screen is another matter entirely.

It's extremely hard to convincingly fool our eyes. Not so bad in a pure CGI film with a cartoon style, because nothing in it is "lifelike" but to make lifelike people and/or mix CGI with live action is very difficult to pull off. But yes, they are getting very good at it. Still though, in a high-budget TV show like Walking Dead, it's the little things that look phoney. They can make a zombie getting shot in two at long range look real, but blood splatters on close up shots look like cheesy CGI.

Well it's relatively simple, and cheap to get "photo realistic" on a 22" monitor, a 50ft screen is another matter entirely.

 

It's extremely hard to convincingly fool our eyes. Not so bad in a pure CGI film with a cartoon style, because nothing in it is "lifelike" but to make lifelike people and/or mix CGI with live action is very difficult to pull off. But yes, they are getting very good at it. Still though, in a high-budget TV show like Walking Dead, it's the little things that look phoney. They can make a zombie getting shot in two at long range look real, but blood splatters on close up shots look like cheesy CGI.

The Uncanny Valley also comes into play.

Ray Harryhausen's special effects never bothered me. On the other hand, the people in FF: The Spirits Within kinda creeped me out.

The Uncanny Valley also comes into play.

 

Ray Harryhausen's special effects never bothered me. On the other hand, the people in FF: The Spirits Within kinda creeped me out.

I wish someone other than Japanese would make a pure CGI fantasy movie. Nothing against the people or culture, but... spoiler alert.... no matter what it's about, it ends with a giant monster.

Or giant machine. Or both.

There are amazing full body capture videos out there showcased with unity engine. It is a bit annoying that they are released as rift version only but look pretty amazing. They are currently working on capturing the same level of detailin motion and already reached out to CIG to consider using their technologie for star citizen.

I won't post the link as i don't know how the forum rules are on nudity.

Search for Multi Light Scans

I wish someone other than Japanese would make a pure CGI fantasy movie. Nothing against the people or culture, but... spoiler alert.... no matter what it's about, it ends with a giant monster.

Unless you watch Godzilla backwards, of course. Then it starts with a Giant Monster who helps rebuild Tokyo before disappearing into the sea.

Fight scenes are directly related to tech. Backflipping through the air with a double ended lightsaber wasnt possible back then.

The Matrix Reloaded.

:EDIT:

I just replied to a post from three months ago... I feel like I just necro'd something dirty.

SWTOR cinematics are better because the SW movies where made in the 70s. Even ep III was made a little under a decade ago, that centuries in CGI development.

Not only that, but those movies were made with an average budget of $32 million (adjusted for inflation). Current CGI blockbusters come in at around $250-$400 million. Makes what Lucas did even more impressive in the original trilogy...well except for the Muppet Show that is RotJ.

If you guys are looking for CGI Star Wars, you should watch The Clone Wars. Yeah, first seasons are wooden, but the evolution of the visuals (and script and everything) is AMAZING. For example look at this fight scene, almost as epic as SWTOR trailers:

 

And they are making new show called Star Wars Rebels (release set to Fall 2014) and I'm sure it will look even better.

I saw the trailers for rebels and the animation was ten times as worse. The animation in Star wars the clone wars season one was even better than it. So don't expect any improvement in the animation. The animation in season 5 was great, I don't know why they downgraded it.

I saw the trailers for rebels and the animation was ten times as worse. The animation in Star wars the clone wars season one was even better than it. So don't expect any improvement in the animation. The animation in season 5 was great, I don't know why they downgraded it.

Rebels looks like crap all around--from story to character to the Disney animation style.

Rebels looks like crap all around--from story to character to the Disney animation style.

Petition Lucas to buy back the franchise before they ruin it. I hate the rebels animation. The next thing we need is Jar Jar as goofy and Donald duck as darth Vader.

I saw the trailers for rebels and the animation was ten times as worse. The animation in Star wars the clone wars season one was even better than it. So don't expect any improvement in the animation. The animation in season 5 was great, I don't know why they downgraded it.

Rebels looks like crap all around--from story to character to the Disney animation style.

Petition Lucas to buy back the franchise before they ruin it. I hate the rebels animation. The next thing we need is Jar Jar as goofy and Donald duck as darth Vader.

Horrible sense of deja vu here.

Virtually identical things were said of The Clone Wars, including people saying the the animation from the earlier Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon shorts were better than The Clone Wars.

I love knee-jerk reactionary opinions.

Horrible sense of deja vu here.

Virtually identical things were said of The Clone Wars, including people saying the the animation from the earlier Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon shorts were better than The Clone Wars.

I love knee-jerk reactionary opinions.

Im sorta looking forward to it actually...most the vids I've seen so far are very early crude mockups from what I can tell (no facial expressions, gross unrefined movement). But they got a ton of people from the original Clone wars CGi series, so I agree with you. I was skeptic of the CW series initially...actually didn't watch it until recently on Amazon. I thought it would be your typical movie spin-off series (let's see if we can make more money off of the same movie kinda deal). But after watching even just the first 2 seasons, I feel that the CW CGi series was a real SW product..far more then the last 3 movies were.

I hope the new series continues that trend. It may not be "better" from a CGI perspective, but then again I'm not a person who believes something is trash just because it isn't better graphics. as an example, I love the cartoony style of the new wildstar game coming out, and I preferred the partial cartoon approach to SWtOR over a more realistic look. Stylized design IMO can be just as good, if not better at times, then trying to get something "realistic". so if they do good at that approach with SWR, then im game for watching them.