Realistic looking? REALLY?


In the making of R.E.: D, one of the crew said they were looking to make the most realistic movie...REALLY?

Problems with Visuals

1. Characters looked like they were made of plastic..especially close ups of Davis.

2. Leon was a zombie in terms of body movements. When people talked, he would stand there and look blindly like a robot. NO emotions, extremely boring, and moved like a robot.

3. Even after almost drowning, being washed up, being thrown around like a rag doll, Leon still looked exactly the same, and seemed to run twice as fast after being thrown by the mutated G-virus monster.

4. After suffering through the same ordeal as Leon, Angela looked exactly the same as she came in the labratory...not a scratch, stain on her uniform, and her hair and makeup were still perfect.

5. After being shot at least a 100 times by paramilitary soldiers, the G-virus monster was not phased at all...but apparently one shot from Leon and he falls to his death.

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I hope they fix some of these visual and logical problems in any sequel.

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You're right on all points, but I would say Leon looked more like a Ken doll than a robot.

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the CGI in this is amazing. can you make a better movie? i think not so why dont you just give them credit for making this movie.

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Actually, the environments were stunning. Sometimes I truely wondered if they had taken some real footage and mixed in the characters. They definitely did a great job there. But the characters themselves... yeah, they were wooden and the clothes loked like plastic most of the time. The shots of the woman in the dress in the end were better - the dress looked like it was made of fabric. But the boobs were most likely plastic :-D

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can you make a better movie? i think not so why dont you just give them credit for making this movie.
That arguement is so overused and so flawed.
I couldn't make a game better than Superman 64, but that doesn't mean I have to bow down to its greatness.

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well excuse me but i wasnt talking about superman 64 that game is the worst but i was talking about Degeneration it does have great CGI and i dont think anyone can make a better movie.

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You really didn't get what I was saying in the slightest, did you...

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yes i did i just think you should give them props for making a movie like this thats all.

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I just can't get my head around the visuals. Sometimes the graphics and animations look uber-realistic and at other times it's worse than the first 1996 Tomb Raider cutscenes. All-in-all I still like it allot, but Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children looked allot more realistic...and ironically thats a movie about a Fantasy game...

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Does anyone know, the film based on the video game Dead Space; Contagium I believe it's called, is it CGI like this film or is it an anime?

Also, to put this post on topic, the close up's and continuity with the degrading of the characters was not executed well. The best [read: most realistic looking] shots, we're full and long(distance) shots with semi-out of focus characters, this occurred a lot in the airport pre- terminal meltdown. The dialogue and close ups or medium shots were a little stiff.
I remember one scene when Leon was standing, profile facing the camera, talking to Claire, and his posture was freakishly stiff. I mean from head-to-toe the back of him was a perfect straight line. The characters needed a better, more realistic model to be based on and restructure the way they lean and interact with their surroundings, all that said; I enjoyed the film a decent amount and would watch a another one.

My one question would be in the time-line of RE does this film fit in more with the films or the games? I'm not totally up-to-date with the goings on of the characters in the games and how accurate the films are to that.

I see you favor a .45
By night I do, and I keeps one in the chamber-case you ponderin'.

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[deleted]

Why are people arguing with nintendofan when he/she is obviously not over 14 years old.

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well, i dont claim to be an animator, numb nuts. if i go to a restaurant and the food sucks, i dont expect the chef to come out ask me if i can do better, do i? i'm paying him, a self proclaimed professional, to make the food. in the same way if an animator's CGI is not great, then i dont expect him to come and ask me if i can do better. no i cant do better, but then its not my job is it?

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Maybe they meant out of the four films, in that case this is the most realistic. CGI Claire had more humanity to her than Mila Jolicantact

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well excuse me but i wasnt talking about superman 64 that game is the worst but i was talking about Degeneration it does have great CGI and i dont think anyone can make a better movie.

What horrible logic.
Considering the CGI was done by CGI-animation professionals, and none of us here don't even know how to create CGI-animation, then of course none of us could make a better movie, or movie alone. Your argument is incredibly flawed.

Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.

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and none of us here don't even know how to create CGI-animation, then of course none of us could make a better movie, or movie alone. yeah thats pretty much the point so you really cant diss Capcom for the animation i think its amazing.

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[deleted]

Exactly.

Furthermore, we CAN judge CG visuals. We're the freakin audience, thats our job as viewers.

Just because we don't make it doesn't mean we can't tell crap CG from realistic CG. How difficult is it to show Leon show some damn emotions? I've seen Conan the Barbarian make more emotions on an Xbox 360 game than Leon did in that entire movie. How difficult is it to show some damage to his clothes? Did they have to make him seem as if he is a T-800 Terminator and not a human being?

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For some odd reason, I don't think they had a very big budget for the movie, so I think we could cut them some slack on some parts, IE, lip syncing, animation, ect.

And Leon does show some damn emotion in the movie. He shows his worries for Claire and Angela, for example when Leon told Angela to run from the g-mutant. Why do people overlook this crap?

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"And Leon does show some damn emotion in the movie. He shows his worries for Claire and Angela, for example when Leon told Angela to run from the g-mutant. Why do people overlook this crap? "

so thats your argument..? he tells her to run away? give the guy an oscar

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As for the lip-synching, i think the movie is primarily voiced in japanese, and then dubbed in english. I know that the games are in english and the english version has the legitimate voices, but when making the movie, it was made first for a japanese market so i bet the lips move according to the japanese audio.

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^ lol

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"As for the lip-synching, i think the movie is primarily voiced in japanese, and then dubbed in english."

I'm not sure one way or the other but I tried to follow their vocal movements and it seemed to follow their lines in English, however late and sometimes over-simplified.


--somebody set up us the bomb!--

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Is that not an emotion? At least he isn't complete devoid of them, like so many of you guys seem tot hink.

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Worst CG-movie ever... did they make it in some guy's basement, getting rich of it??? the graphics were absolutely horrible! come on this is 2009, people!

Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

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So next time when you go to a restaurant and the food wasn't good instead it taste so bad, don't complain or argue, IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO COOK BETTER!!!
As a customer we have to rights to complain dammit! They doesn't give us a quality works/product doesn't mean that we can't give our thoughts just because we don't know how to do better than them! Same with Degeneration, they gave us bad CGI we have the rights to complain, to giving thoughts and comments!
You just so dumb if you can't understand what I said.

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CGI seriously looked like it was a game cutscene... really horrible work on the production.

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One issue which stuck out to me was the eye movement, often the characters eyes were just fixed in place while the characters talked, they didn't move at all naturally and often they were fixed straight ahead as the characters turned their heads. Also Leon was far more likeable and showed far more emotion in resident evil 4 cutscenes despite them being technically inferior to the movie CG.

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OK, allow me to break it down a little further here. Overall it was pretty good, the environments were excellent and the mocap was well done, but there were a few issues. The facial rigging was pretty minimal with mostly just and open and close action to the mouth ignoring the usual phonemes for the most part, cranking up the subsurface scattering on the skin might alleviate some of the "shop dummy" effect (but that may be beyond their render time budget) also the models used for close up shots are not especially well modeled or textured. Check out some of the stuff on cgtalk for examples of the good stuff. Perhaps they intended a slightly stylised look, in which case a lot of this can be excused. The lack of dirt or blood on the characters might also be an intentional choice.
Lightingwise it was well done but with a couple of minor niggles that I spotted, such as near the end when Frederic is talking on the phone, the phone screen glows bright green but none of the light from this appears to be cast on his face. A tiny thing I know.

As for the film itself, I liked it. I suspect someone who is not a fan of the games would miss a lot though.

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You're right on all points. I thought the movie was creepy in a way the faces were doll-like in communicating.

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http://hubpages.com/hub/Unleashing-Creativity-Career-in-Game-Art-Desig n

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CGI is the least of this films problems. It could have had the best CGI to date, but it would still be crap because the script was terrible, the story was all over the place, and the big thing all the characters apart from Claire were crap. That Greg guy had cliche written on him in big red letters as did Leon.

The monster was crap, there was very little realism in the story, such as barely flinching when being slogged by the G monster.

Sloppy, crappy film with CGI that will not amaze anyone.

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He's a special agent; how emotional do you think special agents should get? Would you wanna be with an emotional special agent in times of crisis? I'd pick the poker-faced one anytime.

Yeah but someone else said his side profile is just one straight line! I got a problem with that too; it means Leon has got no arse.

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Even after almost drowning, being washed up, being thrown around like a rag doll, Leon still looked exactly the same, and seemed to run twice as fast after being thrown by the mutated G-virus monster.
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Adrenaline.

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After being shot at least a 100 times by paramilitary soldiers, the G-virus monster was not phased at all...but apparently one shot from Leon and he falls to his death.
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Leon shot it in the head. Head = vital area. Other places have thicker armor.


Overall, I think the background and environmental details were pretty good.

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Dude have you played resi 4? Leon's one of the most charasmatic resi protagonists ever, if not the most. yh the whole games a little far fetched but the point still stands. He was like a leon clone from the future sent back to protect clair or something. The zombies had more charisma than him.
I think that his miraculous recovery after being hit by the g-virus monster is perfectly acceptable in the context of the universe it's set, based on past games from it.
Overall though, I wasn't that impressed by the film, it was underwhelming at its very best.

'In the end'? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

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In RE4 I thought of Leon as more of a newbie to the special forces. 6 years pass between the events of RE2 and RE4 In between which he worked with Krauser two years prior to the re4 incident other than that you learn nothing.

I thought Leon was a little cocky and arrogant in RE4 (which the majority of new recruits tend to be after their training is complete).

In the movie a few years have passed since then giving him a little more experience of the job. No doubt killing some of his emotions in the process.

Let's face it you don't see that many charismatic people in those types of positions they themselves are like zombies when it does come to emotion. Which leads me to believing that Leon has grown accustomed and adapted to his job.

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I agree with the OP's arguements on all points. When i first saw this films granted i said it was better than all the live action RE films combined, however i did heavily state to people that CGI was not their strong point.

Also i do believe that one can make a better CGI film than this, on terms of improving on the argued points. Infact in the industry there are much better CGI films out there. Think about ti as well, CGI films takes well over a year or two (even more) to complete, i was suprised that at the end of the release of RE - Afterlife that there was ging to be a CGI film of the series and which was in development, and it was probably only around a year later that this film was released. You can tell it was rushed and not alot of effort went into it, interms of the argued points once again.

It even suprises me that the designs of the characters where completely unoriginal, as in, the way that Leon and Claire looked was completely different from their previous appearances. This really upsetted me because this film was made by 'Capcom' who inturn are the people who made the Resident Evil games, unless it was a totally different division in the company, but i dont think it is so hard for one to pass on character models from the game to be used in the films. I personally think Capcom is slacking big time.

Animation wise, of emotions, facial expressions etc. was horrible. Originally i thought it was because it was a japanese film dubbed into english, hence i grabbed myself the japanese dubbed, and i can tell you this, i probably spend almost an hour comparing the two dubs and i was seeing that the japanese dub wasnt matching onsync, i was thinking i could be wrong and continued comparing until i saw the time, and i concluded cold-heartedly, that nothing is wrong with the dubs, its the lip-syncing animations. The G-Virus monster in this film look ridiculous, also as in ridiculously big and highly exagerated compared to William Birkin.

Body movements were okay, but i can still see some small improvements that can be done here and there. Everything else surrounding this was good, CG models of the environments, buildings and so on were nicely put together. Lighting in some scenes did help give a helm of realism but overall, even with the photorealistic skin textures in some characters are let down by poor animations, also everyone seems to look really perfect, like if ti was a glamour magazine, hardly realistic, if i can recall, i dont remember seeing any sort of dirt on people after all the tragic happening. Also, even clothing in many people didnt seem convincing, its hard to tell what fabric is what from one character to another, they all seemed to be all polished or shiny, another let down im afraid.

I even praise the use of its cinematography, i felt it kept is traditionally conventional therefore it felt like a good film. Another point also is the story, nothing stupid like the live-action films, this purely continues the original story of the RE games, and it was really great to see zombies for the first time after Resident Evil Remake for the Gamecube, if not then Resident Evil Code Veronica back in 2000, and that we could probably see how the original creators wanted their Resident Evil zombies to be portrayed onscreen, unlike the live-action film's 'Liquid' zombies, and recent zombie films that are entirely aggressive.

Despite all if this, i did enjoy the film, even stating it is better than all the live-action films combined, purely because it kept it original, and i didnt let the CGI get in my way, because i knew it wasnt their strong point, however i must admit, i gained this assumption when i first saw the first trailer that came out, seeing that the CGI wasnt all that and initially thought 'probably the animations and CGI isnt finished or complete' until i saw the secopnd trailer, which dissapointed me how crappy it looked, so from that i knew what visuals i was expecting. Story is key and the MOST important thing to every film! and thats wat sold it to me, could have been better yes but i can tell this would be continued in RE5, but it was satisfying.

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Did Adrenaline make his hair and make his skin clean and shiny also?

3rd comment about the bullet in the head: Don't you think the paramilitary soldiers were aiming for virtuallly god-damn everything on that monster? Considering, ofcourse, that they are trained to kill things coming at them? I'm sure their automatic / semi automatic guns hit everywhere.

I can agree on the background, environmental factors, but the renderings of the face and other logical problems killed this movie for me. Scientists actually have a name for the phenomena of people being able to realize that a human or similar species is fake: Uncanny Valley.

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Even monkeys can recognize a fake of their own and are repulsed by it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8344203.stm

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Final Fantasy: Advent Children or Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Either one of those kicks this film's ass in the realistic CGI department. Furthermore, Spirits Within was made seven years earlier! SEVEN YEARS! Get with it, RE.

That said, I have to agree with someone earlier: the environmental and architectural design in RE:D was pretty pretty. It's just the characters that too often suck IMHO, but that's enough to really bother me.

[insert cleverness here]

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