SPECULATION The Evolution of Practical effects

A good way would be to use CGI for cosmetic effects to cover up some practical effect things like strings or other side effects.

 

Y'all need to learn to discern marketing for what it is. They're shooting on film and using a lot more practical make up and such, more physical locations. But they're not going old school using physical model ships and things like that.

Just expect a lot less green screen everywhere and CGI Stuntmen and other crap unless it's something that requires effects to be achieved and cannot be done as convincingly without cgi or anything that is a pain in the ass to do without cgi.

 

Exactly. There will be a ton of CG in the film. And they're not hiding that:
Simon Pegg says the original films weren't retro movies, they were forward-thrusting, technological masterpieces.
J.J. Abrams says there are enormous amount of CG effects in the film.

I think we can do away with miniatures. CG does that well and they're pretty much indistinguishable. For example, this is the town of Dale from The Hobbit: 1:16

But animatronics are still widely used. Here's a great showreel from Gustav Hoegen who worked on a lot of well known films:

I think what I'm most curious to see is how the puppets look. Pegg says there are puppets. Oh, and let me ask you this: Would you rather see a CG Yoda or a puppet Yoda?

 

You can do a lot with a face in CG and if the lighting is right it can look great.

A puppet can look a bit stiff, but you know it's real. It was present on set, shot under real lighting. And there's also the charm a puppet has. I think I'd rather have that.

 

practical effects are so effective because as soon as you see it you automatically understand that it is a part of the laws of physics. when that mechanism or puppet moves you know that earth's gravity acts on it, you know that wind can make it move etc. but when badcgi is used, your perception of the laws of gravity go from normal to mars gravity to neptune and back to earth in a timeframe of 10 seconds during that weird cgi scene where ironman lands on the ground at mach 9. its not just about facial rig like in avatar. you must track every point that interact with the most crucial real time physics within the acting cgi subject. so when you accomplish that? well lets simulate wind effects on a character ... its hard work for any detail

 

i found a couple of good practical effects studio works for the stan winston school videos on yt. and disney develops new ideas for robot interactions too

 

I'd rather see a CG Yoda that actually looks like Yoda than that piece of blast they built for TPM.

I had absolutely no issues with CG Yoda it made nothing but sense to take that approach. I love the puppet in the OT and it certainly has a special personality and weight to it that makes it seem more real, but the problem is there are tons of constraints on what you can do with a puppet, special sets have to be built, camera angles and action are limited.

It wasn't a problem when he was confined to a swamp and the lighting was dark, but taking him out of that limited environment obviously required CG.

 

I'd rather see a CGI Yoda, unless they've come a long way with the puppets..

 

@MarsPhoenix Are you familiar with The Walking Dead, the tv show? This is an excellent example of practical effects in a digital age, albeit in television rather than film. Greg Nicotero and his team are masters of practical effects and are able to to keep CGI to a minimum; in fact, CGI is most heavily used to improve practical effects by removing extraneous elements from a shot. This is to say that yes, there are people out there still actively pushing the limits of practical effects.

As for how this will relate to TFA....I agree that while many practical may have been used, we will still see a more than healthy usage of CGI, particularly for space-oriented scenes and any motion-capture characters.

 

Walking Dead is great, but their CGI explosions stink on Hoth ice.

 

I love practical effects. Aliens has some of the best. I think cgi is so oversaturated. Some things that doesn't even need to be cgi'd.

But on the otherhand it could never be obsolete. Imagjne Lord of the Rings without cgi. It is a movie that worked best with it.

The OT was awesome with just practcial effects. It worked well. The PT was too much.

 

To get back to the original point of the thread, I think two recent big movies that did a fantastic job with practical effects and kind of show the state of the art in 2015 are Interstellar and The Tree of Life. Interstellar pretty famously used models and practical effects for the ships, the black hole scene, the walking refrigerator robots (they're actually giant metal puppets being controlled from behind!), and others. The Tree of Life created galaxies and supernovae and all sorts of celestial wonderfulness with water, oil, paint, and a high speed camera. Both are god damn fantastic looking films...

 

Bruh...