Essay

Avatar pushes computer graphics to the very edge of what are possible, thanks to Avatar’s ancestors. There are several movies created before Avatar that made it possible to add ‘computer generated special effects’.

 Star Wars: A New Hope (1997) & The Black Hole (1979) was the first movie to use animated 3D Graphics. This film uses a primitive version of CGI, called wireframe models. It was a painstaking process that required the animator to map out the x, y and z axes using a pen peripheral, matte drawings and a series of dials. The graphics in this film provided ‘the bedrock for today’s computer generated special effects’.

Tron (1982) was among the first movies to extensively use the new tech, containing more than 15 minutes of fully computer generated images.

Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan (1982), The Genesis Effect, is possibly the first example of realistic computer graphic imaging, the effect was created by Lucas Film’s Computer Graphics Department (now known as a small company called Pixar) and took a microscope to the minuets aspects, particularly the positioning of the stars as perceived from the camera’s point of view light-years away.

Up until this point, computer graphics were almost exclusively being used to make live-action feature films look better. Animation was still being done in 2D and largely by hand. John Lasseter came up with a simple story to blow everyone away, a cowboy and space ranger fight for the love of their owner, but it was Lasetter’s short film ‘Tiny Toy’ that got everyone at Disney interested. 14 years forward and Pixar has created 10 entirely computer animated films , with four of them winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and their most recent up , possibly looking at a Best picture nod.

In ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’(1988) , it used a grand mixture of motion control technology , split screen photography , mimes , mannequins , robots , chroma key , rotoscoping , as well as impressive performances from BobHoskins and Christopher Lloyd , every scene involving both live action and animation is so brilliantly done that viewers begin to believe that tons do live in some small section of Hollywood.

Stan Winston, who reached fame with his work on Cameron’s Terminator films, created the animatronic dinosaurs with latex skins and used CGI to make them move (Jurassic Park -1993).

Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) is a pure example of artificial intelligence for Digital characters and photorealistic motion capture.

Cameron’s patience and wherewithal to wait for the proper technologies to film Avatar right, and from the looks of it, it was the best move he could have, made, and was really inspiring. First and foremost, he used photorealistic motion capture. During scenes with the Na’vi , instead of simply filming the actor’s motions and adding the digital effects in post-production , the system created by Cameron and a group of experts , allowed Cameron to watch on a monitor how the characters , as they would appear in the film  would react with the digital surroundings and direct them as such. The second innovation used by Cameron for the film is a rig, which he describes as a small skull cap that hangs a camera in front of the actors face. As the actor performs, the camera transmits facial movements which are then put on the virtual characters. This results in more of the actor coming through the character than ever seen before in motion capture.

Evidently , CGI has developed over the years , Avatar being the most advanced form ! J