beowulf

[danny_galaga]

looks good. but the look of the lead actor caught me off guard.

beowulf:



ray winstone:



ray is an awesome actor. i picked an unflattering pic of him (on the right is from 'sexy beast)if you get the chance, see the tv series 'vincent' or the movie ''the proposition'.

his new 'body' is of course curtesy of digital magic. its funny. years ago i had a fierce debate with a friend who claimed that one day computer effects would be good enough to replace actors altogether. this was around the time of 'lawnmower man'. i was arguing (stupidly) that the effects would never be good enough. every movie has advances now. not long before my friend will be right. we both agreed it would be a good thing because of the disgustingly high salaries the top stars command. we figured it would help even things out a little if computers did most of the work in the future.

[shardian]

HAHAHA. I didn't know that! I had no clue who Ray Winstone was, but figured it was him as he really is in real life.

Either way, I have heard great things about this movie and it looks frikkin awesome. Might be one I actually go see in theater if the reviews are positive.

[ChadTower]

Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

[Hoopz]

"Have you ever seen a grown man naked?"

[danny_galaga]

HAHAHA. I didn't know that! I had no clue who Ray Winstone was, but figured it was him as he really is in real life.

Either way, I have heard great things about this movie and it looks frikkin awesome. Might be one I actually go see in theater if the reviews are positive.

yeah, if i made a bet with my friend (cant remember if i did) i lost it the moment i saw the trailer at the cinema. i just assumed it was some unknown actor. then when i saw that it was starring ray, i then assumed that they did a darth vader or something- rays voice with some dopey body builder. that is to say, it didnt occur to me there was digital trickery involved. im definitely going to see this movie, despite having jolie in it!

oh, and ray is obviously not in your top ten megastar range. thus he wont be asking for tens of milions for this. so this is a good precedent...

[AtomSmasher]

The one thing they still haven't gotten right is the eyes, computer generated eyes all look like they're dead.

[shardian]

The one thing they still haven't gotten right is the eyes, computer generated eyes all look like they're dead.

It is still quite an improvement over Polar Express.

[danny_galaga]

The one thing they still haven't gotten right is the eyes, computer generated eyes all look like they're dead.

i dont plan on spending much tim egazing into his eyes 

[Grasshopper]

Of course it's possible that his body in Beowulf is actually his real body and that the beer gut he has in Sexy Beast was ‘digitally enhanced’. 

[shardian]

The one thing they still haven't gotten right is the eyes, computer generated eyes all look like they're dead.

i dont plan on spending much tim egazing into his eyes 

You know, that can be read differently than you probably intended it...

[SirPeale]

The one thing they still haven't gotten right is the eyes, computer generated eyes all look like they're dead.

It is still quite an improvement over Polar Express.

Ugh, I hate that movie.  They look so creepy.

[ChadTower]

The 3D in an IMAX showing is incredible, though.  Easily more than makes up for it.

[AtomSmasher]

The 3D in an IMAX showing is incredible, though.  Easily more than makes up for it.

True.

[grantspain]

Ray Winstone is the daddy,a proper geezer

[shmokes]

The eyes thing is only a problem when done improperly.  Polar express is awful, but Toy Story's fine.  I remember reading somewhere that the problem is when animators make the pupils both pointing exactly in the same direction.  That one is supposed to be like five degrees off-center, or it looks lifeless.

[danny_galaga]

The one thing they still haven't gotten right is the eyes, computer generated eyes all look like they're dead.

i dont plan on spending much tim egazing into his eyes 

You know, that can be read differently than you probably intended it...

   well you know, hes kinda hot 

[AtomSmasher]

The eyes thing is only a problem when done improperly.  Polar express is awful, but Toy Story's fine.  I remember reading somewhere that the problem is when animators make the pupils both pointing exactly in the same direction.  That one is supposed to be like five degrees off-center, or it looks lifeless.

Could be, I just know they don't look right in the beowulf trailer.

[ChadTower]

I think most of the problems come when someone tries to animate live objects that people have an intimate familiarity with... that's why it's always fish, or penguins, or toys, or monsters... it requires enough suspension of disbelief that even if it does look different than we think it should, it's just a talking fish, so it's cool.  When you get into animating actual people, though, it's going to be damn near impossible to get perfect and still actually expressive.  Any imperfections in the mechanics are going to be instantly noticeable, like when someone has a lazy eye or a fat lip, it's all you can see when you look at them.  It has been done well, like in Final Fantasy Sprits Within, which was actually a few years ago... but the models were barely articulated.  Well formed, pretty, but no emotion to them.

[shmokes]

This reminds me of something fascinating I read about recently:


The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis about robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities . . . .

Mori's hypothesis states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.

This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely-human" and "fully human" entity is called the Uncanny Valley. The name captures the idea that a robot which is "almost human" will seem overly "strange" to a human being and thus will fail to evoke the empathetic response required for productive human-robot interaction.

It seems pretty plausible to me, and I think explains the problem with Polar Express and the image of the rather advanced robot pictured below.

[ChadTower]

That's about right... back in '98 when I was doing char animation at UMass, we used to say the same thing about all live objects, because the technology just wasn't there yet.  We were still struggling to do things like trees without encountering this issue, though obviously, people wouldn't get creeped out by a tree in that zone, they just thought it looked stupid.  You had to either go all out to make it look great but not animate well, or you had to make it all cartooney with good movement.