CGI or rubber suits?

[therealmccoy]

It also depends on who you get to handle the computer graphics.

If the guys making this movie want to spend their time and effort making several miniature scenes for several takes, along with finding a good suit designer and finding an actor that's worth a hill of beans to do the suit acting, I'm all for it. I don't want the CG to look like shit either. I'm just not wetting my pants worrying about it. If it's a good movie, I won't really care.

[kaiju_wars]

I think the CGI should look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8D9TPOQIjo

And it should be done by Asylum film company.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Hahaha! That's funny as hell! If the poopy CGI wasn't bad enough, the statement "This guy makes Godzilla look like a pussy." totally ruined that movies credibility. I wonder, is the point that Asylum is Connected to Lions Gate? If that's the case, how come Minotaur's CG was so ridiculously well blended with the practical effects? I mean, I saw this one truly terrible film released by Lion's Gate, called Cerberus. The CGI was so bad it made my eyeballs bleed, lol.

[kaiju_wars]

Hahaha! That's funny as hell! If the poopy CGI wasn't bad enough, the statement "This guy makes Godzilla look like a pussy." totally ruined that movies credibility. I wonder, is the point that Asylum is Connected to Lions Gate? If that's the case, how come Minotaur's CG was so ridiculously well blended with the practical effects? I mean, I saw this one truly terrible film released by Lion's Gate, called Cerberus. The CGI was so bad it made my eyeballs bleed, lol.

Yeah...
Dude, I was making a joke.
There was no need to get serious with it.

[Marcin7282]

I would like Motion Capture because it has the best things of Suit and CGI.
but I know that good suit is better than CGI(like in Godzilla2003)

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Hahaha! That's funny as hell! If the poopy CGI wasn't bad enough, the statement "This guy makes Godzilla look like a pussy." totally ruined that movies credibility. I wonder, is the point that Asylum is Connected to Lions Gate? If that's the case, how come Minotaur's CG was so ridiculously well blended with the practical effects? I mean, I saw this one truly terrible film released by Lion's Gate, called Cerberus. The CGI was so bad it made my eyeballs bleed, lol.

Yeah...
Dude, I was making a joke.
There was no need to get serious with it.

I'm sorry, I did not mean to offend. I did think it was a joke, hence the "Hahaha". I had the misfortune of picking Reptilian up at the local convenience store. The CGI is nearly as terrible as Cerberus. I really do not know if Asylum is connected to Lion's Gate, but I have gathered from these forums that Asylum is notorious for bad CGI. I tossed the trailer from Minotaur up there because it was a direct to dvd release, and I think they showed it on Sci-Fi as well. I was so surprised by how well the CGI blended with the practical effects that I figured it would serve as a fair example of a low budget movie still being able to furnish good CGI. I mean, Minotaur has better CGI than Anaconda. WTF?

Also, I too believe that the best way to maintain quality movement in CGI is to use motion capture. Just look at what Motion capture has done for videogames like Tekken and Soul Calibur.

[kaiju_wars]

Hahaha! That's funny as hell! If the poopy CGI wasn't bad enough, the statement "This guy makes Godzilla look like a pussy." totally ruined that movies credibility. I wonder, is the point that Asylum is Connected to Lions Gate? If that's the case, how come Minotaur's CG was so ridiculously well blended with the practical effects? I mean, I saw this one truly terrible film released by Lion's Gate, called Cerberus. The CGI was so bad it made my eyeballs bleed, lol.

Yeah...
Dude, I was making a joke.
There was no need to get serious with it.

I'm sorry, I did not mean to offend. I did think it was a joke, hence the "Hahaha". I had the misfortune of picking Reptilian up at the local convenience store. The CGI is nearly as terrible as Cerberus. I really do not know if Asylum is connected to Lion's Gate, but I have gathered from these forums that Asylum is notorious for bad CGI. I tossed the trailer from Minotaur up there because it was a direct to dvd release, and I think they showed it on Sci-Fi as well. I was so surprised by how well the CGI blended with the practical effects that I figured it would serve as a fair example of a low budget movie still being able to furnish good CGI. I mean, Minotaur has better CGI than Anaconda. WTF?

Also, I too believe that the best way to maintain quality movement in CGI is to use motion capture. Just look at what Motion capture has done for videogames like Tekken and Soul Calibur.

OK sorry, I took it the wrong way.

Also, Tekken and Soul Calibur are video games, not movies.
And Anaconda is older than Minotaur, so of course the CGI will not be as good.

[therealmccoy]

I wonder about motion-capture. It seems like a good choice, but it also seems like it would make Godzilla's movements too "human", which I'm virtually certain isn't what the filmmakers are trying to accomplish. you know very well that everybody is going to strive for a "realistic" ( ) approach, and I wonder if motion-capture would be their method of choice. i could be wrong, but I don't have a lot of knowledge in that area, and that's just my immediate view.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Well, last time the went realistic they ended up with the JP ripoff extravaganza that was GINO. And if they emulate dinosuars like how they are studied now adays, Godzilla will probably once more be hindered with a purely dinosuar like design. What are we going to see next, a three fingered Godzila that's once again hunched over like a T-Rex, only this time without the humanoid mobility in the forearms, not even having the ability to twist its wrists? Or a nice stiff tail that is almost exclusively used for balance.
The more they are analyzed, the less extraordinary dinosaurs are turning out to be. Godzilla's basic concept was born at a time when beasts like Tyrannosaurus were able to do amazing things, like tank gunfire and use their tails as weapons and more than just a balancing tool.
Tekken and SoulCalibur may be videogames, but the mo-captured polygons of the characters has been able to capture every shrug, punch and kick a heck of a lot more convincingly and consistently than games that used straight up CGI, like Killer Instinct.

[therealmccoy]

^You completely glazed over what I was trying to say. Yes, that's what we got last time they tried to make it "realistic", and it sucked. Another member discussed the possibilities of MC and said basically the same thing I did; it works really well, but the movements may be too human-like. Hell, MC would be like putting a guy in a suit if you look at it right. I think it would be perfect. What I was getting at is that you know that they're going to go for what looks the most realistic. That's the way they do things these days; or at least it has been for a while. That's why I think they wouldn't or won't use MC.

[Tohosaurus]

Well, last time the went realistic they ended up with the JP ripoff extravaganza that was GINO.

There's a big difference in making the design of Godzilla "realistic" and using CGI to making Godzilla move like something other than a man in a suit and allowing for effects like smoke and water to be effectively portrayed in comparison to the scale of a 50-100 meter creature.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Move like what exactly? A tyrannosaur? A galamimus? Perhaps a thing that can go on all fours or kind of stand with a large hunch, like an Iguanadon? Aside from feats of physical power, like high speed mobility, I really don't see what is better in making a monster bull out of a minotaur. And most of the movies that I have seen where they actually don't screw up the CGI have used motion capture in lieu of trying to animate something from scratch. Jurassic Park, GINO, Cloverfield and Minotaur are about the only exceptions, and they are merely ailien animals, with animal limitations to movements and mannerisms.

[kaiju_wars]

Move like what exactly? A tyrannosaur? A galamimus? Perhaps a thing that can go on all fours or kind of stand with a large hunch, like an Iguanadon? Aside from feats of physical power, like high speed mobility, I really don't see what is better in making a monster bull out of a minotaur. And most of the movies that I have seen where they actually don't screw up the CGI have used motion capture in lieu of trying to animate something from scratch. Jurassic Park, GINO, Cloverfield and Minotaur are about the only exceptions, and they are merely ailien animals, with animal limitations to movements and mannerisms.

GINO had some suits and mechanisms in some scenes, so did JP.

And Transformers was 100% CGI, no motion capture.

[Legion1979]

Just because this movie might use CGI doesn't mean they'll go the GINO route and we'll end up with a big bird-hipped Tyrannosaur again. All that stuff happens in the design process.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Thanks everyone for the clarification and alleviating my fears that the filmmakers might just want to make Goji CGI to make it appear more dinosaur like in the present sense. As for Transformers '07, they did use motion capture, and it was a good thing too. It made all of those convoluted parts move together like a single body. One scene that comes to mind is where Starscream is about to attack and Iron Hide and Bumblebee lift up the truck to try to shield themselves. I may not like Ironhide's redesign (looks like somebody was going for a humanoid Black Lion from Voltron, not a a red Autobot) or demeanor, but I did enjoy how well he was animated.

Also, speaking of the importance of the inability of smoke and water to miniaturize.

I just watched GMK again, the scene were the military engages Goji and gets blown away.
The inability of smoke to miniaturize did not disrupt my suspension of disbelief as Godzilla crashed against a building and pieces of model buildings were shown falling on the soldiers. Nor when Godzilla retaliated after having the slightly too shiny CGI drill rockets explode on his hide, his CGI breath weapon exploding the mobile rocket pod model in the street. The awesome film work just kept going with the digitally inserted tiny soldiers being thrown into the air as the model trucks seperating them from Godzilla exploded as the beam passed over them. And I certainly did not see a problem with the water as one of the two battleships offshore was then hit by the ray and promptly exploded. THAT is how you do Godzilla with suitmation.

And before people rattle off how inferior this method of effects is, consider LOTR, a big budget movie that used the same methods to make the hobbits look small at the Prancing Pony, and to make Gandalf tower over Bilbo, and to make the models of the computer generated landscape and buildings And now consider how bad the animation was when they tried to have a fully CGI Legolas jump on and shoot the cave troll. This is an example of bad CGI in a modern big budget film. Thankfully the rest of the CGI in the film was top notch, but it shows how unreliable CGI can turn out, regardless of how modern or how big the budget is. Also, if they want to make Godzilla more feral and less human, then they should motion capture or rotoscope actual animans doing all the leaps, running and other things that using humans as reference can pull off.

[therealmccoy]

Nobody is saying suitmation is too old to be considered. What people are saying is that with the current technology available here it's not logical. There's a difference between the two. And your comment "And before people rattle off how inferior this method of effects is" is kind of taking this a little too serious. Nobody ever said this method was inferior. It never has been. You're viciously defending something no one here has attacked. I say again: suitmation isn't "not effective enough" here. It's just not logical. Not with the resources available.

You people act like if the special effects are bad, the movie will be ruined. There's a lot more to a good movie than stellar special effects. If the movie has a good story and likable characters, I'm game. You can post examples of poor CG in films till the cows come home and it won't change my opinion; I'd rather have a good movie with crappy effects than a crap film with awesome effects.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

I'm merely stating why some view CGI is an inefficient method to do Godzilla. How the technology can provide inferior spectacle by being unable to consistently make something appear as though it is really there and still be viewed as a logical alternative is beyond me. Also, I'm not the one who said that I was not going to "piss my pants" over the effects being bad. I have just seen enough films to know when the CGI does and does not do its job of making something that is not there look like it is.

As far as viciously defending the use of suitmation in a series that has nearly exclusively used the method for about five decades now, if that were the case I would not be acknowledging and mentioning movies where the CGI was 100% believable and stating that I am okay with Godzilla being done in CGI.

My last post was to demonstrate how realistic the original method could look by Citing the miniaturization and insertion of soldiers into shots among exploding model vehicles, and how mainstream film used the same method in LOTR to make the hobbits smaller than the humans. If that is viciously defending a method of film making on a site with the same name as the company that pioneered it, then so be it. I'm not the one saying that CGI always fails or is irrevocably flawed and should not be used to depict Godzilla any more in this "modern day and age." I say yay for a Godzilla that looks like the original 1954 version and not hindered by the limitations of a human action a suit. But if deviates from the look or the animation looks like Shrek and not like Avatar like it should, I'll be one of the first to condemn it. done

[Living Corpse]

Nobody is saying suitmation is too old to be considered.

Yeah they still use suits for the Predators film and that came out like only a few years ago.

[Godzilla 2000]

Nobody is saying suitmation is too old to be considered.

Yeah they still use suits for the Predators film and that came out like only a few years ago.

But this isnt Predator. This is Godzilla. They need to convey a real sense of massive scale.

Predator is different because its about human-sized aliens that are designed to look scary and vicious. Godzilla is just a mutant dinosaur, and if you twist it too far into that kind of territory, it stops being Godzilla and just looks bad.

[therealmccoy]

I've asked this question several times in debates like this: Why would they build miniatures and use suitmation in a time period in which the technology is much more advanced? It doesn't make sense to me. The argument that it has always worked for Toho is almost invalid, because you just have to think about it: these films were released nearly every year, and on much smaller budgets. Plus, that technology wasn't available back then. Yeah, the Millennium films used it a little, but i'm willing to bet that their budget didn't allow them to use CG properly. In my opinion, the "CG for Godzilla" hate stems from the '98 film and nothing more. If someone can provide me with a logical explanation why the traditional method would be the best course of action, I'm all ears. The method that CatFace described is interesting, but why would they do it?