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BiggerBoat posted:I also think it's neat that Andy Serkis has basically created his own entire genre of acting and has been for like 15 years now; to the point that probably nobody even recognizes him walking down the street but he's famous as hell. I can't think of a parallel. Lon Cheney or Boris Karloff maybe but think about how long ago that was. Everyone in VFX hates him for it because he takes credit away from the sculptors and animators who are responsible for the facial animation and performance of the CGI characters. There's nothing Serkis does that can't be done with hundreds of other (even amateur) actors. His performances with the head cameras and motion capture suit are purely for reference for the animators and sculptors, and the final product is heavily changed and polished by the animators and the director of the film. High-end VFX is still very cloak-and-dagger and difficult to understand for the layperson, so I suppose it's rife for an unblushing and devious self-promoter like Serkis to take credit for things he shouldn't.
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Jul 12, 2017 19:02
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BiggerBoat posted:Is this really a thing? I never read about it. You have a link to an article or a story that talks about it? Serkis gets these roles purely because of the success of Gollum and Caesar and the incorrect belief he played a major role in both of these CGI characters. He was just in the right place at the right time. As I mentioned earlier, even an amateur actor is/would be suffice for motion capture performances. In fact, a number of full CGI, hero characters in the recent past and in major upcoming films have cheap, jobbing TV actors for their motion capture, yet you'll never hear their name promoted like Serkis's. There's an incorrect understanding (pedalled by Serkis in the media) that somehow the dots painted on Serkis's face and the cameras mounted on his head drive the facial performance of characters like Gollum and Caesar -- that's 100% not the case in film VFX. The footage from the head camera is only used as reference by animators for lip syncing. The final performance on screen will deviate substantially from what the motion capture actor - like Serkis - provided once the director starts viewing renders and begins providing feedback to animators. This is a simplified pipeline of how facial animation works for a character like Caesar: - A 3D model of Caesar is created. - A facial modeller sculpts all possible facial movements, phonemes and expressions on to Caesar's 3d model -- they essentially create a different model for each movement/expression, so we end up with 200 - 300 separate models. These are called 'blendshapes'. This is normally the most difficult and time-consuming stage because the modeller needs to ensure the muscle movement and skin sliding all look natural. - The blendshapes are then plugged into a 'rig' for animators, so they can begin combining shapes to make the character talk, express, etc. with various controls on the rig. - The animators use the footage from the head cameras to create a lip sync. Once that's complete, they'll begin animating the rest of the face and adding micro expressions. It's a big team effort and, for a character like Caesar, a dozen or more very senior, highly skilled animators will create his facial performance. The body motion capture will also be heavily edited. Motion capture directly applied to a CGI character, unfortunately, looks artificial, floaty and video gamey. Rollie Fingers fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jul 15, 2017 |
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Jul 15, 2017 00:46
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