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VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi (FEAT. Sonic, GOT, Aladdin, JP, PotC...)
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Way too many calls to action and it didn't feel like they went as deep as they do others.
I remember watching it in the theater thinking that only the head was CG. Blew my mind when I found out that it was all CG. And after all of these years, it still holds up.
Yeah too many plugs lol, and I feel they should stick to and go in depth on a few titles instead of jumping around many different ones quickly. I was like cool Avatar, and they're done with that segment already lol.
Yeah this last episode was awful and unnecessary. Like is that all they wanted to talk about for Avatar really?
New "emergency" episode that talks a lot about the Cats trailer:
also: 2012 (great), John Wick (bad)
basically saying that it's not actually that the effects are bad, it's that they actually come across as hybrids which fucks with your mind. they blame the art direction and not the tech, which seems about right
also: 2012 (great), John Wick (bad)
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That was a good episode after the disappointing one last week. Fewer movies to focus on, fewer ads, more in-depth analysis. More of that please.
Although they talked about the muzzle flashes, the worst thing for me about the John Wick movies was always the CGI blood. It just looks awful in every movie I've seen it in.
Has a movie ever got CGI blood right?
Although they talked about the muzzle flashes, the worst thing for me about the John Wick movies was always the CGI blood. It just looks awful in every movie I've seen it in.
Has a movie ever got CGI blood right?
Their silliness is really starting to put me off. Shame because the actual VFX discussion is great.
They have a lot of self-made VFX videos on their channel so it doesn't seem like they're talking out of their ass.
Um, what?
These guys clearly know what they're talking about and are a legit studio. Niko is definitely the most knowledgeable out of the three.
Because when it's them giving an opinion, like any other youtuber, that's fine - but when they are playing the "vfx artist" card, which implies extra knowledge and being experts on what they say.. well nope. I've worked on many many of the films they dissect and they have been wrong on calling out what they think is going on in many of them. Not met a single person in the industry who thinks anything of these guys. It's someone with abs giving fitness advice mentality.
Just wanted to say I haven't seen allot of these guys but I'd be curious to know where they have worked and their experience.
As they didn't seem to have been exposed to working on larger projects or pipelines. Very much seemed to be coming from the angle of working at smaller studios.
Not that there is anything wrong with that but to be sitting and critiquing work without understanding how larger studios work seems a bit odd.
As I said I haven't seen much but the one video I did see where they used AE as their lead compositing package, really made me think they seemed to be coming from a much smaller studio/motion approach. Again nothing wrong with this but they are completely different.
Edit: snake hips has explained this better than I could have just above me.
As they didn't seem to have been exposed to working on larger projects or pipelines. Very much seemed to be coming from the angle of working at smaller studios.
Not that there is anything wrong with that but to be sitting and critiquing work without understanding how larger studios work seems a bit odd.
As I said I haven't seen much but the one video I did see where they used AE as their lead compositing package, really made me think they seemed to be coming from a much smaller studio/motion approach. Again nothing wrong with this but they are completely different.
Edit: snake hips has explained this better than I could have just above me.
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Do you mind giving examples? If it could hinder you in finding work in the industry or anything, you don't have to. Just curious.
That makes sense. Fincher has a great eye for detail. His VFX team's work hard to make the CGI look almost seamless.
Also a VFX artist, and yeah.
I think the videos are enjoyable and funny but I have some colleagues who get frustrated by them critiquing the work of major VFX studios when they basically make YouTube videos in After Effects for a living.
The biggest thing they seem to misunderstand is that all projects vary in size and scope depending on budget and timeframe.
The same studio can turn out incredible work on a Marvel project because the budget was there to have a large crew etc, but a smaller show by the same studio might look less impressive because the budget simply wasn't there.
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I remember them pointing this very thing out multiple times in their videos. And they never just say something is shit, they're pretty fair in their criticism of specific scenes and shots and they never say the VFX artists who worked on them ere bad at their job. Seems to me like too may people get overly defensive about their work.
Nah i agree, i enjoy watching their stuff and it's all good fun.
I just think they miss the bigger picture occasionally.
Even speaking as someone who doesn't like bad CG blood, there are probably plenty of examples where it's done well and we don't notice.
It just happens that a lot of movies that do it have comical amounts of blood so it's really noticeable.
Completely agree with your post. These guys are completely fair.
Oh this is that episode that film twitter was getting salty about
Yeah I got annoyed by all of the recent videos having a lot of calls to action but I can't blame them if this is what puts bread on the table.
Well that's disappointing.
The girl with the dragoon tattoo. Always thought this was decent.
Love this channel, really interesting stuff. Also love that they brought in a stuntman to analyze stunts, those episodes have been awesome so far.
I'd be curious re: specific examples where they got something technical wrong in their critique.
These are fun, if too slight a treatment to do real justice to anything they've looked at. You could spend hours deconstructing any of the shots they've done - art direction, production/scheduling realities, compositing, simulation, animation, rendering - but I've found some enjoyment looking back at some notable vfx shots in isolation.
This has always given me pause though, and not only with these reaction videos. Most reaction videos are done by relative outsiders or hobbyists, not people who are engaged in the craft at the level of the individuals they are reacting to. The sophistication of modern film vfx is such that I wouldn't expect to get much insight from anyone who isn't engaged in it day-to-day.
A similar situation exists in video games where people who are otherwise involved in the industry at the periphery comment on technical elements without any of the necessary context to have an informed opinion. The closest thing to an accurate representation of how things are made would be conference presentations from GDC and SIggraph, the more domain specific the better.
This has always given me pause though, and not only with these reaction videos. Most reaction videos are done by relative outsiders or hobbyists, not people who are engaged in the craft at the level of the individuals they are reacting to. The sophistication of modern film vfx is such that I wouldn't expect to get much insight from anyone who isn't engaged in it day-to-day.
A similar situation exists in video games where people who are otherwise involved in the industry at the periphery comment on technical elements without any of the necessary context to have an informed opinion. The closest thing to an accurate representation of how things are made would be conference presentations from GDC and SIggraph, the more domain specific the better.
I've been watching their videos and they definitely say this all the time...
What are their credentials? Have they worked on films or just YouTube videos?
Link the film Twitter reactions, I'm curious.
They default to basically saying 'oh they ran out of time' a lot, which is of course true - but the complexity of why a certain film looks worse than others goes beyond being pushed for time.
And as for technical knowledge, I think the curly haired guy seems to know his stuff and often provides a lot of quick insight but it's still largely guesswork. He obviously has a background in compositing which shows.
Like i say, i find the videos fun and watchable.
They said that for Black Panther, but I dont think their default is time, it's art direction and production choice leading to difficulty.
I know nothing about vfx but I'm sorry, the whole "these guys don't know shit, they are YouTube tier creators" thing...I mean it certainly could be true but it just comes off as hating. At the very least some concrete examples of them being wrong and what is correct that only an actual vfx artist would know would be nice.
Corridor Digital has been putting out extremely high-quality short film and commercial work for a decade. They're YouTubers -- so it's mainly gaming & branded style content -- but their vfx game is probably the most impressive on the platform. Check out some of their recent work with cg characters and deep fakes. They use prosumer packages and they're not really plugged into the traditional film & tv industry, but they're successfully running a boutique production studio that probably brings in six figures annually, so I don't think it'd be fair to not acknowledge them as professionals.
So they haven't worked on films, thanks for the confirmation.
The stuntman they bring in definitely knows what he's talking about, going by these videos he's worked on a lot of movies and TV shows. The vfx guys might not be doing Hollywood movies but that doesn't mean they can't offer valuable insight to people like me. Of course if you work in the field you're not going to learn anything new.
This was a few weeks ago, didn't save them in likes at the time, sorry
From what I remember, it was just people dunking on them for being nerds overly critical of the throne room fight
I think it was like David Chen, Jeff Cannata, Lindsey Romain, who were like tweeting about it at the time, at least of people I follow
Then again maybe you will. A lot of what they point out is what things are supposed to look like in real life vs what they look like in the shots they're watching.
Like recently they were pointing out that the VFX artists didn't know how big a muzzle flash was supposed to be, or that they're supposed to leave smoke, and a few similar points.
The old-school VFX people are always saying that the best training is go outside, live life, and pay attention to what you see.
I used to laugh when I saw CGI fireworks. In real life, they leave a lot of smoke and that smoke is blown by the wind, dissipates and is lit by the other fireworks going off. In some movies there's literally none of that.
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Yeah, you could tell on the muzzle flash/John Wick episode that they're really good at making that specific effect.
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I'm amazed that some people question them, they have done a TON of extremely high quality VFX work in their short films...
So just because they don't work for Hollywood means they're unqualified to critique Hollywood VFX? Means they're not "professionals"? Really?
Damn, tell anyone in the video game industry for example that none of them are professionals because they don't work on Hollywood movies instead :lol:
So just because they don't work for Hollywood means they're unqualified to critique Hollywood VFX? Means they're not "professionals"? Really?
Damn, tell anyone in the video game industry for example that none of them are professionals because they don't work on Hollywood movies instead :lol:
Yeah, the guy I know who used to be an animator at Digital Domain isn't an animator anymore because he works in games.
