First-Aid wrote:Lexomatic wrote:The cracks on Prime's chest-windshield aren't convincing -- they resemble fissures in gypsum wallboard. With CG glass, cracks need to be modeled through the translucent depth; a surface texmap doesn't do it.
...damnit Jim, I'm a doctor not a CGI programmer!
That whole paragraph is beyond me. Perhaps you'd like to discuss pyelopnephritis?
I could -- anatomy/physiology is among my hobbies -- but since Transformers don't have kidneys or, apparently, fuel filters that can get clogged -- I can't see how it's relevant. Not past that one early episode of
Robot Chicken, anyway, the PSA in which Prime dies of prostate cancer: "now, we Transformers don't have organic internal organs and can't get cancer, but you do...and you can."
But hey, I'm game (traditional art, CGI and technical writing are also among my hobbies). To expand:
One of the major elements of 3D computer graphics is simulating the
appearance of real-world materials: how light bounces off the surface, at what angle and color at each point. Color is easy. Many opaque materials (plastic, metal, stone) are differentiated by their reflectivity ("specularity"), but translucent materials have depth and are characterized by how light
refracts when passing through the front and back surfaces. To increase the visual detail of a CG object, you can either augment its physical geometry (number of "polygons" or "polys"), or apply various "maps" to the surface -- and the latter approach is computationally cheaper. There are "texture maps" ("texmaps") which are like decals that apply flat color, and "bump maps" which simulate texture (yes, poor choice of nomenclature by the pioneers) by tweaking the direction that light reflects across the poly.
At 1:02 in the trailer, Optimus is behind Doubledealer. His hest-windshields (a prominent and signature feature of his look) are damaged -- but the CGI technique used is incompatible with the illusion that those panels are made of glass with thickness. I'm sure most of us have experienced a damaged windshield or drinking glass;
this doesn't match scratching (as seen on Doubledealer's metal shoulder), nor pitting, nor cracking/fracturing. Both the shape and color are wrong; this feels like the amateur failing of "draw what you
think it looks like" rather than "actually
look at your model."
The depiction is thick white lines across a blue background, which IMHO looks like gouges across a layered material like wallboard, foamcore board, framing mat board, or slate. Conversely,
a crack across glass exhibits distinctive angles and junctions, and is visible by the way it changes refraction -- it adds surfaces that bend the light a few extra times. You can't entirely fake that with a texmap, but you can do better than
this.
This isn't the only questionable technique in this production, IMHO. Every surface on every character is damaged,
except for the faces of the female Autobots -- that also jumps out at me.