During the 21st century computer generated imagery has skyrocketed into the film industry. Slowly it has evolved from earlier films that use some computer generated imagery, such as”The lord of the rings”for”Gollum”, to films that only use it, e.g.”Zootopia”or”Inside Out”.As the film industry is constantly adapting, the companies are becoming more dependent on comptuer generated imagery to perform difficult tasks that might’ve been unimaginable.

Computer animation – Within the film industry, computer generated imagery is becoming more prominent with companies being solely based around making films only using computer generated imagery. These include huge companies such as Pixar that have countless of amazing computer generated imagery films under their belt.

Before”Toy Story”was a huge success most animated films were stop motion. The problem with stop motion was how time consuming it was and the fact that you had to do each movement frame by frame to make it look like a smooth animation. “Toy Story” showed that you can use computer graphics to create smooth animations. “Toy Story”was the first full length computer generated imagery film.

After the success of”Toy Story”people tried to put computer generated imagery in films that used real people rather than just computer generated imagery. One good example of this is the film”Avatar” which came out in 2009. It blow up for its great visual effects made by computer generated imagery. The film was circles around these blue creatures that couldn’t have been so lifelike without computer generated imagery, it made them look realistic.

Motion Capture is just one of the ways films can bring characters to life through computer generated imagery. Motion capture involves actors wears clothing that follows the actors move
ment which is digitally uploaded to a computer for the purpose of animating a character in a film. It was used in “The Hobbit” franchise for Benedict Cumberbatch to bring “Smaug” the dragon to life. Its also been used in “Deadpool” so that they could make his iconic suit and for “The Hulk” in the “Avengers” films to put Mark Ruffalo’s face on the computer generated imagery animated body of “The Hulk”.

If you’re looking for the best graphical experience when watching a film then IMAX is where it’s at. IMAX cinemas use a much larger screen to regular cinemas. They average around 97′ wide and 76′ high which is huge compared to the 58′ wide and 28′ high regular cinema screens. This size difference gives viewers a better experience as the bigger screen has a larger frame coverage which provides a high picture quality.

Computer generated imagery was first seen in the film “westworld” in a 2D design with little pixel movement. Although it wasn’t as impressive as what we see in today’s films, the film  was different and new which began the empire that is Computer Generated Imagery.

Through the years computer generated imagery was getting better and better as each film made seemed more realistic. One comparison is through the film, “The Lord of the Rings” with the character “Gollum” and his adaptation in “The Hobbit”.

With the first films, the characters hair isn’t very lifelike and he it’s quite obvious to see he isn’t real. With the second his hair flows much better and you can see better detail with his skin and spine. The eyelids also look more detailed then the first adaption as with the new computer generated imagery equipment it is much easier to provide the needed detail for them. Even though parts like eyelids and hair doesn’t seem every important as they’re so small, they show that computer imagery has come a long way as it can give the needed detail for even the smallest of things.

Curtis Jay