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What is CGI? |
CGI animation might look like a cartoon, but it might also look very realistic, like those dinosaurs in the movie, Jurassic Park. Since dinosaurs aren’t around anymore, they had to be created for the movie using CGI.
Creating these animations isn’t easy. It often takes teams of people. Animators usually start with some hand-drawn sketches, which they base their computer models on. Every shape then needs to be built on the computer using special programs. Different skins and textures need to be added to the shapes and lighting needs to be created. Every time something CGI is supposed to appear in daylight, a fake Sun needs to be made so that we can see it. It’s really a lot of work, but we’re glad people do it because we get to see talking vegetables, Jimmy Neutron’s robot dog, and tyrannosaurs rexes!
Making Movie History.
CGI started being used in films starting in the 1970s!
In 1973, Westworld, a science fiction movie, was the first major movie to use 2-dimensional CGI. “2-dimensional” or “2-D” means it’s flat looking, like a picture on a piece of paper.
In 1976, Westworld’s sequel, Futureworld, was the first film to use 3-dimensional CGI. “3-dimensional” or “3-D” is more realistic looking than “2-dimensional”. Instead of being flat, the animations look like they actually take up space! The CGI in this film was only a hand and a face. CGI certainly has come a long way since then!
The first fully CGI animated movie was Toy Story in 1995.
3-D Models!
Building models on the computer is not that different from building models in real life. Do you have any clay around your home? If you do, it might be fun to try to sculpt something. You could shape the clay into anything—an apple, a dog, a dinosaur, or even a person! Try drawing a picture of what you’re going to sculpt first to help you out.
How is drawing the object different from sculpting it? You’ll probably find that the sculpting needs a lot more detail! When you draw an object, you only draw one view or one side of an object. When you sculpt, you have to shape the clay into every view or every side. It can be tricky, but it can be a lot of fun! You might try staging your own scene in a movie.