Eric Huffstutler
Screenwriter
Having not seen it at the theater, I am one who bought Final Fantasy sight unseen. I was interested in the ground-breaking CGI of human characters after viewing some early shots.
I started noticing flaws in individual character's CGI with the cover of Yahoo Magazine. Some of the same problems I saw exist in Dinosaur, especially with flesh to flesh contact (or lack of it due to a floating appearance).
Take for instance when Aki's hand touches her face. When someone's hand touches their skin, the skin shifts, stretches, and the fingertips sink into it. Not here... all you see is a hand which apears to be floating just above it.
Some characters were more believable than others. Body language, arms, hands, and even head movements seemed to be overly exaggerated as though they were trying to show off their CGI skills in every frame of the shot?
Aki was plastic in several ways. Her hands looked as though they had latex gloves on them (lacked texture) and her suit was too rigid. The hair swings were delayed or not fast enough as though it was weighted down, in slow motion, and overly animated. This was very distracting! The eyes were too big and in profile, looked flat. The skin was extremely pale and with such pale skin, you would see veins, but none showed.
Doctor Sid's character was more convincing but his upper lip was too stiff which gave him an "animated" look while speaking.
The Jane and Neil characters were the least convincing to me as though not enough time or same level of detail went into them. In many scenes they looked like video game characters (blockish and cartoonist) and Jane's mouth never seemed to be in sync or articulated enough. Both talked as though their voice was dubbed over on a foreign film.
Gray was better 90% of the time but he too looked un-natural in some scenes, especially with 3/4 facial shots.
General Hein had the same problems where he looked better in some shots than others. His bottom lip seemed to fall too far below his bottom teeth when talking though.
Both of the black characters were of the better quality. The mouth and facial expressions on Council Member #1 moved more natural than any of the other main characters and believe the design team should learn from this character's artist in that respect.
Council Member #2 on the other hand was the worst of all and looked like she was talking through a face mask.
Three final things that bugged the hell out of me and the first is that everyone has a false teeth "horse smile". The dental structure was too wide and was the same on every character, the lips did not slide tightly against the teeth, all were dark or heavily outlined, and drawn too perfect. When the mouth was an issue in the first place, this only accentuated the problems.
The second is that the characters were not genetically correct. Sure, the women had breast that never bounced or shifted, but men had no sign of a bulge. Even when their spirits left their body staked naked, they were built like Ken dolls. Even a vague outline would have been more realistic. Jane's nipples were inconsistant in scenes wearing the same tank top. Sometimes they showed through and sometimes they didn't.
The last is that you never saw perspiration beads on their faces or foreheads even though their shirts were wet from it.
Don't get me wrong here. I totally understand that this is a first attempt to pull off anything like this and the character's body movements were quite natural and the overall look (when not speaking) was realistic. I am just wondering if other people noticed the same flaws that I did... and maybe the studio will also take note?
I believe with work on facial expressions, mouth movement, and hair movement, flesh and blood actors may have something to worry about!
Just my $1.98 worth
[Edited last by Steven Page on October 23, 2001 at 01:22 AM]
I started noticing flaws in individual character's CGI with the cover of Yahoo Magazine. Some of the same problems I saw exist in Dinosaur, especially with flesh to flesh contact (or lack of it due to a floating appearance).
Take for instance when Aki's hand touches her face. When someone's hand touches their skin, the skin shifts, stretches, and the fingertips sink into it. Not here... all you see is a hand which apears to be floating just above it.
Some characters were more believable than others. Body language, arms, hands, and even head movements seemed to be overly exaggerated as though they were trying to show off their CGI skills in every frame of the shot?
Aki was plastic in several ways. Her hands looked as though they had latex gloves on them (lacked texture) and her suit was too rigid. The hair swings were delayed or not fast enough as though it was weighted down, in slow motion, and overly animated. This was very distracting! The eyes were too big and in profile, looked flat. The skin was extremely pale and with such pale skin, you would see veins, but none showed.
Doctor Sid's character was more convincing but his upper lip was too stiff which gave him an "animated" look while speaking.
The Jane and Neil characters were the least convincing to me as though not enough time or same level of detail went into them. In many scenes they looked like video game characters (blockish and cartoonist) and Jane's mouth never seemed to be in sync or articulated enough. Both talked as though their voice was dubbed over on a foreign film.
Gray was better 90% of the time but he too looked un-natural in some scenes, especially with 3/4 facial shots.
General Hein had the same problems where he looked better in some shots than others. His bottom lip seemed to fall too far below his bottom teeth when talking though.
Both of the black characters were of the better quality. The mouth and facial expressions on Council Member #1 moved more natural than any of the other main characters and believe the design team should learn from this character's artist in that respect.
Council Member #2 on the other hand was the worst of all and looked like she was talking through a face mask.
Three final things that bugged the hell out of me and the first is that everyone has a false teeth "horse smile". The dental structure was too wide and was the same on every character, the lips did not slide tightly against the teeth, all were dark or heavily outlined, and drawn too perfect. When the mouth was an issue in the first place, this only accentuated the problems.
The second is that the characters were not genetically correct. Sure, the women had breast that never bounced or shifted, but men had no sign of a bulge. Even when their spirits left their body staked naked, they were built like Ken dolls. Even a vague outline would have been more realistic. Jane's nipples were inconsistant in scenes wearing the same tank top. Sometimes they showed through and sometimes they didn't.
The last is that you never saw perspiration beads on their faces or foreheads even though their shirts were wet from it.
Don't get me wrong here. I totally understand that this is a first attempt to pull off anything like this and the character's body movements were quite natural and the overall look (when not speaking) was realistic. I am just wondering if other people noticed the same flaws that I did... and maybe the studio will also take note?
I believe with work on facial expressions, mouth movement, and hair movement, flesh and blood actors may have something to worry about!
Just my $1.98 worth
[Edited last by Steven Page on October 23, 2001 at 01:22 AM]
