Read part 2 of the A-Z of CG clichés in which we’ve compiled a field guide to the greatest clichés of contemporary CGI
Read part 1 – A-M of CG clichés.
We’ve all been guilty of them. Just from the feedback we received regarding part 1 of our list proved that…
Read on as we list letters N-Z of CG clichés…
Next week – we shall explore the future of the CG clichés.
Everyone has to start somewhere. But it isn’t necessary to do your growing up in public.
Does your portfolio feature images from before you discovered anti-aliasing, or that in real life, shadows are never pure black, or that stock characters do not magically align to match the perspective in your render?
If so, have the sense to take them offline. And then destroy them.
The default global illumination settings in your renderer are not a panacea for mankind’s lighting needs. RTFM, please.
See also: Technical toys, misuse of
Yes, their movies are magnificent. And yes, we’ve all seen the tutorials online. But astonishingly enough there are other looks available for cartoon characters, you know.
Round and round and round and...
We know they’re convenient ways to show off characters. But really, if you want to put models on them, visit the nearest branch of Games Workshop.
“Turntables suck, and wobbly ones even more so,” says Escape Studios training development director Lee Danskin, who has seen more than his fair share of demo reel horrors.
“Car manufacturers do not make ads with just the car on a turntable for a reason.”
See also: Test tools, misuse of
Since the dawn of CG, manufacturers have realised that nothing says ‘miracle product’ faster than a poorly rendered animation of shampoo molecules repairing a hair cuticle.
Experts believe that one day, 3D may even be able to explain what it is that action liposomes actually do.
A phrase coined by The Dark Knight VFX supervisor Paul Franklin to describe the tendency of movie effects artists to frame a shot so that everything can be seen clearly – then junk it and move the camera closer to the action.
The result is a frenzy of motion that leaves the viewer momentarily spellbound, but utterly confused after they have left the cinema.
It happens a lot in Michael Bay movies.
See also: Visual effects clichés
less of a position, more of a serious musculature problem
Too busy sculpting the wrinkles in your character’s face to work out what the rest of his body should be doing?
Just slam him in the T-pose and forget about it.
See also: Test tools, misuse of
Fan art sometimes extends to the strangest of movies, although we’ve yet to see anything based on À bout de souffle, for instance.
As featured in games affiliated with id Software or Games Workshop, and in every online gallery, ever.
In accordance with the first law of gender stereotyping, they are invariably depicted as hulking, steroidal hyper-warriors in vastly oversized space armour with tiny pinhead faces frozen in a permanent scowl of
frenzied aggression, and have names like Chunk.
See also: Fan art; Gender stereotyping, The laws of; Unmentionables
Usually shown off in achingly empty HDRI renders.
Bonus points are achieved if the car in question is an Audi TT or a red Ferrari.
See also: Unmentionables
Any use of global illumination, ambient occlusion or subsurface scattering in which the lighting technique is more apparent than the subject matter of the render itself.
“I’m tired of seeing faces that look like wax, because if you set the SSS to a realistic value, people won’t notice it,” says Catastrophic FX founder Allan McKay.
Turntable animations and the T-pose were designed for specific practical purposes in the character design process.
They were not intended to make your characters look good in gallery renders.
Don't go into the light. In fact, just forget about the light
It looked almost as cool when done with CG in TRON. It doesn’t look quite as cool now.
See also: Visual effects clichés
Certain subjects crop up in CG far too often for it to be possible to bring anything new to the party.
Many of these are described at length elsewhere in this article.
Jolyon Webb, art manager at Blitz Games Studios, summarises the remainder as: “Cyborg arms, cyborg legs, night-vision goggles, demons in lingerie, bodybuilding demons, body-building demons whose face is a skull, space-station corridors, crying angels in chains, beautiful young Eurasian female heads with the hair Photoshopped on, weapons, appallingly halfarsed centaurs and The Hulk.”
You have been warned.
They may be paid better and pop up on DVD extras now and then, but Hollywood VFX supervisors are no more resistant to cliché than the rest of us.
Many of these are discussed individually in the glossary, so let’s merely note that the whole point of invisible effects is that you don’t notice them, and move on.
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Blizzard Entertainment with a peculiar influence on CG artists’ perception of the physiognomy of orcs and elves.
Show us the bit in The Lord of the Rings where it says that Galadriel’s ears were the size of carrots.
See also: Fan art
Alpha brushes are the crack cocaine of the digital sculpting world.
If people had pores as open in real life as they do on ZBrushCentral, you’d find them curled up on the doorstep of the nearest dermatologist, whimpering.
Mindless semi-animated revenants, these creatures stalk the online galleries, begging for someone to put them out of their misery.
Some of them render zombies, too. Thanks a bunch, George Romero.
See also: Unmentionables
—
So, now that you’ve seen what hideous errors can be made in the world of CG – why don’t you tell us how many of them you’ve been guilty of in the 3D World forum.
—
The A-Z of CG clichés first appeared in issue 124 of 3D World magazine.
Buy a digital copy of 3D World.
Posted on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 12:00 pm under Features, Opinion. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: 3D cliches, A-Z, Animation, arch-viz, bad 3d, bad cg, Games, Illustration, VFX
The world's leading magazine for CG artists Subscribe Now
