Still would have been the most impressive cg at the time. Guys, this hardly looks any different than the final product. Just because they chose a different style for the navi doesnt mean this is garbage. Literally the only thing thats different is the navi models, and the mocap actors arent good. Use your eyes. If this was cleaned up by an ai and upscaled to 4k, youd clearly see this isnt much different. For those saying there was better cgi at the time... its competition was shrek. If you think that looks better, you need glasses. Ps2 games were still being made at the time. A ps5 wouldnt even be able to handle a game made with these graphics, if it could, itd run horribly.
Except for Transformers. Look... that movie isn't that great, I know (although I really like it) but the graphics were astonishing Edit: y'all getting so f*cking mad lmao. Calm your asses down it's not that deep. I just said that Transformers' graphics was amazing for 2007 and I'm right. Besides the OP literally meant graphics in general not motion capture, y'all are so f*cking slow
@@Magjee Nah... where? Even plastic-looking Jar Jar from 1999 looked better than this, and there was Gollum in the early 2000s (I believe seeing Gollum is what caused Cameron to think this film could now be made). The only truly shitty CGI I've seen where I thought at the time that it was awkward, was the Scorpion King in the Mummy. And even that is better than this (but this is just a first draft, so I'm not criticising).
@@Aethuviel I don't think the quality or lack thereof was the point of this footage. They had to work out a process of capturing actors, putting them in a scene, adjust performances, add effects and do a final render. They would not just have jumped into "let's make some blue CGI people" and try to make a 3 hour movie without having worked out the process first. It was completely new at the time. Having the process worked out allows refining individual parts, i.e. getting all the real artwork done and build the real render pipeline for the final movie.
For 2007, this is actually still really impressive. Like very successful tech test. I can see how they evolved the face of the Na'vi to better express the facial nuances. These rigs, the eyes are slightly too stiff. I wonder how this would feel if you dubbed in Zoey's voice. Her performance was a lynchpin to fleshing out how the Na'vi carry themselves and emote.
Plus this is a test. This is probably not even a full render/post-alpha render, especially since this a part of a video where James talked about how this Test was sent to the Studio Execs to see if they would finance the film or not.
Yeah, considering the absolutely uncanny valley level Zemeckis movies (Beowulf, Polar Express, etc) were made during this same period of time and represented the best that mocap tech had to offer, this looks *far* more natural and far more advanced
@@thebatman4279 fair enough. I always thought she was the most well thought out and complex character in the first movie. Always been my favorite portrayal of any character, save for a few really good ones I’ve seen. But fair enough, everyone thinks different characters are interesting!
i know this was an early stage of this movie, but it's just amazing to see the different energy that Zoe Saldaña gave to the character. Her delivery of this scene alone is just a proof of what a good acting can do.
@@DeletedDevilDeletedAngel Nowhere is that written. "Just so amazing to see the different energy that Zoe gave to the character". Different - because we've only before seen her as Zoe - but here she is played by Yunjin Kim.
@@raymondsolli1789 yeah but comparing a fully rendered finished product to a mocap test isn't fair. It looks good for 2007 because normally a test at this stage wouldn't look as good as this
@@raymondsolli1789 its good in 1993 because they used the darkness and rain to cheat the CGI and there was SFX with dinosaur costumes so it cant be all CGI like that dying dinosaur who had its poop dug out
It is here when you realize the incredible work that the actors currently do and you value everything, now I just want them to take the years that be necessary for a good movie
This was created in a hurry not finished and prepared to be seen for the public eyes.. It was created only to convince the investors for the movie Avatar :) So they can really dive in to it like they did :)
This is how you make a decent film. You do trials, you test your scenes, see what works and what doesn't. The first trials will be bad(such as this) but you polish it, make sure everything is just right and then send in your final product and look at what we got in Avatar and Way of Water. A polished, well made product which started out from something ugly and uncanny such as this. That's how you make a good movie. You start out bad but rectify your mistakes and you don't releas it half baked. You release it when you're satisfied.
Fun fact: the bigger the eyes, more dificult to trick our brain into believing the effects (note the Metkayina in the new movie, they look less realist than the Navy despite the same cgi). I wonder how strange it would be to see a real alien with big eyes. we maybe wouldn´t believe it to be real for a moment...
fun fact in the original Lord of the Rings films, Weta Digital had to create a special Renderman shader for Gollum's eyes so he wouldn't look cross eyed, that could explains why this Netyri's eyes are so awkward
@@Combustionman586 yeah but if you had no knowledge of what avatar normally is, this sounds great, you're just biased because you're used to how it is normally.
Honestly, for a proof of concept, this looks pretty great, since proof-of-concepts usually aren't anywhere near as advanced as the final project. I think people are both over and under-estimating CGI of that era. Sure, effects around 2007 weren't as advanced as they are now... but you also gotta remember, this was around the same time we got Davy Jones from _Pirates of the Caribbean_ and scenes like the Birth of Sandman from _Spider-Man 3,_ and I still think those effects hold up. But this definitely shows hints of all the extra nuance and advances that _Avatar_ brought to the table. The only thing that's bugging me is that for some reason, she looked a little cross-eyed to me, haha. I think it's the camera angle, the translucency of her eyes and the size of her pupils that are creating that illusion for me.
I thought this was fake at first, like someone nowadays trying out VFX and saying it was early Avatar, but then I saw this video was posted 12 years ago. And I was like, oh shit this is real!
This is a contrasting opinion; As much as the ones we got were better, if the Na'vi rigs had the same detailing and emotion capture from the films we have today, I would've definitely preferred these Na'vi than the ones we got in a heartbeat - Much more differing from the human look yet still resembling the humanoid shape, with only the human-made avatars to be different-ish. If it weren't for the blue skin tone, native traits, feline-like appearance and without near human-like facial structure, it's almost like a clever callback to the grey aliens but taller and primitive. For a tech demo made in 2007, this is rather a fantastic step forward to the product we all know and love. But you know? One could only wonder the directional approach the humans would've been that would be just as contrasting towards the greedy humans we got in the movies.
I'm a little disappointed that the "strong heart" line was from before the actual production. I've always had a problem with that because in hindsight if Neytiri had told Jake she saved him because of Eywa people could've probably connected more to the religious themes of the movie that many people seem to put aside.
@@DavidArriola "I'm with her Jake, she's real" those are Grace's last words. Her entire arc is about understanding how Ewya is not only a biological phenomenon but in fact, a very real Goddess with a capital G. Eywa is very similar to Gaia with the only difference being that Eywa is probably self-aware.
Honestly, if it was a bit more realistic looking this wouldnt be so bad, it makes them look less human and more other worldly/alien. Cause isnt Pandora like a completely different galaxy?
The mocap was good, but the design was odd. They were still working on the visuals and, of course, they wouldn't spend resources to make a test look as amazing as the final release in terms of graphics. It is still amazing for 2007! I remember when the first avatar came out and I thought it was so realistic it was all sfx makeup 😂
not gonna lie, people comment the graphics are bad... in my opinion it is not! This was 2007, and I would still be amazed if this was released, it looks like video game graphics tho, I like it
I think this actress was great, just a different accent than Zoe who basically dictated what the Navi sounded like, a very important aspect of the movie, but her expression in real life was great. Obviously this is a tech test, it’s not supposed to look like the final product it’s just run to see if the movie is truly possible
These blue creatures have bigger eyes, making them look more catlike. However theyre more cross-eyed. Which looks weird. The quality would be good if this was something made at home, but I think should have been better for an output of this big studio. Even for 2005-2007, this looks like a kind of video you see in betweens in a game.
If you think that THIS is an ugly animation I think that you are born late because we have seen much worst and I don’t find it ugly at all it’s pretty well done for the time
