How 'Rogue One' Recreated Grand Moff Tarkin | Design FX | WIRED 

Yes. They only fucked up by having an actor move his facial features so much. The original actor had a stone face, which suited the character very well. They exaggerated the movement a tad too much. I knew it was CGI, as the age of the movie where the character originally was is so old, but from just looking at it, I definitely couldn't tell right away.

ChiefFalque another thing I noticed is that the CG face doesn't really reflect light naturally.

Wrong behaviour. That is bad for our planet and for arts.

I don't think so

I think that it would have been better if they had just dressed Guy Henry in makeup. I mean, even though they worked really hard on their model, I don't think that it worked very well in the end. At 2:50, you can see that cgi Tarkin was a severe downgrade from the cgi Henry and original actor. At 3:29, you can see how Henry moves around, and you can see that he resembles the original way more than the model does. Not perfect, but pretty similar. And even if your gonna watch all the movies in one run, Tarkin appears very little in this movie. Whatever differences Henry would have from Cushing isn't going to be enough for people to disassociate the character between both movies simply because of the different portrayals of the two actors. Honestly I'm just a little butthurt because they already made the same mistake with Unker Plutt, a character who was performed by a real actor with real makeup and rubber suit material whose entire realistic getup was destroyed by cgi enhancements. Don't believe me? Look at this picture. vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/b/b7/Unkar_Plutt-RO_U_Visual_Guide.png/revision/latest?cb=20170119072240 Notice how you can distinguish the forehead, mouth and arms as real while the eyes are covered in a snapchat filter that's as convincing of an effect as a RU-vid Poop. Its kind of disappointing, because I can see that the much more practical effects of practical effects are being shadowed by cgi, now an industry standard. Btw, an entire video about facial recognition and not one mention of Arnold in Genisys, the only cgi model I have ever seen that I couldn't wrap my head around as not real.

same :)

lol how could u

overrr estimate

BaronVonHaggis I find your lack of faith disturbing...

BaronVonHaggis Fuck you

LOL loving the name..... so informative

BaronVonHaggis Vader, release him.

no

Yes. It looks like plastic.

What kind of plastic do you see?

nope I mean we knew it was fake but still looks amazing

It really was. Anyone saying otherwise pretty much is a moron.

I think the word you're looking for is compositing, CG is when an entire scene is made entirely in a computer, Compositing is when you add something created by a computer into a scene (i think)

I didn't know he was dead until some days after I saw the movie. I think most people who didn't know that he was dead didn't notice it was CGI.

I didn't notice the first time watching. I only noticed the CGI after I learned it wasn't real. I just assumed it was a similar looking actor with some makeup on

After the second watch I realized how unconvincing it is. Human faces are really hard to imitate because our brains subconsciously can tell if something is human or not, even if the CGI is really realistic. I thought the other CG star wars characters like Maz Kanata look more realistic because it's not imitating something we're used to seeing.

I haven't even seen any previous films, don't even know who this guy was, I imediatly noticed it's artificial and went looking for info.

This is how cutscenes are made

@@xtrfy1439 😂😂

If this was a cutscene in a video game, our device will not look that amazing to be honest...😂

I mean there are cutscenes that look that good. Halo 2: anniversary, most of the recent cod games

@@EddieFreak and star wars battlefront 2

Same! 😮

No. You're not

Er... no. Because guess what - his resemblance to the late Peter Cushing had a lot to do with him getting the job. They would hardly have cast Danny DeVito, would they?!

@@glamdolly30 Indeed, as the closer he resembles Cushing the easier it would be to translate his facial movements to the computer model of Cushing's face.

@@peterjumper1039 Precisely!

Exactly…that’s the point

I do not know about Michael Douglas, but the technology used was different, while the Tarkin was completely made in CGI, to rejuve Robert was used masks in each frame to hide the wrinkles and leave him younger, it was not CGI, this is why is better

Micheal Douglas is just normal beauty work, Robert Downey Jr's CGI blended with real actor was actually noticeable, but since it's augmented reality by context, a little bit of imperfection serves the story. Tarkin was hell of a task, people need to feel his presence along side other real people. The only way I can see this shot better is if it's given some sort of Godfather lighting, letting the shadow hide his eyes a little bit more.

They just did the same with Kurt Russel in GOTG vol. 2

Also in logan

You forgot The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Btw, the de-aged Michelle Pfeiffer in Ant Man 2 was also great

braksator nah he is real

He is real, idiot.

He's joking, guys.

badsbe ikr....

I thought the same thing!

it's like poetry, you know

@@heffnermichael It rhymes.

@@DrBreezeAir its gonna be great

Jar jar is the key to all this

@@jpebrz search up "jar jar's sith moments", it proves jar jar was originally a sith Lord.

Nick D While I agree with the close up, but I went through an emotional journey CGI Tarkin. At first I was really confused (hadn't even noticed he was fake), then reallyyy suprised, kinda put off after that but then I slowly grew to accept it, and it was so nice to see Tarkin again that I anticipated every scene he was in.

Nick D No. They needed him for the story and the CGI was absolutely jaw dropping. And Leia not talking would've ruined the entire heartwarming final scene

Brad Wright yeah, it was cool having him in there, but all I'm saying is that perhaps less would've been more. Great CGI, but still CGI. As for Leia, I think it could've worked either way. Seeing her was enough to give me goosebumps, and I think a smile would've sufficed

Nick D Everyone is different. The technology to me was absolutely jaw dropping and I hope to see more of it

I would even say that they should not have shown Leia's face at all. Seeing her from the back, with her iconic hairstyle and dress was enough to understand who was the character without overdoing it.

agree. I knew going in, too, and I was really impressed. I saw it in Imax and he looked real to me. My mom didn't know, and she had no idea the actor was dead. She knew Leia was CGI, but she still thought it was a great effect.

DuhAverageJoe ikr. I was disappointed when I found out LA LA LAND got more Oscars than rogue one. And I agree, The CGI for Tarkin was amazing, I.think his hair color wasn't right, but I still though it was nice.

Honestly, it feels off. Something just isn't right about it. I almost feel like they over-acted and over-did it.

agreed with everything that you said

For what it's worth, this is actually the first Star Wars movie I've seen, and I had no idea Tarkin was CGI until afterwards (when I read about it online.)

the hell are you talking about Quacer?

You can do a lot with prosthetics and in a lot of cases movies go to the digital route instead of the better practical route. But this isn't a monster nor a person that's doesn't have to resemble anyone in particular. This is Peter Cushing, who has a unique face. Recreating that with appliances wouldn't have been better, probably worse,

it looks good but its not passable

THANK YOU.

I would've loved it if they cast Charles Dance as Tarkin. He would've nailed the character!

Because Rogue One takes place immediately before A New Hope. Tarkin needs to look 100% like he does there.

@@Bauglir100 That in no way negates his point.

DaaaahWhoosh The dead will outnumber the living.

Then we will truly have, The Walking Dead. Budumb Chi!

DaaaahWhoosh Yea but i cam totally tell its not real.

I doubt that.

I'm more worried about how this can be applied to create even more fake news. And don't think it won't happen - it's too big a temptation. Need to pull a political adversary through the mud? Easy. We'll set a digital character of him in a compromising situation.

Yeah, not for a lack of trying obviously but i guess bridging that gap is still a ways off.

YangSunWoo even if it was the best it could possibly be, you'd always know it wasn't real because it's not. he's dead.

YangSunWoo Some people I know didn't know this and thought he was a normal actor

i didnt know/realize he was digital... but on the case of Leia i saw it really clearly...

I could only tell when he started moving his facial features. Because he's not supposed to. It was beyond EXCELLENT when he was talking with a still face, as that was a trait of the original actor.

It's not that good soz

deepfake was around and was/is far more realistic than cgi, and a lot easier to implement the face-swap than the digital artists' rendering, so it beggars belief why they didn't use it for Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One's production.

I would say that with couple make up touches here and there, there would be no need to CGI Tarkin. Not that I disliked how they did it in the movie, I think It was an amazing job. However, no matter what option they chose, they would still receive complains like "He doesn't look like Tarkin in EP IV" or "He doesn't look anything like Peter Cushing".

maulCS yeah, but it's a necessary predecessor to that which will, and will be remembered as such

maulCS of course it won't, that's why it's a technical improvement, we will get better methods in the future

Who cares if it doesn't hold up? Sure it'll look bad in a few years, but the films themselves are still good!

There was no need for them to make it so in-your-face blatant. I think a hologram / more distant shots / more focus on Krennic would have been a better result. It likely would have been even more impressive that way because it would have been seamless. It seemed like an unnecessary "check out how good our CGI is, look at it right in your face, look at those muscular skin twitches" type thing. Until it's flawless, they need to avoid shoving it right against the camera lens.

maulCS realistically no special effects stand the test of time. That's not a reason to continue to try new things, push boundaries. As it stands the only issue I had with Tarkin was that his skin was moist.

ChrisUAnimation Actually, they did... And they knew they could...

No, hold on. This isn't some species that was obliterated by deforestation, or the building of a dam. Tarkin had his shot, and nature selected him for extinction.

Ahhh....fellow intellectuals

But CGI isnt gonna escape the screen and eat the audience anytime soon

I didn't watch a New Hope back when Rogue One came out so yeah I didn't notice

Exactly what I thought. Henry really suits the character and I would've easily gotten my head around him being Tarkin with some slight prosthetics and good make up perhaps.

They tried that in Revenge of the Sith and it looked horrible. The guy looked like a zombie: cdn.moviestillsdb.com/sm/a57a30434a845b06febeee42b281c5a6/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith.jpg

The difference is that Guy Henry looks more like Peter Cushing than this actor, so it wouldn't have been a lot of work to get them to look similar.

Oh weird, I always thought Tarkin was CG in episode 3. You're right, that makeup job makes him look more like Odo from ds9 lol. Not good.

+KADArt Cosplay And maybe some last touch cgi

Adam K Agreed. The technology floored me. When people who don't know the actor is dead can't even tell, that's impressive

I watched the movie in theater with 5 peoples in their 30's, like me, and no one noticed it was CGI either. But when I saw the character, I immediatly noticed it was CGI. And I am not a CGI spotter, for me it was too unrealistic. For example compared with the young Arnold in Terminator Genesys, I couldn,'t tell it was CGI in Genesys.

wow... get your eyes checked

Adam K eventually they will make a movie entirely with cgi but wait until it's already been in theaters for a while to say anything. There will still be people who swear up and down that they knew the whole time even though they didn't say anything until the announcement.

I once disliked image smoothing for movies as well, but once you get used to it, it really improves picture quality - if it's done well, of course.

looks a little like Willem DaFoe

It's very canny.

That's why I couldn't watch the Puss in Boots movie, they'd gone so far in making the human characters more realistic that it was really off-putting. I got a bit of that with Tarkin.

Agreed. The second scene (where they fire on Jedha) was better for this precise reason: less close-ups. The technology is impressive, but since it's not 100% there yet, the close-ups were pushing it a little. This said, I enjoyed the Tarkin-Krennic rivalery.

Will Wivell I don't believe that extreme close up was in the movie. In was a medium shot in the actual movie. I think it was just a test to see how close they could get and still have it be convincing.

Fair enough - I guess that's why it seemed like a showreel shot then! I still feel they spent too much time lingering on Tarkin's face in the final film, though. I remember when his back was to the camera, his face reflected in the glass, thinking "oh wow, they've chosen a really ingenious camera angle to camouflage the CG"... and then he spun around. "Oh, never mind."

The Shadow Master Yeah, PhantomNews01 pointed that out. The close ups they did use were still jarring, though. I still stand by that.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with this. Sadly that's the Oscar reel: they were nominated because they put the showreel footage in. When you walk out of a Star Wars movie talking about how amazing the effects were, that's a sign that the effects were pretty great. When you walk out of a Star Wars movie talking about nothing but plot and story and character, that's a sign that the effects were FLAWLESS.

other way around

No, not really.. speaking as a gamer, and i also never call myself a gamer... telling yourself that you are is very very very awkward and feel very ashamed... Mostly cause no one is granted that rank even if they own all games on the library, but it all depends on the playtime and skills.. thats what makes you a gamer

@@m1co294 I call myself a gamer because I am, it's a hobby. I'm also a writer, artist, crocheter, etc. There's no reason to feel awkward or ashamed. I think you're projecting your own feelings of inadequacy about being into video games on this person.

@@m1co294 Also, your skills and playtime have no correlation whatsoever to whether or not you are a gamer. If you play 10 hours a week because maybe you have kids now, you're not NOT a gamer anymore. If you're an energy drink-chugging teenager who plays 40 hours a week and gets on leaderboards in those mindless shooters, you're no different than the parent who plays 10 hours a week. Playing games makes you a gamer. Period. Don't gatekeep.

@@KuueenKumi ok, fite me, you cant take me down that easily

@@m1co294 You are so pathetic, you don't even understand the point. I sincerely hope you're just a child.

Hehe same

Marcos Pintor+ that’s not true

Lou it’s not?

Marcos Pintor+ no you are wrong 😂

CGI Tarkin was too smooth in his expressions . Not human like. But to think what is possible in 20 years in crazy.

That's because it was

The gap is narrowing drastically . I think that we are encroaching on the brink of no longer being able to discern human characters from their CGI counterparts in dramatic performances. I think its important to make the distinction between CGI used to augment a motion captured performance versus fully rendered CGI character with less dynamic, natural movement.

That's what people said about 15 years ago because of Final Fantasy Spirits Within. Forget about it.

not realy....effects are the same for 15 years now....

Yep, hit the nail on the head. That's the issue with most CGI characters these days, too much information in every frame gives it an artificial feel. Less is more.

Hit the nail on the head!

I assume that was all Guy Henry. Many skilled actors can do a lot with their voice.

I'm pretty sure they said that it's just Guy Henry's voice.

cool thx. he did great too

sweet thx

MWYANT19 There is a very short clip in this piece that shows the unaltered Guy Henry uttering the lines about bringing "a swift end to the rebellion" that's absolutely spot on Peter Cushing!👍🏽

The problem is the incorrect lighting

It works when you can't tell it's CGI.

sam wroblewski but the story was about Krenic and Tarkin's play for power in regards to the death star. Vader has never cared for this super weapon and is only called in when things go tits up

sam wroblewski No. Tarkin needed to be in all the scenes he was in. CGI becoming outdated shouldn't stop us from pushing the technology. Star Wars has always been about bringing revolutionary technology to film

no, he physically did not need to be there. in the original script he had less screen time and the filmmakers debated making most of his scenes via hologram where the effect could be covered up better. it's cool they could animate this, but our brains are wired to trigger at artificial faces. when VFX gets to the point where our primitive brain doesn't reject what's in front of it, then i'll accept this story telling device. but until then, most people will subconsciously reject an artificial human on screen

sam wroblewski Why wouldn't Tarkin, who has complete a total control of the Death Star, not be a film that is set entirely around the Death Star? It wouldn't make sense and people would complain. The power struggle between him and Krennic is incredible. The only reason any of us noticed is because we know hes dead. I have several friends who aren't big into Star Wars who were shocked to find out he was even CGI. Thats how great it was.

no, i notice all CGI faces, because there are a ton of things computer animators can't do when it comes to skin and lighting. When Ironfoot appeared in the last Hobbit film he stuck out like a sore thumb. and you could tell, our brains are wired to detect unnatural faces. now back to how you can better script the Tarkin thing. Many people can oversee a project remotely. Just put somewhere in the script that Tarkin was attending to business with the Emperor during the course of the film and have Krenic in charge while he is away. It doesn't conflict with A New Hope since nowhere in the dialog is there a mention of how long Tarkin has physically been on the Death Star. Same for Darth Vader and his lava castle. this gives Krenic more story development opportunities since his whole character is pretty much "i stole Jyn's father" and "THIS IS MY DEATH STAR!!!" there's literally nothing else for him to do with Tarkin so front and center, and it made me personally care less about him as a villain because i knew the real baddy of the first film was there the whole time. him being protective of the Death Star gives the film no extra layer because you know Tarkin gets the thing in the first film. i would rather have had him diagnose the rebels plans himself and leave to chase them down (which they did shoot, him being on the planet was reshoot). Tarkin time took away from Krenic time and Vader time (Vader could've been on the Death Star the whole time, castle set-piece was unnecessary). but i can wrap this special effects discussion up with a great analogy. Directors need to treat CGI like the shark puppet in Jaws. They shot the movie deliberately avoid showing how bad their shark was and inadvertently came up with the greatest way to shoot a horror movie. the same thing applies here, CGI skin doesn't work yet. so, shoot your way around it and don't let audiences see something that looks fake and distracting (aliens don't apply because our minds don't process them as human).

Same with Carrie

I disagree. To me it's very obvious that Tarkin is CG and sits in the uncanny valley for me making him a little creepy. I wouldn't say they did a bad job, it's just that people are very good at processing human faces so anything even slightly less than perfect will get picked up by some people. People in other comments have said gamers seem to notice more easily, which might be true, I tend to play allot of games on my pc and I was surprised people here are commenting they didn't notice that he was CG.

FANCY FRAME They needed him for the film. It was necessary. Him being dead doesn't change anything, as long as they respect the character. Whicy they most certainly did

I never said it was unnecessary

I know quite many people who aren't big Star Wars fans who had no idea Tarkin was CGI. Whether you believe it was noticeable because we know hes dead, people who have no idea and just see another guy on screen just naturally interacting with other actors is incredible. Could the technology be improved? Sure there is always room for improvement in the world of special effects. I'm not sure if we will ever hit that peak where special effects can ever not be improved. But I still look back on the original Star Wars trilogy and appreciate the effects even if they are dated by todays standards. And I will do the same for Rogue One for pushing this and taking the chance

@Yeezy Slayz facts

my takeaway from this is that they shouldn't have kept the camera so close to the character. The extreme closeups are what break the illusion the most. But you might be right, keeping it closer to the original performance capture could have erased some of the more blatant problems. I would really like to know if character animators can tell me why the skin always looks too thin, around the mouth and cheeks: I thought we had gotten pretty good at simulating muscles and volumes under the skin.

Maxime Teppe Weta actually did, with their in House Software "Tissue". Dunno what ILM used for Facial Simulating. I would recommend to google weta digital Tissue, its more advanced that the work from ILM. Weta also used Tissue in alot of shots for Fast 7 for Paul Walker ,Planet of the Apes Avatar and Lord of the Rings.

I Agree

He looked very rubbery and the animation was way too smooth.

Look at the blue-ray version, its AMAZING

That's simply an uneducated response. Renderman is plenty powerful still. Arnold will get you a realistic look with the least fiddling about, but the answer is not as simple as "shoulda used a different renderer". The renderer is simply a tool. The biggest reason a studio would switch to a different renderer would be for speed and efficiency, not realism.

That's how I feel. I'm glad they tried, but also a little bit sad they didn't ask better people to do it.