I can't even imagine working on the first Toy Story. Like "Ok guys we just gotta invent a CG software, then learn how to use it and make a feature-length movie."
If you look for Pixar's job requirements for animators, they say you dont need to know any software or youdont even have to know about 3D animation; they use a in house software anyway and half of the team that made Toy Story 1 didnt even know how to use computers before joining(ok this last part might be a misremembering).
@@horusreloaded6387 given how Pixar probably has 1000s of applicants to choose from, they're gonna pick the person with 10+ years of experience over some random person they picked off the street that hasn't done any 3d animating/modeling/whatever related work in their life.
@@fortnitefanatic7947 old narrator od extra credits youtube channel said that he was working for pixar and he is a 2D artist iirc. Maybe he didnt work on 3D parts, dunno.
@@horusreloaded6387 yeah, I guess plenty of jobs at Pixar aren't 3d related, unless Disney takes care of all the marketing and stuff now or something like that
@@fortnitefanatic7947 even with marketting there is still tons of writers, story board artists etc. Btw, iirc Dory had a 2D scene for some flashback scene? Dunno
Watch the video! Modeling 1. Model to real world scale 2. Bevel everything 3. Reference is king 4. Know your anatomy Lighting 1. Use real-world direction (HDRI) 2. Use correct color (blackbody) 3. Don't forget reflections Materials 1. Use physically accurate shaders 2. Use PBR maps 3. Add surface imperfections Post processing 1. Glare 2. Motion Blur 3. Depth of field 4. Chromatic Aberration 5. Barrel distortion
I was, at one time , a U.S. Navy Medical Photographer. I'm 50 now. Just watched this video, and I'm enthrawled that I could Learn this..... I need to start at Lesson#1... lol My 12 y/o son will enjoy it too. I think he will learn quicker.
I'd say for movies and games there is a fifth, and also very crucial, pillar: animation. Nothing can break an image like bad animation. No matter how good your lighting and materials might be.
Well im guessing these animators dont really have a 'real world' references for how dragons move and it is very tricky especially when you have to factor in scale, mass (like how bigger objects seem to move slower relative to human scale), gravity, wind and all that physics mumbo jumbo not to mention every animal anatomy is very different, they move and function in their own specialized way, it takes a long time to learn an animal's anatomy then learn how they move ++bonus fictional dragon anatomy that doesnt exist???. Very complex stuff and great animators deserve much respects for their genius haha..
CG artists going straight for the stylized Disney/Pixar scenes are the equivalent to other (Traditional? Pencil?) artists going straight for that classic Anime style. Students often rant on and on about art teachers discouraging this anime style. What people fail to realize is that the teacher is trying to get the student to look to the real world around them for a base to build on. I appreciate that you are trying to teach people in the CG branch the same concept. Saving early artists the hassle of going back to learning later in their career.
Kubo Kubo I agree. I don’t think anime artists needs to learn super realism or super realistic pencil shading. But even they need to learn the structure an a little anotomy
Unfortunately this just isn't true. There are colleges and universities all over the world that when someone shows stylised Disney-esque work or Bluth style work, they are lauded and set as the example to follow while others that do Ghibli inspired work or any even remotely anime like style, are dissuaded from doing so and punished for it. If it was as you say, it would go both ways, but it simply doesn't. I know because I studied animation and saw it first hand and I know many on twitter from countries across Europe, Australia and North America that had the same issues. Many teachers are people who worked on old Disney cartoons or Don Bluth works or who grew up in that era that frankly are grumpy and stuck in their ways, refusing to acknowledge this new rise in anime art styles because it's weird or different. Many of them would say things like "You'll grow out of it" as if it's something childish when ironically, anime and manga are often far more adult and mature in their tone and story than any mainstream western animation. Others would say it's manga or anime if you even had the slightest hint of that style even if you weren't attempting to do so. And ironically again, many of them would say things like "it's not anatomically correct" when some manga and anime has far more realistic anatomy, showing every single muscle and having more realistic proportions than most of Disney which simplifies and stretches the extremes for better design language and smoother flow of lines whereas anime is often more blocky but more realistic. They would also act as if limited animation is awful and therefore anime equals bad ignoring the fact that pretty much all modern animation that is hand drawn is limited animation and the fact that most animated western tv shows look like crap compared to pretty much any anime in existence in terms of the very things they hate on anime for such as a supposed lack of realism. Meanwhile Adventure Time has no anatomy to speak of at all, no skeletal structure, just noodle arms and legs and incredibly simple designs making them far easier to animate. Then you have anime with fairly realistic proportions, amazing perspective, incredible backgrounds that put even disney's best work to shame released within a weekly show rather than a movie that takes years to make AND they have cast shadows on characters, far more detail (not necessarily better, just harder to animate, therefore requiring more skill and time) and sequences like from Attack on Titan or Naruto with insane perspective shots, weight of motion and some of the best hand drawn camera moves ever put onto a screen. The truth is, professors shit on anime because they want to gatekeep and stick to the old ways and stop any outside influences, its as simple as that. They often actively discourage doing anime even after you clearly know all of the fundamentals by heart just because they have a distaste for it in their ignorance not because they're trying to help you.
I disagree, What about Nintendo, indie games, and internet artists? Like I when straight for Pixel art and now CGI having only a little experience sketching nothing photorealistic when I was much younger. And people like my art so you don't need to start in a certain style to be good you just have to be good at your style. However, studying techniques/styles and using reference photos helps but to required start/needed? No, at least not for me.
Why am I watching this? I randomly clicked on it thinking it was a short clickbait video.. Then saw it was an hour long. And went 'pfft, this is way too long' But then actually started watching and it's really interesting.
39:16 OK I did NOT expect to see my local German number plate (GG Kreis Groß-Gerau) on a Japanese Car in an English video from an Aussie talking about blender
39:16 OK I did NOT expect to see my local German number plate (GG Kreis Groß-Gerau) on a Japanese Car in an English video from an Aussie talking about blender
I have no interest in CG, or doing any of this; yet I still watched this whole video and really enjoyed it. Either your videos are fantastic, or my time is quite worthless. (little bit of both, probably.)
Are you interested in photography, drawing, or anything related to the arts? Tips like these can be translated to real world applications, like when you are taking a family photo and you want to get the perfect shot, or you end up not getting the perfect shot and editing it in photoshop.
Man, I'm stunned by your presentation. It was my first video. Even I'm no CGI, You kept me interested and curious. You included so many things, specially the focus on self-deception (and other knowledge fields). You are creating contrast in order to eliminate ignorance & the unknown; the best way to educate/teach. In this way one is able to see the underlying structure and gets an understanding of whats going on. Most 'tutorials' are just made for the purpose to 'copy'; the 'why you do what you do' - is not included. Sadly a simple 'like' or 'dislike' can't express it. So let me thank You! I hope You get some satisfaction by knowing that I noticed =)
ok, like 4 years ago I started with 3D modeling and rendering in Blender, I discovered you very early on the process of learning that stuff, back then without even knowing that I was learning that stuff, it just interested me. I have to say that since those 4 years I couldn't find any better youtube channel that makes such awesome and understandable tutorials like you do. props to that. I hope you keep on doing that stuff, you're realy helping the 3D community to get better. :)
Fascinating! I just turned 65. From the age of 18 I started work in the advertising and graphics industry. Everything then was done by hand. No computers. By the age of 23 I was one of the top illustrators in South Africa. Doing cartoons, super realism, graphic work, typography, even impressionism. All done with ink and paint on expensive German art boards. In the 1980's I got into animation, still done by hand in the classic Disney style. In the mid 80's I got into computer graphics. I had a top of the range Amiga 4000/060 which cost so much it took 5 years to pay for it. On that I learned 3D graphics using Imagine, Caligari, Real3D2 and other ray tracing programs. For an 800 x 600 image it took 25 minutes a frame to render! In the mid 00's I got into Illustrator and Photoshop, to name a couple, and did some super real illustration. Now, after a few years of doing other stuff, I am learning Blender from this awesome young man Andrew Price. What an inspiring young teacher. Yesterday I finished my first Blender project. I wish I was 25 years old now!
@@iceseic Not sure I understand what you mean. I did freelance work for advertising agencies, print design companies, direct for clients and for audiovisual production agencies. Find me on F*ce B**k to see a little of what I do.
I have no ambitions in this particular field of art, but this (and other in the series) video has a lot of solid advise that I find I can apply to my own interests, such as writing and music. Or even philosophy and science. The good man has a knack for sharing knowledge that could be applied to many things. That's a talent too you know.
I love watching these videos especially as me being a cinematographer helps me understand the tools I need to replicate in CGI what I try to replicate in live action with real lighting and cameras.
This was the first video from this channel, that youtube recommendations got to me at the end of 2019. (Gosh, i sorrow that haven't known about blender at all before that) Now i've spent more than 200 hours in blender and not going to stop! Thank you man! You did good job!
The 4 Building Blocks of Photorealism: 1. Modeling 2. Materials 3. Lighting 4. Post-Processing You should spend 80-90% of your time on Materials and Lighting 1. Modeling Tips: #1 Keep it in Real-world Scale #2 Never a sharp edge #3 Use Reference #4 Know your anatomy 2. Materials Tips: #1 Use physically accurate shaders #2 Use PBR Maps #3 Use Surface Imperfections 3. Lighting Tips: #1 Use the real-world direction #2 Ensure the correct color #3 Use HDRs if possible 4. Post Processing Tips: #1 Glare #2 Motion Blur #3 Depth of Field #4 Chromatic Aberration #5 Barrel Distortion
I must wake up in 4 hours but i've been watching your wonderful altruistic content for 3 hours and still not falling asleep. Thank you for sharing your passion like this.
As a photographer this is amazingly interesting, it helps alot to understand photographers that seem to draw alot of inspiration from our digital age and CGI photorealism. That being said alot of photographers are reclaiming photography by using film/older equipment other than showing how fake an image can be.
+Blender Guru If the focal distance and the aperture of the lens are small enough, everything can be in focus (as long as you don't put something, right in front of it). Technically, a still is all in focus as long as every point in the image shows no perceptual detail loss from a "true" focused element. So, is hard but not impossible.
As soon as you start dealing with small apertures (especially in wide-angle lenses) you start losing detail to diffraction. So even if everything is "in focus" you start losing fine detail and start introducing a bit of soft blur over the whole image. Depending on the resolution and the size displayed this might not be noticeable though, thanks to the circle of confusion getting smaller with smaller sizes. This is also where you can easily spot a tack-sharp CGI. Especially visible when people put CGI cars over photo backplates, for example.
Isn‘t it strange, that in Blender we have to add all those imperfections for photorealistic look, that every photographer wants to get rid of in real life photography? As a photographer myself I would be more than happy, if all the optical weaknesses would be gone. Now starting with 3D rendering I have to add them artificially 😉😂🤪
That is something I thought about myself, so here it goes. It shows one's skill. If you just get a camera and shoot a photo in AUTO mode the picture will be looking normal but everyone can do that. The more unreal and perfect you make it appear (as in framing the shot, not so much changing colors and doing some Photoshopping) the more it shows your skills as a photographer. Similarly, it is easy to make an unrealistic looking CG render. The more real looking you make it seem, to the point where one would be unable to distinguish it from a real photograph, the more it shows your skill as a modeler. You might say it is for showing off, and you might be right. But also there are situations where you NEED to do either of those things (photograph something perfect looking or render something real looking) and the more capable you are of it, the more sought after you might be. That is what I am thinking. For me Blender is a hobby, so it is more like playing a hard video game - the pleasure of becoming better at it is like beating a difficult boss. That is all, have a good one, nixp
@@evanshsedani1575 so correct! The andle in which light hits the surface and the interactions the photons take on to reach the eye is extremely important. Some may say the andle is the most important piece to your photo!
OMG I've been telling a huge lot of people exactly your words "you CAN'T start at this EXAGERATED form without FIRST knowing what the REAL form looks like", because omg, those exagerations are exagerations of reality, how are you gonna be able to exagerate something dat you don't know? Is just so easy to understand but a lot of people can't understand it even if I tell them. So glad to FINALLY hear someone that is not me saying dat!!! Cheers!! (sorry for the exagerated enthusiasm)
You are the best!!! I watched the adaptive subdivision earlier and that saved my life because I was working on 8 gb ram at that time now I am working on 32 GB. Only because of you. I learnt from you and now I am a freelancer. Thanks guru.
I still use maya for my daily work, but i watch your videos and tutorials because the concept and explanations are amazing! You are making me drop learning 3ds max and learn blender instead.
...if only more companies would allow for Blender usage... the thing is that if you have a pipeline you have to integrate new software to make sure production is not delayed. Blender is becoming a truly awesome software that will be responsible for a lot of amazing art! Cheers
I work with MAX daily and I'll be the guy who disagrees. Just the sheer amount of plugins and stuff available in MAX eclipses blender. Corona renderer FTW!
***** This is where your hippy attitude, unfortunately, is stopping growth and businesses. Since under Open-Source and GNU licenses everything is given away with no compensation - business cannot strive. Sucks to be a programmer in your community... Sure, great for free-loaders, but there's no surprise there's no variety of software under open-source platforms. I will not magically state that Blender is inferior to MAX - it is not. But its UI is (to me personally) such a mess that I'd not want to work there. And some of the things, like PBR rendering...why have people only started talking about this NOW when the commercial tools have always supported such functionality? Open-source software is great - I use stuff like 7-Zip, Handbrake and StaxRip and they work well. But maaaaan is everyone stuck in the 90's UI-wise... Maybe I wouldn't dislike Open-source software if people paid attention to how it looks too (form follows functionality). That and the fact that renderers like Corona aren't available for Open-Source/GNU platforms (like Blender) due to the fact they'd need to reveal their own code in order to make it available (basically shafting the devs for their hard work).
This is incredibly informative! Even though you think you already know most of this stuff, some things are just so subtle, they should be reminded of constantly. Now I will go and play around with textures more, especially with normal maps, reflections and lighting.
I think for any visual art medium, you’d have to learn how to create real world stuff first before trying out cartoony or otherworldly art. It may be a pain to learn those first, but I think it’d be super useful to know whenever you’re creating different styles of art or even realism art. Everything stems from the real world stuff, even with supernatural characters/creatures or otherworldly places.
I've never done any of this sort of work and have no interest in starting over now. I am a retired sign designer working primarily in Illustrator and Photoshop. Late at night I found myself bored when I bumped into this video at random. It was so interesting that I watched it to the end. You did a great job as an introduction to this art form. Addressing something you mentioned several times, I believe we "think we know" the size, color, shape of things, because we can spot the mistakes in other people's work. Because we're so perceptive, we think we know. But it's always easier to spot the flaws in someone else's work but find ourselves blind to the same mistakes when we are working on our own.
you are definitely my fav CG channel. Most of the things I have learned come from your channel. All my work is self portraiture and abstract but without you lessons on colour, composition and realistic materials my work would not look the way it does. I owe it to you for being so thorough and passionate in your tutorials! 😊thnx so much. I think you really elevate everyone's artistry through your tutorials!
I'm a professional photographer and I can confirm most of what he said is accurate. The only thing is that the starburst effect at 42:26 is caused by diffraction. When light waves pass very close to an object, it bends very slightly and distort the image. Everytime you take a photo, light that pass around the edge of the aperture of the lens is deflected outwards. If the aperture (hole) is smaller, a larger part of the light that passes through it is deflected and the global image resulting of it is blurier as some light points that should be in the center drift outwards on the sensor. With a very small aperture, light is bended so much that those drifted points start to line up and you see lines of light that should not be there. For that same reason, unlike you said at 47:30 landscape photographers don't use apertures smaller than f/16 or even f/11. If it's true that with a smaller aperture more of the image will be sharp, the global amount of sharpness will be reduced due to diffraction. Also, as you kind of explain at 46:35, many product photographers and some landscape photographers use a technique called focus stacking to get super sharp images of small objects. It's done by taking many (a lot) of photos of the same object at the sharpest aperture for the lens and moving the focus point across the lenght of the object. Then, all images are put togehter and blended into one super sharp image.
10 minutes in the video and I'm feeling like I've watched 1 hour already, not because it's boring, but because the amount of information cramped onto those 10 minutes
THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK! You are The One in this stuff! One more BIG THANK YOU. You have made so many designers happy already, that NOBODY should have an objection if you introduce few minutes of talking about things that you sell.
Key takeaways for someone who hasn't done any 3d graphics and possibly isn't going to :d : 1. Make sure the foundation is sturdy. 2. You have to know realistic before you will understand stylized or that you have to know what message you are trying to convey before you can add details. 3. Motion blur doesn't necessarily make video games look realistic, but instead makes it seem like you're watching the game through a camera. Best lessons can be applied to anything.
Reminds me of when I took the kids to create art by trying only the colour red and natural paints! They weren't even my kids! I think they learned a lot 😌
what up mr blender guru! thanks for the tips, ive been researching cg photorealism for a while now and i gotta admit your teachings are the best, nice and clear to understand and straight forward thank you so much! i appreciate it! i will for sure tag you on my first project eveer and give you credit from my learning!!!!
There is a part of CG in which photographic realism is within our grasp right now: Studio photography for fashion, book covers, perfumes, you name it. For one thing it is a STILL image. So instead of faking reality we only have to fake a photo and obviously it's a lot less complicated. Another thing is that studio photography struggles to abstract the subject. Backgrounds are basics the lights and reflexions are less numerous and so on. The last thing is that we can manually edit the 3D rendering to make it real using photos (textures) we have already shot to increase the realistic effects. I have tried this technic and basically it works (for me). I'd like to discuss this with 3D artists that would be interested. I'm a photogapher so textures, I have by the ten of thousands. 3D models that can give me a base image to work from, less so.
Considering you know a little bit about 3d modelling, texturing and rendering, this stuff is actually getting easier and easier to do for the normal person. The world of creativity is awesome.
Every time I see your floor texture maps I go "that looks wrong". I finally figured out why... that floor is supposed to be varnished, yet instead of the varnish forming a uniform smooth surface layer over the top of the wood grain, it appears to be contouring with the wood grain. A varnished wood floor would have scratches which impact the reflectivity but they wouldn't match up with the wood grain at all. Oh and one more thing, thank you for being a daily inspiration to my growth as a cg artist.
You just made my life so much easier with the word average. I have spent hours looking for the height of a mobile home and there it was as soon as I added that one little word. Thanks!
I can see in the future that movies will be mostly or 100% CGI, it makes perfect sense, no retakes of sense, no injuries, no variables, no need to find and pay 100s of extras, etc
That is literally not possible. The most i could see is like 80% CGI and even still that would be rare. Hollywood films also require intense realism as said in this video and high quality, nearly perfect shots if they use the CGI route. That being said, one shot alone could take many hours to render. Im talking like 20+. Take Transformers for example, do some research on the amount of render time put into those movies. Another big thing too is that CGI does in fact look amazing and I strongly believe it will continue to get better, but CGI looks best when mixed with practical footage. For example practical dirt charges and fire, then using CGI to mimic a plane crashing. CGI can simply never replicate every aspects of real life. And finally, by doing this you are literally putting thousands of people out of jobs. Im no film expert but I know if Hollywood took the route of CGI, directors, actors, set designers, location managers, makeup/costume designers, lighting experts and prop manufacturers would all become useless. I know it seems like only a few jobs, but for one movie, all those jobs I listed would absolutely require thousands of people; and the list continues. Hell even cameras would be useless! Anyways I know this is a year late but those are my ideas.
I'm using 3ds max but I'm a beginner. So the concepts explained here by slides definitely helps out a lot to some who is learning the art on his own. Thanks!
This is for all you very smart* people leaving those really SUPER helpful* comments: • Blender Guru has over a million subs...he started with donuts and I along with him. He got me going. • Pro Tip: People like to learn new things and this video is not about modeling a donut but photorealism. Therefore, those million subs have now been introduced to something new. Now, have a care.
Not when rendering a single image, but when making an animation, audio realism is very important too, like how things reverb in different places and such
I HATE chromatic aberration. Sometimes I download a game and it has chromatic abberation in it for style and I'm just like, "who would purposely want this. It looks trash"
There are 3 BASIC elements in 3D realism: *1-LIGHT 2-TEXTURES 3-SHADOW.* I learned this when I was studying Light-wave 3D in the early 2000. You can have good texture and good lighting, but if you got the shadow bad, you will never convince customer that the composition of a 3D object on a real world video is there. I see a lot of 3D artist make good modeling, but bad lightning on the shadow, either it looks too dark or fake.
WOW ! I gave you an HOUR and it was ABSOLUTELY WORTH every single second ! THANKS ! Been doing Industrial Machinery for YEARS, and actually got pretty good, but never really focused on "photo realism" beyond the presets in a good Renderer. I'm fairly familiar with the basics of things like lighting, materials, accurate modeling and Camera work, so my results (static and animated) fall squarely in the VERY GOOD range, but with some work and attention to the details you present I can move my work into the "excellent" range. Perfect ? Not interested. EXCELLENT will meet my needs, so that's as far as I EXPECT to take things. I plan to check out your site for professional level tools, etc., as THIS vid makes it CLEAR that with just a LITTLE attention to detail I can get the results my clients want. They are all loyal, but THIS (I think ;=) ! ) will help "set the hook" ! Thanks again - C.
Thanks so much for posting this video mate. Even for intermediate and experienced 3D artists, sometimes we still need to be reminded that it's the fundamentals like accurate scale and proportions that make the biggest impact on a piece ending up looking as you want it, rather than the infinite complexity you can throw into lighting, textures and render settings. I eternally have to fight against my assumptions of how an object looks versus how it really is when measured!
The rule for stylization and breaking the rules of realism is that in order to break the rules in a believable and engaging way you need to fully understand the rules
the points in the glare is actually caused by the diaphragm, if the camera has an hexagonal diaphragm the image will have a 6 pointed glare, glares like that 42:55 emulates the eye and because out "diaphragm" is the dilatation of the pupil , you pick up the imperfections of the edge of the iris
Sure! What specifically would you like covered? So far we've got Outdoor lighting: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fI_FMa-8w50.html and Character Lighting: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7o0PauhFQyo.html Anything else do you need help with?
I just recently learned that there is no light linking in cycles. Can you make a video of what blender lacks in the lighting department compared to other professional softwares?
+Blender Guru I want videos explaining kinds of lighting setup say 3 point lighting how to use them whr to use them it would be so great if u can make 1 like tat:)
This is great advice, I have a trick that helps a lot to make everything glossy look more realistic easily. You just hook up musgrave texture to RGB mix and set the scale between 3,000 and 15,000. You can pick your color and the second color is just the color you picked, but darker or black. For an added bonus you can hook the texture to bumpmap or roughness or both.
I am photographer since nearly 15 years now and the issues with photrealism mentioned in the video matches exactly my experience. There are so many basically good renderings there outside, but on many of them the photographers eye says "Wait ... that isn't really possible" ... like for example "That depth of field can't be reached from this camera position" ... "That exposure in that part of the scene can't be that high ..." and even if you are no photographer, your eye usually realizes that something is wrong with the scene, but it may be that you can't say why ... I would even go one step further and claim that you can't create a 100% photorealistic scene by yourself when you know nothing about photography ... So, best tip as mentioned in the video: Take your camera, go outside and learn about photorealism by taking real photos
I mean. Nowadays people take movie CGI for granted, since it looks fake on movies. Their atempts at making things look realistic only makes them look more fake. Their notion of realism is the notion of a polished photoshopped picture and not what the eyes see in reality. The same applies to some static renders. The artist tends to speak louder, since you have no theoretical limitation with 3D modelling and a photographer or filmer only tries to go around the limitations.
Hello just bump to your vids 6 year ago i was into cgi, things changed so much for 6 years i feel like a newbie now. Your making me come back to modeling rendering and the joy after a nice render :D keep up the good work
I'm a photorealism graphite pencil artist and there is nothing here that's not relavent to both, and you are quite right, doing this kind of thing without an understanding of anatomy or photography is just a recipie for failure. you simply HAVE to understand them and understand them fully.
Pro tip: sneak some images into a community and innocently ask whether they are "fake" or not. Watch what people claim why it is or isn't "fake" and adapt to the most reasonable things... "doesnt have the slightest bit of lens distortion" => add distortion... "too uniform colour contrast" => tinker with the contrast etc.
Nah he's got a sixth sense for knowing when a camera is pointed at him, and runs towards it and bumps his head on it. Underwhelming footage every time :P
Some good points were addressed in this video. I would advise any aspiring CG artist to try photography, clay modeling and of course sketching. If interested in CG character modeling, definitely go for book that focuses on anatomy for artist. Such books pinpoint many details that usually go unnoticed in med ed classes. However in architecture - my field of expertise - I can clearly see that the botique firms in industry are shifting from CG hyperrealism to more abstract forms; diagrams, axoviews, freaking walkthroughs even can be all generated cheaply and are way less time consuming to set-up as they are derived directly from BIM models. But that in the end might be a good thing, because more and more firms are willing to outsource high quality CGI.
Photoreal is important, but NOT the MOST important thing in CGI imo... to me, it's art direction. The real world is photo realistic obviously. But if you just point your phone around taking snapshots randomly, your picture will be realistic but not beautiful.
