[Wren]: Sonic looks objectively better. [Niko]: This is the very first CGI character on film. [Clint]: Oh, is he gonna surf it! [Niko laughing] [Clint]: Green screeeen! [Wren]: So, the biggest thing that was changed... [Intro music] [Wren]: Thanks to Trade for sponsoring today's video! Stay tuned to the end so you can find out how you can save 30% off your first coffee. ♫ Sonic OST - Green Hill Zone ♫ [Niko]: Hi, welcome back to another episode of VFX Artists React. We have a special emergency segment we had to do because the new Sonic trailer just dropped, and you know what? VFX Artists React was born from the ashes of the old Sonic trailer [Flashback] *Niko hits couch and yells* *Clint almost throws up* [Clint in ep. 1]: It looks disgusting. [Niko]: So, let's do it guys ♫ Sonic OST - Green Hill Zone ♫ [Wren]: Sonic looks objectively better. [Clint]: Yeah, he's cute! Look at those eyes, man. It's all about the eyes. [Niko]: I agree.
[Clint]: Yeah, he's cute! Look at those eyes, man. It's all about the eyes. [Clint]: Yeah, he's cute! Look at those eyes, man. It's all about the eyes. They were all beady before. [Niko]: It feels more appropriate, like he's a cartoon character. And do you remember his teeth? Remember his human teeth? [Wren]: He was also just so emotionless. And, now, he actually has emotion. [Clint]: Yeah, he's goofy. [Niko]: Yeah.
[Clint]: Yeah, he's goofy. [Wren]: They've shown a lot more of the movie in this trailer. The first trailer is lacking a lot of the humor and, just like, quirkiness that this one has. *water spraying everywhere* [Sonic]: So, should we get out of here? [Tom]: Yeah, time to go. [Clint]: Totally.
[Niko]: Dude, is she dead? Just like impaled with a bunch of darts? [Niko]: Dude, is she dead? Just like impaled with a bunch of darts? [Wren]: Heh, just like krrrrrr
[Niko]: Dude, is she dead? Just like impaled with a bunch of darts? [Wren]: So, the biggest thing that was changed were the eyes, and they're more expressive But they also dialed back the fur. [Niko]: Yeah, actually, I noticed that on the mouth. [Wren]: Significantly.
[Niko]: Yeah, actually, I noticed that on the mouth. [Wren]: So, if you look at this before-and-after, which is a pretty amazing photo in and of itself [Niko laughing] [Clint]: Oh my god! That was what we were dealing with? [Niko laughing] [Wren]: You'll see he still has like the fur going up and over his eyebrows here. But in the original design, you can see all the highlights, the individual, actual hairs, specifically, are catching light. [Niko]: *cough* Technically they're quills. [Wren]: Oh, okay. [Niko laughing] [Wren]: Fair enough.
[Niko laughing] [Niko]: They also gave Sonic actual gloves, versus just white furry hands. [Wren]: Yes.
[Niko]: They also gave Sonic actual gloves, versus just white furry hands. [Wren]: Big, overly-exaggerated-sized shoes...and socks. [Clint]: Dude, that's so weird.
[Wren]: Big, overly-exaggerated-sized shoes...and socks. [Niko]: You know the thing that stands out to me? The green of his eyes. [Wren]: I wondered if you were gonna mention it! [Niko in ep. 1]: The green of his eyes is way more saturated than the most saturated green that's in the scene. [Wren]: It's, uh, less saturated now. [Niko]: It's less saturated, and it's a little bit warmer. Look at the tone of the green of his eyes, the green on the rubber bands, but they're all in the same color space In fact, the most saturated thing is his blue. And even then, the blue kind of rolls off to a desaturation as it gets brighter towards the edges of his head. It's much more accurately mimicking the color response of a camera. You need to obey the physical rules of your camera, with your CG footage, if you want it to look real. [Niko]: So, when we broke down the first Sonic trailer, [Wren]: 'Kay. [Niko]: we talked about the bloom from lightning. [Niko in ep.1]: The blue glow from the lighting, the camera would never capture it like that. Even though the camera is exposed way down to the point where the clouds aren't even white, there's still glow coming through that electricity, which you wouldn't get. [Niko]: So, bloom happens when a light is so bright that it diffuses as it goes through the lens of the camera, and also as it hits some of the other elements as well. It's like, if you look at the old Sonic the Hedgehog trailer, there's a ton of bloom on that lightning Now, if we look at the new Sonic, and we look at that lightning, the bloom is brought way more down. So, the lightning is bright, but it's not like it's any brighter than the Sun or the sky, that's you know, giving us brightness behind it. In fact, you can kind of see the lightning over the sky right there, and it's just a little bit brighter than the sky. ♫ Sonic OST - Green Hill Zone ♫ [Wren]: On top of, you know, recreating Sonic himself, I do think they ended up probably having to scrap all of the original animation [Niko]: I would agree. [Wren:] because and I don't think you can just retarget the skeleton to this new model, especially since it seems most of the animation is in the face [Niko]: Yeah, not to mention, even if you could retarget the animation, it's been a whole character redesign. It's as if they recast him, like. [Wren]: Yeah, exactly.
[Niko]: The new Sonic is way more expressive and way more cartoony, [Niko]: The new Sonic is way more expressive and way more cartoony and you can't just- Your old animation, if it's not cartoony and that expressive, it's not just gonna transfer [Wren]: A lot of people online were kind of concerned that they're having to redesign Sonic. That means all these artists are gonna end up being overworked, trying to, like, crunch, and they have to scrap everything. But, they also delayed the release of this movie by over four months So, they actually finished shooting this movie in October of 2018. That gives them approximately four or five months to do all the effects that ended up going into the trailer Usually, when the first trailer for movie drops, all the effects you see are literally pretty much the only effects that have been completed up until that point. [Niko laughing]
that have been completed up until that point. So, it's about the same amount of time that they had... ...that was added on top of it. So, as far as an overall production schedule, things got shifted rather well. [Niko]: I'm happy to see that there's an improvement. I'm happy to see that they're actually making good use of their time. I hope we didn't hurt their feelings too bad with our very first VFX Artists React video. [Wren]: I don't think we were nearly as mean as the rest of the internet were. [flashback]
[Clint in ep. 1]: *almost throws up* It looks digusting. [Niko]: And now, we're going to switch clothes for no reason. *clap* [Niko]: Clint, have you ever seen Young Sherlock Holmes before? [Clint]: No, of course not. [Niko]: Okay, let's just see what your thoughts are on this. [Clint]: Okay.
[Niko]: Okay, let's just see what your thoughts are on this. [Wren]: Man, this movie came out in 1985. [Clint]: Whoa, whoa. *glass cracks* [Clint]: Whoa, that's awesome! [Niko]: Man, have us been mind-blowing. [Clint]: Roto.
[Niko]: Man, have us been mind-blowing. [Niko]: Man, have us been mind-blowing. So, Clint, this is the very first CGI character on film ever made. [Clint]: Really?
So, Clint, this is the very first CGI character on film ever made. So, Clint, this is the very first CGI character on film ever made. [Wren]: Kind of
[Clint]: Really? [Niko]: I mean, they had CGI characters they had done, but this is the first one was a CGI character brought in- [Wren]: into live-action photography, yeah. [Clint]: Dude! Oh, this is sick! Oh, this is great! Like, they're not trying to make something that looked real. Dude, the way it jumps out of the stained-glass window is awesome. The way It's just like warping, and then it just *beeeesh* [Clint]: That looks so cool!
[Wren]: And, also notice the motion blur. [Niko]: Yeah. Oh, that's right! They had motion blur, didn't they?
[Wren]: That was like brand-new technology at the time, too. [Wren]: Yeah. And, it was all just through coding where they're like, uhhh... frame here, frame here, interpolate everything in between, and blur it out. [Clint]: Look at that, it's got shadows. [Niko]: Yeah.
[Clint]: It's got... It has shadows and everything. [Clint]: It's got... It has shadows and everything. [Wren]: His shadows, they weren't able to render the shadows back then. They didn't have any sort of system for shadows, so those shadows were actually hand animated [Clint]: Yeah [Wren]: into the scene. This was a groundbreaking visual effect at the time. This is actually pioneered by Dennis Muren and John Lasseter. Dennis Muren, who is a legend of visual effects. He has the most Academy Awards of any living person on the planet. [Niko]: Wow! He was also the first visual effects artist to ever receive an Academy Award. [Niko]: And John Lasseter is the man who went on to found Pixar. [Wren]: Exactly. In fact, this scene right here- They spent six months working on the ten seconds of footage you see of the stained-glass man They've pioneered a whole bunch of new rendering techniques. They actually, like, sculpted some of these pieces in clay and used, uh, Polhemus 3SPACE... ...Digitizer. It's basically a wand that you basically move it through 3D space, and it records point coordinates. [Clint]: Like a photo scanner thing? [Wren]: It's a super rudimentary version that. You're literally just getting coordinates, though. [Niko]: Because, back in the day, when they're doing 3d animation, like, there was no Autodesk, there was no Maya, there was no Cinema 4D, there was no Blender. [Clint]: What the heck did they do? [Niko]: They literally made it themselves. Like, they're using raw math. [Wren]: Yeah, they're doing, like, coding for this [Clint]: Oh my god [Niko]: You had to sit there, do the math for all the translations of all the vector points, and then punch it into the computer, and wait a while, and, hopefully, it looks okay [Niko]: I mean, you can do 3D modeling with a pencil and paper by writing out X, Y, and Z coordinates, [Wren]: Yeah [Niko]: then plotting them. And that's to the point what they're doing here with that model. [Wren]: And John Lasseter actually painted all of what you see there. He painted the texture map for the knight. [Clint]: Sick!
He painted the texture map for the knight. So, ILM actually did the effects for this movie, and, shortly after this movie came out, it was a bit of a lackluster box office release. They actually sold that section of the company to Steve Jobs, and that's what became Pixar. And, shortly after this, they did a whole short film that won like 30 awards, and that went on to become, like, the very famous Pixar logo. *ded* [Niko]: So, real quick, we have 2,971,000 subscribers, right now. [Wren]: Oh, wow! [Niko]: We are 29,000 subscribers away from 3 million. [Wren]: Holy crap! [Niko]: 42.5% of people that watch this channel are not subscribed. If you are not subscribed, and you subscribe now, you can help us hit 3 million, and we will have a really cool party. [Wren]: Really? (Probably not) Sweet! ♫ The Flash OST ♫ [Wren]: Oh, it's the Flash TV show, okay. [Clint and Niko laughing] [Clint]: Dude, that's how you run if you're a robot. [Niko]: He's a Terminator. [Niko]: This actually doesn't look too bad for a TV show. [Wren]: Whoa... Whoa.
[Niko]: This actually doesn't look too bad for a TV show. [Wren]: Wait, is that all CG?
[Clint]: Yeah, that's pretty cool. [Niko]: I think that's all CG. [Wren]: I think that's- that was entirely CG *dung* [Niko]: That's all CG right there.
[Wren]: Whoa... [Wren]: Whoa, That was... One look at the face as usual. But it's pretty sweet. [Wren]: This is pretty sweet so far.
[Niko]: Yeah, it's not bad [Niko]: Like, that one shot was a little ballsy to make it 100% CG, but all the other stuff were pretty good. [Clint]: The only thing that got me was the camera movement. [Wren]: You have no bounds. You can place the camera anywhere and do anything. ~~Movie magic~~ I do kind of like the orange glow effects, though. [Niko and Clint]: Yeah [Niko]: Right here, you can see the light flickering casting a shadow all over the place, on the windowsill. To have the CG light animated with the flickering lightning, really makes the CG look good and brings the scenes to life But, then the second thing is, they have real shots they of lighting in. So they had to go and paint the light in by hand, and they did a really good job of it. This one. Decent-looking, not too bad But this one, when the guy runs up, looks really good with the way the light is cast on the ground and the walls around him. They did a great job blending the light. It casts the shadows nicely. The guy's foot- The flash's, like, left foot that's seen right on the ground still gets a little bit of shadow cast from the orange light, but it's like soft and rounded it out well. [Wren]: Oh, yeah. You're right.
but it's like soft and rounded it out well. but it's like soft and rounded it out well. [Wren]: The super subtle camera shake, just like little- the tiniest of rumbles. [Niko]: Yeah. [Wren]: Really elevates the shot with a certain amount of energy that it really needs for someone coming out of lightspeed. [Niko]: So, how would you guys compare this to the shots from Supergirl that we looked at, like, a week ago? [Clint]: This is, like, leagues better, leagues better. [Wren]: Yeah, this is, like, actually not that bad But also, the filmmaking's quite a bit better too. It's not just about, like, adding effects onto something, it's also, like, how are the effects motivated from the filmmaking perspective [Niko]: So, like, compared to Supergirl where there's, like, awkward, reanimated retime stuff, the camera's all, like, doing really cool stuff, the rendering's great. They're using, like, good photo-real rendering and good, like, lighting techniques. [Wren]: It definitely feels like there's a bit of a budget priority... ...here. [Niko]: So, all in all, nice work the Flash. *claps* I've seen some stuff that's a little on the CG side, but you know what, do like full CG characters for TV shows kind of gutsy, I gotta commend them for it. [Wren]: Shows are hard to do visual effects for because the budget is way more stretched out. [Sakharine]: Lose them! Get him off our tail! *gunshots* [Wren]: Oh, Adventures of Tintin. Didn't Spielberg direct this? [Sakharine]: Faster, you idiot, faster! [Niko]: Is that...Speilberg? [Wren and Niko laughing] [Clint]: Whaaaat! [Clint]: Hwat!
[Wren]: That tank is driving a building! [Wren]: That tank is driving a building! [Niko]: By the way, guys, it hasn't cut yet. [Wren]: Yeah, I did notice that. This is all one long take. We thought our Bosstown renders were long. [Niko]: The reason one take here is not trivial is because... Think about a video game. You can only have so many textures, so many characters on screen at the same time, because there's only a certain amount of memory in your computer. When it comes to 3D animation, you can usually access more of your computer's memory, but there's still only a limited amount of memory in your computer. So, how do you have a world that has 100 characters in it, 1,000 buildings, 800 physics simulations with smoke and water and all that kind of stuff, fountains all over the place, clothing simulations all over the place. Like, how do you bring that all together in one shot? And that's- One of the most technically impressive things about this is that it's element after element after element, all being set up individually, and then being brought together in what looks like one long shot. Basically, artists have to go in, and then, little by little, they build up pieces of it on like Individual simulations or setups or environments, and they render them all out one by one. They just put all together layer by layer. [Captain Haddok]: Nice work, Snowy! Don't let him go! [Niko]: Here's all the high-level things happening in this thing: We have rigid body physics, AKA hard things that bounce off of each other. We have cloth physics. We have soft body physics, with the paper. We have...feather physics, water, surface water. You have splashes, and you have foam. Foam simulation is another thing that's kind of crazy a lot people take for granted. Ragdolls as characters are being influenced by each other. We have hand animation and mocap animation that needs to drive physics. But one isn't physics and the other one is, so it's really easy to break things. [Clint]: Curry powder simulations? [Niko]: We have curry powder simulation. [Wren]: Good boy simulation. [Niko]: Good boy simulation. We have exhilarating story simulation... [Wren and Niko laughing] [Clint]: If you guys have a movie that has some cool visual effects. You're like, how did they do that? Go ahead and leave a comment on what that movie is. We'll see it, we'll read it, and we'll react to it right here because we love reacting to VFX. ♫ Suspenseful James Bond Music ♫ [Wren]: Wait, is this... This is the one with the- the space... the space laser. This is Gears of War! This is Gears of War! *shoooooo* *dung* *crash* [Clint]: Boing... Guh! [Wren]: What was that? That was... [Clint]: Oh, the cameras moving in! [Niko]: No... Oh, this is the worst! [Niko]: This is the worst! So, they're slowing this down, and they're only doing so by duplicating a frame. So, you see how it's like move, move, stop, move, move, stop, move, move, stop What's happening here is you're seeing a slow-motion shot, but it's clearly fake, digital, slow motion because the camera motion itself is still at 24 frames per second, even though the shot itself is at, like, 18 or 16 frames per second. *creaking* *latch opens* [Niko]: Oh, what's- what plan does James Bond have here? [Clint]: Snowboard, son. Triple black diamond. Oh, is he gonna surf it! [Niko laughing] [Niko]: He's getting close to the tsuanmi.
[Clint]: Okay, he's surfing it. [Wren]: He's surfing with the...
[Clint]: Greeen Screeen! [Clint and Niko laughing] [Niko]: Ohh, boy. This doesn't look very good. [Clint]: Well, the water actually looks pretty good. [Niko]: It does, but the ice looks super fake, and then right here.... [Niko]: He just did, like, a body lift, with his arms from here to there! *Wren and Clint turn Super Saiyan* [Niko]: As if going up a jump somehow makes a parachute go up with you... [Guys laughing] [Clint]: Wait wha... *laughs* That's a great point! [Niko]: So, a couple things that stand out to me visually on this thing... One, the super CG ice, just like blatantly CGI. [Wren]: CGIce [Niko]: The shadows are a little weird, the green screening (mostly unintelligible)
[Clint]: You can always tell that it's a green screen.
[Niko]: The weird blown-out highlights. [Wren]: Honestly, that's the thing that, like, kind of falls apart for me most are all these close-up shots of Pierce Brosnan, which I get you got to have the reaction shots of your hero. But it's just so obviously, like, disassociated from what's happening behind them. He looks like a weatherman. He in front of a, like, a green screen pointing out, like: "And over here, we got flooding and ice." [Niko]: Everything is blue, by the way, in the frame, except for that yellow parachute, I guess. And then when you go to Pierce Brosnan, nothing's blue [Niko laughing] He has no blue light or blue edge. [Wren]: It's very warm.
He has no blue light or blue edge. [Niko]: Yeah, and then there's some just awkward light wrap being improperly used. So, light wrap: a really handy tool, a really common tool for green screening. Basically, it's to wrap some light from your background around your actor. The problem is... ...light wrap only makes sense when something behind you is bright. So, for example, the sky should be blooming or glowing, and that should be the light wrap around his arm. But there's nothing bright on the bottom right or the bottom left, for that matter, and we're still getting light wrap. It just really makes it feel like you're watching a bunch of filters being put on footage in After Effects So, all those blue glaciers and pieces of ice rushing by, especially the bright, white ones are reflecting a lot of light, we should be seeing these colored lights, basically, whooshing by Pierce Brosnan's face. And all you need to do is, on set, have, you know, one of your gaffers take a light and kind of go like this or, like, move a reflector around, but there's none of that happening with Pierce Brosnan here. [Laughing] [Wren]: What was the scene we just watched!? [Clint]: What was with his legs, like, he was, like, gonna land it. [Electric guitar riff] [Clint]: And he was, like, nah, I'm gonna like... [Awkward sound effect] [Clint]: And he's like, okay, I'll land it. Like, what? [Clint]: Trade is- *smack* [Niko]: Alright guys, we're here to talk to you about Trade coffee Now, they sent us a bunch of boxes, and we're gonna crack 'em open here, and we're gonna tell you about the smells. [Clint]: Wow, I got the "Chronic Super Dank"... [Wren]: Super Dank Coffee? I got "Without the Love". [Clint]: Metric Coffee? *gets ignored* [Wren]: Yo, I'm gonna- I'm gonna open this up I want to actually, like, smell this coffee. [Niko]: "Visual Effects Artists react to Coffee Smells."
Here we go. *Clint has an orgasm?* Hohoho!
*Clint has an orgasm?* *gotta get all dat smells* *too much* [Clint]: It smelled a little sweet, and then I looked at the side of the bag, and it said "Maple". [Niko sounds relaxed] [Niko]: Reminds me of a library. It's got that comforting, warm feeling. [Wren]: Smells like I'm kayaking through the bayou. [Wren]: So, the roasters actually ethically source these beans, and the supply chain is set up in such a way that the money actually makes it back to the farmers themselves. [Niko]: Oh, nice.
[Wren]: Yeah. [Niko]: So, I'm not a big coffee drinker, meaning I don't really know much about the flavor profiles of coffee. One of the cool things about this company is that when you sign up, you take a survey, and the company will send you coffees that are tailored to your tastes. So, whether you're just starting with coffee, or you are very experienced and you know exactly what you like, these guys will send you different types of roasts from different companies that will match what flavor profiles you are looking for. [Clint]: Trade is giving the first 250 people who click the link in the description below 30% off their first coffee Just use the code "CORRIDOR". [Niko]: So, big thanks to Trade for sponsoring this video! You guys can check out more about them in the description down below. [Niko]: Alright, quick game! Whoever has the bag fall off their head last gets to keep all this coffee. Go! [Intense music] [Wren]: Aw.... [Victory jingle] [Niko]: Clint gets it! [Wren]: No, no! [Niko laughing] [Clint]: Niko, it's good to have you back. [Niko]: I've been here the whole time [Clint and Niko laughing] [Clint]: I don't know why I said that. [Wren]: You're the one who went to Texas for ten days! [Clint]: I know, it's good to be back. Thanks for having me, guys Hope you guys enjoyed that VFX Reaction episode... ...where, um... You know, I'm just basically just saying stuff, and you're never gonna use this footage. [Niko]: Thank you for watching. I hope you are subscribed. If you're not subscribed, please consider doing so. Holy crap, we're almost at 3 million subscribers. Alright, pause for a second and look back on this year. It's been crazy. So many of you are new people to this channel. Thank you for watching. So many of you have subscribed. Thank you so much. Many of you have commented. Anyways, I'll stop now. It's just been awesome. I can't wait to share more visual effects knowledge with all of you.
Love these guys. They did a great job pointing out the great stuff and the obviously bad close-up shot.
Kinda surprised they didn't review Grodd VS Flash, King Shark VS Flash or Grodd VS King Shark since those were kinda awesome to watch. Hopefully in the future.