Here's an impressive game trailer that tackles the issues of creating CGI world including human characters head on. And it very largely succeeds
CGI is getting to the stage where whole films can be made without a single real object in sight. Spielberg's TinTin was spectacular and somewhat divisive as it revealed glimmers of truly breathtaking realism - but not everyone was comfortable with it. The fact that it was based on comic-book characters begged all sorts of questions about whether it was supposed to look "real" or not, but the overall effect was engaging and only infrequently creepy.
Computer game trailers, on the other hard, have a different task. They have to engage potential game customers at the same time as not looking so different from the actual gameplay as to make the game itself look wooden.
Well, this latter point may or may not apply to the Ubisoft Watch Dogs E3 trailer you're about to view. It's one of the most cinematic trailers we've ever seen. The lighting, the "look" and the editing are all fast-paced action-thriller movie to the core. And the CGI is impeccable. The only question is: will the actual game look anything like this?
Gamers will have to be the judge of that. But meanwhile, have a look at this amazing computer-generated sequence, which was, apparently, craftily uploaded to Vimeo by the game's protagonist himself - Hacker Aiden Pearce.
Thanks to Eurogamer.net for the tip.
And here's what we consider to be the pinnacle of CGI work so far. It's not totally computer generated but it does convincingly bring Audrey Hepburn back to life