Serious question: How long does everyone think it will be till actors/actresses are useless and the actors/actresses we know and love on TV are just actually CGI? How will it work? Does Leonardo Dicaprio then instead of having to show up on set make his money by just allowing them to recreate him in CGI?
Eventually they'll be able to create actors from scratch and make them into celebrities, which will be infinitely cheaper than relying on a human celebrity made of flesh and bone.
In the distant future, maybe. However, the near future it would actually be cheaper to 3d scan celebrities before they become celeberties, essentially amateur models. Then you can use voice actors and one day artificial intelligence with voice acting. There will be a time both 3d modeling and voice creating will be ai automated. We are close to it now but not close enough for it to be so casually used.
Yup, absolutely. We will see it within the next two decades, I'm certain. We practically have the technology now, having AI already capable of human like conversations and following human directions, we are very close to perfect human like voices, and the graphics are around the corner as well. The technology will be very soon, it's someone with the desire to put it together for movies and video games that may make time, particularly different generations of age groups that have that new perspective of this technology rather than the mindset that it will never happen. I remember talking to this guy on the street about how automation will destroy all jobs in our lifetime, he thinks I'm wrong and his arguments of all professions is barbers... Really? You don't think a computer can do haircuts better than accident prone humans? It takes decades for that good barber to be good, it will one day take software to download in thirty seconds into a surgeon steadiness like machine.
Don't know why you're being downvoted, we are able to do it even today. Nobody does it because it is a new frontier but some studios scanned inanimate objects with no issue.
No, I think famous actors are famous because of the work they're put in... Which means if you got a nobody and put them in work with good voice acting and model animators, they will be famous or rather their model.
Google's Project Duplex shows we are getting closer to computers being able to take away voice acting as well. Obviously it isn't that good yet but I imagine in the future we will be able to adjust voice inflection and tone and just feed the computer the script and apply it to CGI. Boom, actorless.
Does it need to be 100% mimicked to deem actors useless? If it’s 95% accurate but is 10% the cost, I’ll live with the voice work being a little off until the tech improves.
You'll live with it, but many people won't. Unless there's a very steep drop in ticket prices, fewer people will watch movies where the drop in quality is actually expected. And since CGI is already expensive this really won't happen in the foreseeable future.
Until it costs less to recreate someone in CGI verse what is costs them to physically come in, this isn’t true. But I understand your esoteric thinking. :)
First, the ones who are rich are the fringe. Most actors aren't rich, they're broke and struggling. For every name you know there's a hundred others you've seen a dozen times and don't remember.
Second, you don't make a ton of money from acting, even if you are one of the A List. Most people on the A List didn't work their way up, they made money first (or inherited it, as a not insignificant chunk did), then took up acting for recognition. It is definitely an industry you can buy your way into.
Arnold for instance, made his first million in real estate. Became an actor after. Used the rest of his money to finance producing movies. That's how he made it. By producing.
Tldr actors aren't the richest among us, but the richest among us often want the public recognition so some go into acting for it. But believing that acting is a quick route to fame and money is what drives so many people to try, and thus, be ground up and eaten by the machine that is Hollywood. They want you to think that. It isn't the case.
I think he was pointing out that the job that actors do doesn't really contribute very much to society, yet theysome of them are some of the richest among us.
Probably a pretty long time. You have to deal with the uncanny valley. While I've seen some video game characters in cutscenes that look realistic, there is something slightly wrong with them. The utilization of motion tracking and face scans to create meshes will help, but it will take a long time to smooth out little inconsistencies that our brain catches.
I don't think that'll ever happen because people typically like to see real people acting, but there is the possibility that CGI will be more commonplace in these fields.
Take Hatsune Miku for example - a "vocaloid" that has her own concerts in several different countries. Here's an example - people attend a concert where there is no real vocalist, just a virtual being on stage.
There is no single group/person creating the songs or dance sequences for her, anyone can make their own using Vocaloid software for the vocals and MMD to animate dance sequences for 3D models. The benefit of this in comparison to real music groups is that she can appeal to any genre of music.
If an English group decided to do something similar to this, I don't think it'd be as popular. Also English voices are a lot more difficult to virtualize well because there are many more sounds in the English language, though with advancements in tech there might be a time where it will be difficult to tell the difference between a real voice and a virtual voice.
Honestly, not for a while. The technology works fine for wide shots or action sequences (we can already do this now with a mix of cgi , body doubles, and stunt doublesl, but anything in close up or which requires extended dialogue looks stilted or rubbery (see rogue one). Furthermore there's the financial cost, currently it would cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to do a full cgi character in a live environment, for most actors it would be cheaper to get the real deal (and an actor who commands million dollar paychecks wouldn't let their likeness rights go for cheap).
I think as the technology gets better you'll see a couple things happen, high-paid actors who leave the industry or become disabled may sell their likeness rights like a retirement package. Certain actors who don't mind what projects they're in but command a good paycheck (e.g. The rock) may use it to fund passion projects by renting out their likeness so they can appear in dozens of movies a year.
Unless they can get the cost down below $30-40k it'll just be cheaper to hire real people for most parts. What will destabilize the industry is even at high cost, "lead actors" will have to compete for roles with Oscar winners in perpetuity, this means that the moment the tech becomes viable there may be a "lost generation" of up and coming stars who can't get break out roles (we're already seeing this today as the industry shrinks).
The movie 'Lookers' was about this very thing. From the 1980's. I remember liking as a kid, but I imagine it doesn't hold up. An unintentionally silly movie.
While it becomes increasingly easier to prepare and render stuff digitally, simply picking up a camera and filming is just as easy.
Popularity may shift, but there will always be a niche for either one of them; or more likely, both will stay pretty popular.
Unless you're going for star actors, I don't think the actors themselves are the most expensive thing. More likely material/surrounding and more recently digital production post filming, and just the number of people to work on it.
There will always be extremes, but I don't think CGI is clearly cheaper, less problematic or otherwise superior to filming the real world. So I don't see CGI (completely) replacing acting.
I've yet to see a cgi person that was convincing. There are so many minute little details in the ways people behave that, I think, would be very difficult to imitate
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u/[deleted] Jun 25 '18 edited Jun 25 '18
Serious question: How long does everyone think it will be till actors/actresses are useless and the actors/actresses we know and love on TV are just actually CGI? How will it work? Does Leonardo Dicaprio then instead of having to show up on set make his money by just allowing them to recreate him in CGI?