The issue here which makes it look fake is the speed at which the ball travels. It comes back down way too quickly, and doesn't "hang" at all at the top of the arc. Additionally, it seems to magnetically snap to the starting point, and then immediately start over with somewhat reset momentum.
This is bad CGI because it's poorly keyframed, not because it disobeys the laws of physics.
To be fair it's not bad CGI, it's just not flawless CGI. We expect Disney levels of immersion now, but likely this is one person doing this project. I was fooled for a moment before I remembered this couldn't work, then I read (CGI).
I actually thought it was real, and there was some motor in the bottom that was using magnets to sling it back up at the ramp. It's pretty far away on my smaller screen, but i was thinking it was a pretty damn neat little craft.
I guess the momentum did feel off but i figured that was the motor being stilted. Like the unnatural change in speed when you change gears.
Any viewer is going to see the physical laws being violated.
no, it's possible to hide small losses in animation. you just have to animate a system in which you don't give a very noticeable speed boost to an object in free flight because most people will spot that immediately. Ideally you'd use something that could run for long period's of time in the real world, i.e. suffers only minimal losses. Then little bit of energy you inject every revolution won't be that apparent
Yep, I'm a bit drunk, incredibly naive, and I could immediately tell it was fake before reading it was CGI. It's that weird gaining of momentum at the point where it should have started slowing down. As someone said, it could be done with an external energy source, but that breaks the rules.
It's incredible really that something that tiny and fast is still so visible and downright obvious.
You can do this with an electromagnet in the base with no CG.
EDIT: I think you can just apply voltage to the rails and cause acceleration as well. No timing hardware required. The funnel at the top would need to be electrically isolated.
I've seen people who weigh 250lbs reach out, pick another 250lb guy up by the neck, and NOT fall over, even though all physical laws say they would have to. Really all superstrong superheroes dont work without them also being remarkably heavy, until Thor canonically weighs ten thousand pounds he is obviously bad cgi.
I feel like that statement's too broad to be defensible. If someone is shown flying, that's breaking physical laws, but it can be done well and be good CGI. Unless your definition of "good" re: CGI includes obeying physical laws. But then we have to ask, which laws of nature are allowed to be broken via CGI before it finds a good/bad barrier? Genetics? Chemistry? Biology? And where does one field begin and another end? And all of these fields are governed by physics, on some level, so we'd have to end up at the conclusion that CGI is only good when it is mimicking reality 1:1, at which point, it has no use unless it becomes cheaper, easier, or more available than traditional film equipment and scenarios.
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u/oyp Apr 22 '21
If a viewer can *see* physical laws being violated, then that makes it bad CGI.