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Were the models on the screens in 2001: A Space Odyssey actual CGI?


Kerbface

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I can't seem to find info on this, but you know in 2001 in some scenes they had wireframe models on screens, like when HAL is explaining about the part that needs replacing in the dish? It shows the model of the dish and rotates it in wireframe. Was this an actual 3D CGI wireframe or was it just drawn to resemble it?

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Those were illustrations, and not proper renderings. No part of 2001 used CGI, which is both good and bad. The mission is to Saturn in the novel, but the film changed it to Jupiter, as there was no way of producing realistic ringed planets.

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CGI did exist back in 1968 but not as we know it now. As far as I remember the first use of wireframes was seen in Westworld a few years after 2001. So I can’t be 100% but the sequence you mention was alsmost certainly traditional animation, recreating the look of something generated by computer.

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Well, I read some time ago, that in "Escape from New York" they used models to make a simulated wireframe because back then actual computer generated effects would have be extremely expensive. This was a 1981 hollywood production. So I'd guess, that in 1968, when 2001 was released, CGI would have been out of the question.

On the other hand, it a Kubrick movie - the guy that bought 3 of only 10 special lenses made for NASA, that where originally designed to fotograph the backside of the moon just to shoot a movie at candlelight.

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Do note that the number of frames used for the animation could be counted on both hands. Purchasing a proper render would certainly have been possible, but it would have been prohibitively expensive to produce, and more time consuming as well. While certainly possible, it simply wasn't a practical approach.

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As far as I know, no CGI in 2001. Even the screens on the HAL readouts (and other vessels "computer" readouts) were just images displayed on CRT/tv screens.. they weren't ever computer generated. Very fancy photography, large rotating sets and camera trickery (Dave and Frank standing without wires while at 90 degree angles to each other).

Oh, and lots of take. Lots, and lots of takes.

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As far as I know, no CGI in 2001. Even the screens on the HAL readouts (and other vessels "computer" readouts) were just images displayed on CRT/tv screens.. they weren't ever computer generated. Very fancy photography, large rotating sets and camera trickery (Dave and Frank standing without wires while at 90 degree angles to each other).

Oh, and lots of take. Lots, and lots of takes.

I'm pretty sure the screens use some sort of projection method. They weren't CRTs, they had way too much resolution and were completely flat.

And I know the rest of the film was not computer genreated, like using double exposure for the planets with the model ships and whatnot. I was only unsure about the simple wireframes. Certainly the amazing models were infinitely more complex than any computer could create (And I think they still look better than more or less any CGI ships I've seen).

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I'm pretty sure the screens use some sort of projection method. They weren't CRTs, they had way too much resolution and were completely flat.

And I know the rest of the film was not computer genreated, like using double exposure for the planets with the model ships and whatnot. I was only unsure about the simple wireframes. Certainly the amazing models were infinitely more complex than any computer could create (And I think they still look better than more or less any CGI ships I've seen).

Indeed, the screens were simple paper cutouts illuminated from behind.

CGI is an amazing tool and can achieve greatness with skill, but the classic approach requires even more skill, and is even more rewarding when performed properly.

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Indeed, the screens were simple paper cutouts illuminated from behind.

CGI is an amazing tool and can achieve greatness with skill, but the classic approach requires even more skill, and is even more rewarding when performed properly.

Yeah, I love practical effects, but on the subject, the one thing that bugs me is that the colours of the moon and the vehicles flying above the moon are often pretty badly mismatched (and not in a consistent way).

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The team on 2001 were pretty clever. They knew that anything they could do with a computer would be waaaaay out of date by the time 2001 rolled around (or even the next decade or two rolled around). So to make it look like it was actually some time in the future, everything you see as a "computer model" was actually hand animated to look like a computer read out and put in place with clever trickery, so it didn't have to look like the technology of the time. This actually got a pretty good futuristic vibe to it, although they were still a few decades behind reality (although as fellow veterans of Windows Vista will agree, having the computer go mad and kill everyone is not that far-fetched, although HAL actually had a pretty good excuse, and was a lot easier to fix).

This is one of the reasons that 2001 has aged relatively well...they worked out what stuff might look like if technology was better, then they faked it with what they actually had.

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