What is the cost of CGI?CGI animation is an incredibly painstaking process that’s why movie outfits spend millions of dollars on special effects. Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films are some of the most CGI heavy movies in the history of filmmaking and each release features only the latest in CGI technologies.
MCU movies could be broken down into two categories, standalone films (Ironman, Thor, Captain America, etc.) and the Avengers movies, which feature an ensemble cast. The Avengers movies tend to be more expensive compared to standalone Marvel movies because every character’s unique traits and powers require extensive CGI effects. The cost of CGI effects in standalone MCU films is about $100 to $200 million while Avengers movies are at least $350 million per release! About 98% of MCU films’ newest releases were CGI’d.
It’s not surprising that MCU’s latest movie, Avengers: Endgame, is the most expensive movie from the franchise, costing Disney an eye-watering $600 million. Of course, we all know that Endgame’s budget is just a fraction of what the film earned in the box office ($2.18 billion globally, surpassing Titanic), thanks to the hysteria over the story’s conclusion, which MCU has been telling for 11 years now. With that said, which are some of the most unforgettable CGI scenes in MCU — and what is the cost of CGI in them?
Avengers: Age of Ultron Final Battle Scene
Avengers: Age of Ultron had an estimated budget of $365 million and a huge chunk of the budget was spent on special effects. One of the most expensive scenes in this particular movie is the final battle where Earth’s mightiest heroes square off with Ultron and his swarm of homicidal robots in fictional Sokovia.
Two things, one: the scene featured some of the new Avengers members, Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. Each of these characters has their own superpowers, which made the visual effects even more complicated. Two: Ultron and his swarm of deadly robots were attacking a floating city.
Focusing on the large-scale action, highlighting the superpower/s of each Avenger, Ultron’s swarm of robots attacking the city, all these stunning effects in one scene! Avengers: Age of Ultron had over 3,000 VFX shots, which had more shots than any other film in the MCU franchise when the movie was first released.
Captain America: The First Avenger Skinny Steve Rogers Scenes
During the first hour of Captain America: The First Avenger, viewers were introduced to Steve Rogers before he became a super soldier, a 90-pound asthmatic (described succinctly by Tommy Lee Jones’ Col. Chester Phillips). Although the “Skinny Steve” scenes were not as CGI intensive as other scenes in the movie, it was a hard stunt to pull because it involved two things: the de-aging of Steve Rogers and scaling Chris Evans’ body down to believable proportions, which required a precise, frame-by-frame approach.
Shooting the Skinny Steve scenes was a breakthrough in CGI. Lola Visual Effects, headed by Edson Williams, developed a new technique to achieve realistic results: 2D image manipulation. Mesh warping was done on a still image of Chris Evans to shrink his size. Williams explained that Chris Evans’ head was set onto his lanky body double’s body (played by Leander Deeny).
“The head replacements were tricky because you were taking the head of a rhinoceros and putting it on the body of a gazelle,” Williams told The Wrap. “The difference in muscles, in connective tissue was so vast, that it was very difficult to make the necks match up.”
While film critics made the Skinny Steve a butt of their jokes, the viewers were sold on the scene. The Skinny Scene ended up being one of the most complicated, not to mention, expensive, scenes in the movie.
Well Ego’s paradise-like planet was quite the eye candy, wasn’t it? It certainly wasn’t easy, creating an entire planet and making its far reaches believable and astonishing at the same time. And let’s not forget, the character was the planet so the demands of the scene were something that the franchise never dealt with before!
Shooting the scenes requires different sets; most of them are composed to look like alien environments, which was critical to selling the scene. The viewers must see an entirely different landscape, a paradise that’s just too good to be true.
Visual effects supervisor Chris Townsend oversaw the special effects for Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2. “I’m a huge fan of the films,” he told Rotoscopers. “I think from a creative and visual effects point of view, they’re some of the funnest stuff out there.” Weta Digital’s Guy Williams and his team handled the epic third act, saying it took 490 staffers to create the final scenes of the Ego planet.
According to director James Gunn, making the EGO planet was perhaps, the “biggest visual effect of all time,” a feat that hasn’t been seen in any MCU film. It took over a trillion polygons to create the EGO planet scenes and the VFX work was incredibly complex.
The Avengers Epic Hero Shot
The first Avengers film is the culmination of the franchise’s work, having introduced key characters in standalone films in previous years. There were so many iconic scenes in the film, most of which were done with stunning visual effects but none came close to the final hero shot. In this iconic scene, Earth’s mightiest heroes have assembled and worked as a team for the first time, taking all the internal conflicts aside to duke it out with the invading Chitauris in NYC.
The scene was action-packed from the get-go (all Avengers got their hands full) but the party didn’t really start until Iron Man led one of the Chitauris leviathans to the rest of the team and it being knocked silly by the Hulk (who, by the way, transformed in such a fluid, seamless way, it was amazing). The epic scene was designed to look like a single shot, moving from Avenger to Avenger in one fluid motion with the camera circling around the team. Of course, the scene took several shots to take. It was comprised of many moving pieces, all of which were a challenge to render.
In a digitalspy.com interview, associate visual effects supervisor, Jason Smith said, “We had never created a digital city on this scale at ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) before, so it was certainly a humongous challenge to undertake. However, it was also something we were looking forward to working on because it’s such an iconic movie.”
He said four different teams traveled to New York to shoot the photography needed for the project. Overall, the teams shot 275,000 photographs, which were stitched together to create a VB (virtual background) sphere.
When asked what was the most challenging part about creating the VFX for the Avengers movie, it was the creation of the Hulk.
” We knew we had to nail that for the movie; we had to get it exactly right. We had an actor that everybody knows – Mark Ruffalo – playing a big character that everybody loves. The Hulk is my favourite character in the whole Marvel universe, so I was adamant we’d get him right.”
Thor: The Dark World Battle Between Realms
Thor: The Dark World was the least popular movie from the saga but it did feature some of the most insane CGI effects by the franchise. The scenes jumped from one dimension to another, which made the CGI work complicated as it is but it’s the final battle where extensive effects were made to add realism to the scene. In the final scene, the nine realms were converging just as Thor and Malekith the Accursed confront each other.
As they battle it out, Thor and Malekith fell through various dimensional portals. In one scene, Thor was summoning Mjolnir and the poor super hammer races to catch up. Although Thor: The Dark World was one of Marvel’s weakest movies, if not the weakest, you simply cannot deny how visually stunning and exciting the final battle was.
As explained by visual effects supervisor Jake Morrison, “In the fight scenes there are times when Thor and Malekith are portaling all over the place, quite frankly. We made sure we always kept up the momentum and never stopped the fight. It was a way of making sure the audience weren’t conscious there was an effect going on.
We ended up calling this ‘time toffee’, so as you punch through from one realm to another, it’s almost like cling film or a slightly gelatinous membrane you have to pass through. It bends a little bit then rips and spits the person out.”
“We had some aerial photography from the side of the mountain that production had shot in Iceland and some elements of the vehicles,” says Method visual effects supervisor Chad Wiebe. “But the final shot is a fully digital environment with digi-doubles and digital cars, dust, and rocks.”
Avengers: Age of Ultron Iron Man vs. The Hulk Scene
The Iron Man vs. The Hulk scene is just one of the many action-packed scenes in the movie but it stands out because it’s ridiculously expensive to create. In this memorable scene, Iron Man revealed the Hulkbuster armor, something that fans were eager to see for a long time.
The fight was a turning point in the movie. The city was destroyed, the Hulk was not holding back and neither did Tony Stark. Buildings were thrown and structures were leveled throughout the course of the fight. The relationship between these Avengers was established early on, they were friends and they respected each other, which makes the epic battle even more bittersweet.
Although the effects were a challenge to create, the hard work and sleepless nights paid off. The scene became one of the most memorable in the franchise.
ILM VFX supervisor Ben Snow explained how the scene was created:
“We had some prop pieces to help us with the lighting for Hulk and the Hulkbuster. We set off some explosions but all of the damage that the characters do to the city we had to add in later with CG. There was some challenging stuff with simulations of them tearing up the road and smashing into buildings.”
As Snow explains, “Some of the art development and testing we did was to visualize when the Hulk punches Hulkbuster. It’s like two immovable objects smashing into each other. We ended up developing a hybrid 2D/3D shockwave that sets off car alarms and smashes the structures.” A complication occurred during the DI process. As Snow describes, “The Hulk Buster Fight had a heavy post-production colour tweak which made it a lot more yellow. If you put green under the yellow, the colour is going to go odd so we had to compensate for how the Hulk was going to look in the final movie.”
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
As with all Marvel movies, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was heavy with CGI effects. Two scenes from The Winter Soldier stand out for different reasons, the elevator scene where Cap took on a horde of armed men as he leaves the Triskelion and the old Peggy scene.
The scene was a challenge to shoot because of the challenging settings and sequences. It took a combination of live-action effects, flawless choreography, green screens, and CGI to sell the wild shot. A locked-off green screen elevator was used for the scene. The scenes were created using a combination of stunt glass in and not in place, which meant Scanline artists have to figure out how to apply the proper reflections and play of light of two separate panes of glass. To do that, Scanline built the entire environment in NUKE and then integrated 3D renders of the elevator parts.
Scanline visual effects supervisor Bryan Grill explained, “We gave them camera angles based on our sequence where we would see parts of the building and they rendered out high res single frames. On top of that, we would do a paint or render of CG trees and we would do a big pan and tile setup because of the fight – there were a lot of quick cuts and we were able to get away with a lot of projections.”
Grill added, “When he jumps out, everything is completely fabricated when he’s out of the elevator. We had to take the Triskelion and do CG renders of it up close too. It was concrete and you’d think that would be simple, but when you’re that close, there are certain qualities that make things look real.”
The “Old Peggy” scene looks deceivingly simple compared to the effects done for the elevator scene but it was quite hard to pull off. The task was entrusted to the same effects firm that created the Skinny Steve effect.
In the scene, Cap pays an elderly Peggy Carter a visit. Initially, elderly lookalikes and old age prosthetic make-up were used to create the old Peggy character but these were scrapped because the results weren’t as convincing.
In the end, Lola VFX’s Edson Williams’ came up with a new technique to achieve an organic, more life-like result.
“I wanted to take the performance of the elderly woman that we had shot in a rig with eight cameras and project the skin onto the original Hayley footage that had been shot on set.” Williams and his team transposed the skin and facial features of an elderly actress on the face of Hayley Atwell. Artwell performed her lines with zero makeup and only a few tracking markers.
“The way we did it—it was amazing. You could still see Hayley, her eyes, her mouth, her underlying structure, but we just lifted the creases and cracks and age from the elderly woman and transposed it onto Hayley’s young face.”
Over to you!
There you have it. Now you know what the cost of CGI is.
As you can see, Marvel produces some of the most expensive, and best, CGI effects.
Now, over to you:
Which Marvel movie do YOU think has the best effects?
The Avengers movies tend to be more expensive compared to standalone Marvel movies because every character's unique traits and powers require extensive CGI effects. The cost of CGI effects in standalone MCU films is about $100 to $200 million while Avengers movies are at least $350 million per release!
Note: To be specific, CGI cost per minute is around $1000 – $1500, when considering $13 or more for each specific second. Let's take on some of the most asked questions on CGI cost. What's The Cost Of Using CGI In Film? Even though the cost can differ greatly, the average cost can be around $570,000 per minute.
The salary trajectory of a VFX Artist ranges between locations and employers. The salary starts at $56,322 per year and goes up to $107,835 per year for the highest level of seniority.
CGI was a lot cheaper and quicker to do than traditional animation. This is what made them become the preferred choice of the advertisers, gaming industry, and other professionals. As through them, they were able to release their output a lot quicker than they did with traditional.
So what is it that makes CGI so incredibly expensive? The main reason why Visual Effects and CGI, in general, is so expensive is labor and time. Creating the highest quality visuals requires highly trained artists who work hundreds of hours on a single shot.
Viewers may not necessarily be able to see or discern fine scene details in these shots, so CGI can be used to quickly create visibly accurate scenes at a lower cost compared to creating an actual, physical scene from scratch.
Its complexity required 30 hours to render each frame, with 4,000 computers rendering one frame at a time. 30 hours per frame as opposed to 1/30 of a second per frame in any modern video game, that's a difference of about 3.24 million times of rendering time unless my math is wrong.
You should expect to get some very simple 2D animation. Animation at this level is very basic, the fluidity of the movements are often a little jerky looking, and the characters unrefined. The artist may use stock elements to keep costs low.
One minute of 2D animated video could cost from $8,000 to $50,000. 3D animation is much pricier, as it could cost from $10,000 to $200,000 per minute. The price range difference is based on the number of characters and advanced features.
In addition to being overworked and underpaid, VFX artists describe intense micromanaging; they call it getting “pixel-f*cked.” Marvel's army of producers and executives often make decisions beyond the directors, leaving clients to operate with a muddled vision of the movie.
Salary Details for a VFX Artist at Marvel Entertainment
The estimated base pay is $76,429 per year. The estimated additional pay is $4,589 per year. Additional pay could include bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips.
With the highly complex nature of the work, it's not surprising that most professional CGI artists need a bachelor's degree to get hired. Some common degree programs include art, computer graphics, animation and computer science.
With animators throwing all their hard work into the hand-drawn 2D animation, this often led to the actual story of the film being neglected. This was a major reason that Disney took a step away from 2D animation, as there was too much focus on the form of the film rather than telling a memorable story.
How Much Do Visual Effects Cost? If you have a production budget of $1,000 per minute, you will probably spend $2000-$5000 per minute for VFX. The hourly wages of your artists take the majority of the budget. As a rule of thumb, prepare a budget that is two to five times your production budget.
In CG scenes can be reset and then rerendered over and over. In stop-motion it requires a reshoot, which can be expensive if the sets have already been taken down. If you know what you want, however, stop-motion animation can actually be less expensive than computer graphics.
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a style of animation or illustration that relies on computer programs to create characters and motion. Visual effects (VFX) focuses on adding effects to existing imagery or film.
One of the most successful low-budget films was 1999's The Blair Witch Project. It had a budget of around $60,000 but grossed almost $249 million worldwide.
Gone with the Wind—first released in 1939—is generally considered to be the most successful film, with Guinness World Records in 2014 estimating its adjusted global gross at $3.4 billion.
The most widely used examples are Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, Lumion, Houdini, Maxwell. You can find more info about them in our article about the best product rendering software on the CGI production market.
3D animation, also referred to as CGI, or just CG, is made by generating images using computers. That series of images are the frames of an animated shot.
It looks seamless, but the CGI process is anything but easy. As with other parts of film, CGI has its roots in the scripting process. Images like that iconic scene have to be hashed out to the finest details—the background, movement, and even dialogue—before they get anywhere near computer images.
Even though it's an incredibly complex and expensive craft, CGI is saving modern film productions more money than ever by facilitating simple fixes to logistical production issues that could wind up proving costly.
The short version why is that it takes hundreds upon thousands of people working hundreds upon thousands of hours to create CGI, and those people, along with the facilities they work at, need to be paid for. Good CGI is expensive, great CGI is REALLY expensive.
Although Marvel Studios is known for its use of CGI throughout the years, the MCU has some notable instances of utilizing mostly practical effects as well.
The poll found 36% of all respondents enjoy superhero movies, down from 41% last November. Perhaps most worrisome is the share of self-identified Marvel fans who enjoy the movies also fell, dropping from 87% to 82%.
The cgi for Iron Man's suit looked the best in the first Iron Man movie 14yrs ago. As the suits became more sophisticated and greater weapons, I ultimately think the best looking suit was in the first movie. The textures and movements actually looked like iron.
As the Visual Effects Supervisor for ILM, Jeff White supervised the creation of 700 shots that encompassed a wide variety of sequences. During production, he collaborated on-set with production VFX supervisor Janek Sirrs to oversee plate photography for ILM shots.
The highest-paying job at Cgi Group is a Vice President with a salary of ₹45.3 Lakhs per year. The top 10% of employees earn more than ₹16.87 lakhs per year. The top 1% earn more than a whopping ₹29.69 lakhs per year.
Who invented CGI? The first CGI short film was “A Computer Animated Hand,” created by Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke. Before that, however, Alfred Hitchco*ck used a mechanical computer for a special effect for “Vertigo” in 1958. “Westworld” also gets special credit as one of the first films to use the technology.
The first feature film to make use of CGI was the 1973 film Westworld. Other early films that incorporated CGI include Star Wars (1977), Tron (1982), Golgo 13: The Professional (1983), The Last Starfighter (1984), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) and Flight of the Navigator (1986).
Animation is a satisfying and lucrative profession and is attracting youngsters in droves towards it. Professionals new to this industry generally work in the capacity of junior animators in animation studios and production houses. The starting pay package of these animators can be in a range or Rs. 10,000 to Rs.
Therefore, a 1 minute animation: 60 seconds = Between 6 to 12+ days. You should also assume that an animator will work extra days into this to allow for: Storyboarding. idea generation.
It takes a lot of effort (and wages) to create the smooth story that will capture the audience. In a regular movie, an experienced actor might carry the show even with a bad story line and could do a lot of spontaneous things. There is no saving in an animated movie.
A 30 second, high quality animated explainer video production costs between $2000 – $4500, depending on the style and number of revisions in the process.
If you're looking for a professional 3D animation studio to create an animated product demo video with voice-over work and music, then this would cost around $800 per second.
According to Dan DeLeeuw, Endgame's visual effects supervisor, 13 vendors worked on this show, with Weta Digital and Industrial Light & Magic generating the larger share (494 and 533, respectively), as Digital Domain, Framestore, Cinesite and Dneg assumed a large number as well, in addition to work by several other ...
The CGI in #SheHulk is so good. After Tatiana Maslany literally transformed into a hulk in real life for the role, the visual effects artists did a fantastic job making her look like a human in the show. One fan tried to reassure would-be viewers that the CGI “was improved so much from the trailers.”
VFX Artist salary in India ranges between ₹ 0.2 Lakhs to ₹ 7.0 Lakhs with an average annual salary of ₹ 2.9 Lakhs. Salary estimates are based on 234 salaries received from VFX Artists.
The national average salary for a CGI Animator is $67,988 per year in United States. Filter by location to see a CGI Animator salaries in your area. Salaries estimates are based on 1 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by a CGI Animator employees.
It's a growing industry projected to hit $270 billion (USD) in 2020* and as an animator, you could be part of that growth. If you're a creative person who enjoys acting and storytelling, then this career might be the right choice for you. Animation isn't always easy, but it's incredibly rewarding.
How Much Do Visual Effects Cost? If you have a production budget of $1,000 per minute, you will probably spend $2000-$5000 per minute for VFX. The hourly wages of your artists take the majority of the budget. As a rule of thumb, prepare a budget that is two to five times your production budget.
The use of practical effects has become more and more popular in recent years. This is since they are much cheaper than using CGI. Models and props can also be reused for other projects, which saves money.
The main reason why Visual Effects and CGI, in general, is so expensive is labor and time. Creating the highest quality visuals requires highly trained artists who work hundreds of hours on a single shot.
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a style of animation or illustration that relies on computer programs to create characters and motion. Visual effects (VFX) focuses on adding effects to existing imagery or film.
The other issue is the big budget that a Hollywood movie has. They can spend $200 million-$250 million when the need arises to create an outstanding visual effects movie.
Even though it's an incredibly complex and expensive craft, CGI is saving modern film productions more money than ever by facilitating simple fixes to logistical production issues that could wind up proving costly.
Its complexity required 30 hours to render each frame, with 4,000 computers rendering one frame at a time. 30 hours per frame as opposed to 1/30 of a second per frame in any modern video game, that's a difference of about 3.24 million times of rendering time unless my math is wrong.
Obviously practical effects seem more real because they actually are. They were not created by a bunch of geeks sitting behind a computer sipping coffee. They were created after much trial and error. So when the final result is captured on screen, the audiences believe it to be real.
The most widely used examples are Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, Lumion, Houdini, Maxwell. You can find more info about them in our article about the best product rendering software on the CGI production market.
3D animation, also referred to as CGI, or just CG, is made by generating images using computers. That series of images are the frames of an animated shot.
It looks seamless, but the CGI process is anything but easy. As with other parts of film, CGI has its roots in the scripting process. Images like that iconic scene have to be hashed out to the finest details—the background, movement, and even dialogue—before they get anywhere near computer images.
The poll found 36% of all respondents enjoy superhero movies, down from 41% last November. Perhaps most worrisome is the share of self-identified Marvel fans who enjoy the movies also fell, dropping from 87% to 82%.
The cgi for Iron Man's suit looked the best in the first Iron Man movie 14yrs ago. As the suits became more sophisticated and greater weapons, I ultimately think the best looking suit was in the first movie. The textures and movements actually looked like iron.
As the Visual Effects Supervisor for ILM, Jeff White supervised the creation of 700 shots that encompassed a wide variety of sequences. During production, he collaborated on-set with production VFX supervisor Janek Sirrs to oversee plate photography for ILM shots.
Address: Suite 609 315 Lupita Unions, Ronnieburgh, MI 62697
Phone: +2424755286529
Job: District Education Designer
Hobby: Yoga, Gunsmithing, Singing, 3D printing, Nordic skating, Soapmaking, Juggling
Introduction: My name is Moshe Kshlerin, I am a gleaming, attractive, outstanding, pleasant, delightful, outstanding, famous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
