The evolution of VFX in movies

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60s

Various techniques were used for the realization of 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s visual effects. For instance, miniatures were used for many set pieces and hand-drawn rotoscopes were used to combine everything for the final shot.

70s

70s films brought together many different techniques, like matte paintings (photorealistic landscapes and environments paintings) – which is a technique still heavily utilized in the VFX industry. Industrial Light & Magic was founded (one of the most popular visual effects studios today) for the realization of the first Star Wars movie, which introduced some advancements in special effects technology, and the sheer amount of effects in the film were astonishing, from aliens to spaceships and planets.

80s

The 80s saw a massive leap forward in visual effects with movies like Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Blade Runner featured a beautiful futuristic city with flying cars, floating advertisements and more.

The 80s also introduced the first computer generated images in a movie. Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan was the initial film to feature a completely computer-generated scene.

90s

If the 80s were the spawn of CG in movies, 90s were the explosion. For Jurassic Park they combined CG with animatronics to create several different breathtaking sequences that gave a new look into what is possible with CG.

There were also many other advancements with CG in the 90s, including the first time motion capture technology was used in the film Total Recall, for a very short x-ray sequence.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day featured many distinctive visual effects shots, as the liquid metal terminator could morph into any character. Shots like when the terminator was shattered into many different pieces and those pieces reassembled back together were just a few of the amazing VFX sequences in the film.

2000s

One of the first films to heavily utilize motion capture, was the 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl movie. They were able to infuse actors’ performances onto the amazing CG skeletons.

The 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie pushed motion capture with the award-winning visual effects on Davy Jones, using facial motion capture technology to push the actor’s performance and capture realistic movements.

This technology was pushed yet again in James Cameron’s Avatar, with advancements in facial and body motion capture.

Present

Warcraft is a very a recent movie – it was released in 2016 – and improvements can definitely be noticed. We keep on achieving higher and higher levels of photorealism in CGI that the real world will soon seem fake to us!