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Ok , I was just wondering what are the programs used to make GC movies like in Final Fantasy and the Matrix Reloaded?

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A few practical notes that pull the thread together: asked about how those cinematic CG sequences are made, flagged the role of editing/compositing in effects like bullet time, and correctly noted that a range of tools is used in production. The important distinction is workflow, not a single program — film-quality cinematics use high‑resolution sculpting, many render passes and offline rendering, while game or in‑engine cutscenes use baked maps, LODs and real‑time shaders to hit performance targets.

A concise, practical pipeline to turn photos into an animated 3D character:

  • Capture: many overlapping, evenly lit photos (or a controlled scan); avoid glossy reflections and capture hair from multiple angles.
  • Reconstruction: produce a dense mesh or use the photos as reference for sculpting.
  • Retopology: create an animation‑friendly mesh with edge loops around mouth/eyes.
  • UVs & baking: unwrap and bake high‑res detail (normal, AO, diffuse, etc.) onto the low‑res mesh.
  • Rigging & facial setup: skeleton, skin weights and blendshapes/morph targets for expressions.
  • Shading, lighting & render passes: PBR materials, HDRI lighting, and separate passes for beauty, specular, shadow, depth and motion vectors for compositing.

For “bullet time” style shots the real choices are physical multi‑camera capture versus fully digital reconstruction and camera interpolation. Key integration steps are an accurate camera solve, lens‑distortion correction, match lighting between plate and render, and compositing the proper passes in a linear color workflow. Common pitfalls are poor reference lighting for textures, dense unretopologized meshes that won’t deform cleanly, and mismatched color/gamma during compositing.

A sensible first project several years later remains the same: a single head capture, clean retopology, simple bake passes and a short turntable render, then a basic composite. ’s editing perspective complements the capture/3D steps above, and ’s comment about the variety of available tools points to the practical reality: the pipeline matters more than the specific app chosen.

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Member Avatar for Tekmaven

GC? Whats that?

Member Avatar for f575gtc

Computer Generated movie like in Final Fantasy where the scene cuts from regualr game play to a movie there the character look real
and in the matrix when the peopel are flying or bullets flying at them those are CGs

Member Avatar for Tekmaven

I'm pretty sure the matrix was rendered on a Silicon Image server cluster.

Bullet time effects can be made with Adobe After Effects- if you know how to use the effects properly.

I do professional video editing, so if ya need more details, don't hesitate to reply.

Member Avatar for TallCool1

Ok , I was just wondering what are the programs used to make GC movies like in Final Fantasy and the Matrix Reloaded?

Some of the software used includes Alias|Wavefront Maya (free for personal use); Blender, which is just plain free; LightWave 3D, which Dale Myers just used to re-create the Kennedy assassination for ABC News (and earlier to develop and model the animated M&Ms); and CinePaint (open-source and formerly FilmGIMP), used to blend it all with live action. There are others, of course.

Companies like Pixar and Weta Digital use a lot of software developed in-house, mixed with commercial and free.

Member Avatar for Tekmaven

<- Creating the Matrix Bullet Time Effect in Adobe Premiere

;-) Told ya so.

Member Avatar for f575gtc

ok what programs is used to turn regular pictures into 3D or Cg characters?

Member Avatar for Tekmaven

The link above has a guide with the programs required.

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