1978 cgi X-wing footage.

**Colin Droidmilk** · Sep 9, 2012

I'd heard Kurtz and Lucas had commissioned a cgi X-wing test shot during the making of Star Wars, and that we have our beloved model shots only because cgi was at that time way too expensive. Here's footage of a 70s X-wing cgi test - from 1978 according to the documentary, but perhaps it's the very one produced during the Star Wars production. I don't think it's been posted here.Two minutes in:

Star Wars, visual effects, part 3 of 3 - YouTube

By the way, the first 2 parts of this are also well worth a look, despite the bad picture quality. Jon Erland speaks, plus we get Richard Edlund referencing Marshall McCluhan!

**RPF Support**

**Wes R** · Sep 9, 2012

Very neat. Had they gone with that they'd have beaten everyone to being the first to use CGI. Aside from Tron and Last Starfighter I don't think anyone else really used it even in the 80s.

**Colin Droidmilk** · Sep 9, 2012

Yeah. It blew my mind that cg was so advanced at that point. I read that when, during Star Wars, Lucas showed ILM a clip like that, everyone thought they were going to be fired until Kurtz or Lucas said that it'd cost billions of dollars to shoot all the shots that way. So they did it the old-fashioned way, yet the old-fashioned way was in itself breakthrough tech, lol...

**Wes R** · Sep 9, 2012

I can only imagine where we'd be CGI wise if Lucas had done it that way, we'd at least be 10 years beyond where we are now. Movies and games in the 80s would have been way beyond what we had not to mention the tech to play them.

**blipper** · Sep 9, 2012

Thanks Colin - never had any idea CG was up to that standard back then, what the models may have lacked in look (not as much as I'd anticipated considering the embryonic stage of CG) is made up for in the fluid motions. Would like to know more about the specifics behind those X-wings.

**DaddyfromNaboo** · Sep 9, 2012

Wes R said:

I can only imagine where we'd be CGI wise if Lucas had done it that way, we'd at least be 10 years beyond where we are now. Movies and games in the 80s would have been way beyond what we had not to mention the tech to play them.

Even then Lucasfilm Games, later LucasArts were the ones that defined "state of the art" in game play. The Eidolon (very early steampunk! ), Koronis Rift, Rescue on Fractalus, all ahead of their time and IIRC very popular way back when. If Lucas would´ve had the CGI he has now, I think this forum wouldn´t exist today

**Wes R** · Sep 9, 2012

lol true. I barely even knew LucasArts existed back then as few folks I knew around here had computers and the ones we had in school in the 80s only had a handful of cassettes to use.

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 9, 2012

It's mind boggling that they could do that back then...

HOWEVER!

Can you imagine if Star Wars had Last Starfighter type graphics? It would be a very different film. Half of what makes Star Wars awesome is the lived in universe feel that only those models could really produce at the time.

Don't get me wrong, love Last Starfighter, but even at the time you could really tell.

**Wes R** · Sep 9, 2012

True. I think Last Starfighter did the CGI for the "wow" factor of what could be done and to stand out more than anything. Not to mention the Atari game tie-in lol.

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 9, 2012

Wes R said:

Not to mention the Atari game tie-in lol.

Lol. Anyone trying to get those graphics out of an Atari was VERY disappointed!

**Wes R** · Sep 9, 2012

lol Tell me about it. i kept hoping that the 5200 or 7200 would have those graphics and it didn't show up until the Playstation.

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 9, 2012

Wes R said:

lol Tell me about it. i kept hoping that the 5200 or 7200 would have those graphics and it didn't show up until the Playstation.

So far as what we saw in the game he was playing I'd say Atari Jaguar & SNES beat Playstation.

For graphics like the film we had to wait for PS2 & XBOX.

**phez** · Sep 9, 2012

Wes R said:

I can only imagine where we'd be CGI wise if Lucas had done it that way, we'd at least be 10 years beyond where we are now. Movies and games in the 80s would have been way beyond what we had not to mention the tech to play them.

I did some programming on some of the older platforms and I am not sure that it could have driven the games of the time much faster. Most of it was imbedded and would not have handled the graphics. The limitation they were under was the cost of the hardware and the limitations that it had. I remember my family getting an 486XL and writing games on that platform was very ugly business

.

Besides, we would have missed Asteroids, Space invaders, and Defender, completely unthinkable

Honestly I think Star Wars would have really lost something without the model work.

**batguy** · Sep 10, 2012

That early CGI X-wing shot might have put ILM's model department out of business . . . in the same way that the "Terminator Salvation" CGI Arnold shots might have put all human actors out of business in 2009.

Possible is one thing, practical on a large scale is something very different.

But I agree, it is interesting that they managed to get the X-wings looking so realistic in the late 1970s. I also agree that entire mood of ANH was wrong for CGI ships. The grittiness was a vital part of that movie's edge at the time.

(BTW: Maybe the CGI X-wing test shot really was from 1978, and the ILMers were worried about losing their jobs on ESB, not ANH?)

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**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 10, 2012

At the very least it would have decimated our Studio Scale section!

**Colin Droidmilk** · Sep 10, 2012

batguy said:

That early CGI X-wing shot might have put ILM's model department out of business . . . in the same way that the "Terminator Salvation" CGI Arnold shots might have put all human actors out of business in 2009.

Possible is one thing, practical on a large scale is something very different.

But I agree, it is interesting that they managed to get the X-wings looking so realistic in the late 1970s. I also agree that entire mood of ANH was wrong for CGI ships. The grittiness was a vital part of that movie's edge at the time.

(BTW: Maybe the CGI X-wing test shot really was from 1978, and the ILMers were worried about losing their jobs on ESB, not ANH?)

---------------------

Heh, in my view, cgi is still wrong for the film...I'm talking about the SE shots of course (admittedly,for film-historical and film-consistency reasons mostly. However, some of the SE X-wing motions do actually bug me in themselves, looking too 'mathematical').

I think it might have been in the Rinzler book - the Star Wars one - where I read a cgi X test was presented to ILMers during SW. I'll have to plough through it again...

Regarding the shot here, it's odd the way the ships career into the frame backwards, isn't it? It's only when they come spinning toward the camera that total impressiveness really occurs. It's true to an extent about the lack of grit. Note the absence of droidstrip detail. This sort of high frequency detail was problematic even in some of the SE cgi. The detailing on the Falcon seriously bugged me in the cg shot of it going through Bespin, for instance. However, note the flash of reflecting sunlight on the canopy of the ship on the right, an effect which was beyond ILM for SW. You can bet Lucas went wild with excitement when he saw that. Also the picture quality here is dreadful, I don't think we can judge very accurately what subtleties of weathering etc. may be present. They certainly look potentially very nice on those last frames as they pass the camera - ya got wing-markings, panel variation by the look of it, and the phantom engines on the central ship are certainly weathered, and even appear to have raised surface detail.

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 10, 2012

Colin Droidmilk said:

Regarding the shot here, it's odd the way the ships career into the frame backwards, isn't it? It's only when they come spinning toward the camera that total impressiveness really occurs. It's true to an extent about the lack of grit. Note the absence of droidstrip detail. This sort of high frequency detail was problematic even in some of the SE cgi. The detailing on the Falcon seriously bugged me in the cg shot of it going through Bespin, for instance. However, note the flash of reflecting sunlight on the canopy of the ship on the right, an effect which was beyond ILM for SW. You can bet Lucas went wild with excitement when he saw that. Also the picture quality here is dreadful, I don't think we can judge very accurately what subtleties of weathering etc. may be present. They certainly look potentially very nice on those last frames as they pass the camera - ya got wing-markings, panel variation by the look of it, and the phantom engines on the central ship are certainly weathered, and even appear to have raised surface detail.

Lack of grit and proper physics has always been a boon to the CG industry. Even CG extravaganzas like Transformers don't get it quite right.

**Colin Droidmilk** · Sep 10, 2012

True, yet Jurassic Park did. The Tyrannosaurus in that was perfect in my view. Remains the peak of cgi.

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 10, 2012

Colin Droidmilk said:

True, yet Jurassic Park did. The Tyrannosaurus in that was perfect in my view. Remains the peak of cgi.

I absolutely agree. To this day I think it was a fluke because I've never seen anything come even close to that.

**Shadow345** · Sep 10, 2012

Here is an early Phil Tippet go-motion pitch for Jurassic Park.

T-Rex Animatic - YouTube

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 10, 2012

Shadow345 said:

Here is an early Phil Tippet go-motion pitch for Jurassic Park.

T-Rex Animatic - YouTube

Such an iconic scene. Even the storyboards give you shivers!

LOVE the stop motion there though. Surreal!

**BlobVanDam** · Sep 10, 2012

That was an impressive shot, especially for a shot that ultimately just a test. I love seeing the history of early CG graphics, and that would have been ahead of its time for sure.

Even though I'm a CG guy, I'm really glad they stuck to models though. CG was still in its infancy, and the movie definitely would have lost some of what made it special.
And the Star Wars model shots helped pioneer technologies that have pushed the movie industry ahead, funnily enough even in the area of CG.

**MrSinistar** · Sep 10, 2012

They show this test on the Last Starfighter Making of Documentary and they even talked with Dennis Muren about it. I remember he said that he was really amazed with the test and realized that the loop-de-loops that the X-wings made would have been impossible to rig in real life but recalled that the execs didn't buy it.

**Treadwell** · Sep 10, 2012

Orange_Blend said:

Lack of grit and proper physics has always been a boon to the CG industry.

Do you mean "the bane of"?

**Michael Bergeron** · Sep 10, 2012

Treadwell said:

Do you mean "the bane of"?

Yep... It was late and I was tired.

1978 cgi X-wing footage.

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