Most photorealistic CGI spaceship

[ray243]

As the title suggest, what is the Most photorealistic CGI spaceship you have seen?

[JustinDixon]

Icarus I/II From Sunshine. - Fox Searchlight
Pegasus from Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets - BBC

[Andrew March]

Definately go with Pegasus from Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets - BBC

Great looking ship.

Beyond that there really isn't any since for the most part we're talking science fiction and space for the most part is pretty dark, so when you see a nice ship all lit up in space it's immediately non-photorealistic.

[juanxer]

I agree. Pegasus: they nailed the "NASA look" style of photography, and her design was most reasonable (even if I am not quite sure about her lack of big heat radiation panels or, say, often open per module-small ones. Did her dish double duty as fuel tank and such?).

And Icarus, probably: even if not quite it, the film's style of photography had a very organic quality that gave her an extra credibility, even if most of the sci-tech was pants (non-centrifugal artificial gravity, for a start).

I am trying to think of a third one, but it is difficult: 2001's ships come to mind, but they are not on Pegasus' level. Most films use too much fill light, and most of the ones that try to avoid that, such as "2010: Odyssey Two", aren't well rounded realism-wise, really.

The only other film that I think tried to get not a NASA look but a 2001 one was this Japanese-American one, "Solar Crisis" AKA "Star Flare": the Helios spaceship was a Syd Mead design (the guy definitely is BIG in Japan), enclosing a centrifugue section, engines ones and so inside an outer shell of electromagnet strips.

[Andrew March]

Originally Posted by juanxer

I am trying to think of a third one, but it is difficult: 2001's ships come to mind, but they are not on Pegasus' level. Most films use too much fill light, and most of the ones that try to avoid that, such as "2010: Odyssey Two", aren't well rounded realism-wise, actually.

You see that's where we have a problem, the ships in 2001 were physical models, not CGI (I'm sure you knew that already).

There really aren't any, they were either physical models or by definition the lighting makes them look fake, very well done but still they look fake.

[Sphynx]

I think that's the problem with the question - define 'photo realistic'. What actually is photo-real, when a 'real' ship fails to look real?

I've seen picture of the shuttle in orbit look fake simply because of the harshness of the light, let along 'real' studio models. It all comes down to environment.

[juanxer]

Originally Posted by Andrew March

You see that's where we have a problem, the ships in 2001 were physical models, not CGI (I'm sure you knew that already).

You are right: I strayed from the topic out of enthusiasm. My bad. But then it shows how scarce such things are, whatever the technique.

I guess I'd define photorealistic as the current state of spaceflight photography techniques and spaceship current and projected building ones.

[ray243]

I mean, why compared to a Car CGI, it's like so easy to think it is real instead of CGI.

All the racing games, almost all the cars are damn realistic. While most warships always seem 'fake' no matter what.

Is it because of the sense of scale? I always feel that it is because the ships are built small THEN zoom IN instead of real life stuff, where things are built BIG then Zoom out.

Could that be the matter?

[Andrew Boulton]

The Saturn V launch scene in Apollo 13 was good enough to fool NASA...

[IRML]

^yeah maybe a nasa cleaning lady, but you can tell it's not real