Realistic Anamatronic TMNT @ Monsterpalooza
 

Just stumbled across this today (hope I'm not late to the party on this :) ).

Many folks have speculated that PDMT would have been better with practical suits, and the same designs refined to be less cluttered and skinnier.

Something like the look of J S Marantz's rejected designs:


I think this is what you'd get. Splinter is a huge improvement, while the rest...er....well?



https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hp...72574088_n.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/78pMY6D.jpg?1

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBfTfCjVAAAqOSJ.jpg:large

Terrifying.

They kinda have a Mac and Me thing happening in the eyes.

These are probably the closet thing we'll get to real ninja turtles. My only complaint would be the lack of any real muscle definition.

Still...a thousand times better than Bay turtles.

It's the dead eye stare...freaky :)

I don't know if these are better...they are, different...

personally i find them more appealing than the bat turtles face wise, they actually look turtle ish and not human


the arm scales are a bit to much but everything else is fine

That looks horrible

It's funny, so much effort went into the detail on the head and shell, but then the arms, hands and feet, the scales, a total rush job.

Not to harp on it, but this is exactly why I'm for Sliders over Box turtles.

Yep, but I've seen worse. We live in an age of the hyper grotesque. I've yet to see live action, realistic designs that don't trip people the **** out.

I can appreciate the work that went into these but I'm not digging the faces, lack of muscle tone, and scales. What I do like is that they actually look young and teenagerish.

I saw these a while back and they're a really cool project. Not my definitive versions by any stretch, but much more appealing than the BayTurtles designs, and I like the level of work put into the heads/faces.

Like others said - I'd tone down the scaliness a bit and have some more work put into the muscle definition. But these are definitely on the right track!

yea the head scales look semi natural. but arms and legs look more like bumps than scales

big up for this project!...lot of hard work and thought apparently into those suits...
I personally would use much less of scaley skin on them and avoid using these pointy fingernails or claws almost...I know both these things may come with some turtles, but I myself don't like them too much in ninja turtles design..
another thing that bothers me with this design would be the much too short plastrons!...they look like they are wearing shirts and no undies in those;)...
this seems to be an area where people working on ninja turtles desings nowerdays all seem to have a problem with.I cannot understand it.what is so hard in giving it a turtle-like appearance juts like in every mirage comic book out there??...turtles have arms and legs GROWING OUT from WITHIN a SHELL, so why not follow that concept when working on ninja turtles? I still think the bay turtles-ogres wear these stupid clothes around their waists because the designers def didn't know how to end their plastrons and shells with their 'sticking to human anatomy because of much richer likeness to the actors yada yada'-concept..so poor I think...;(

anyway, didn't want to come off as critisizing this project so much, I actually find this take on them refreshing and much better than the bay turtles, even if I would have gone for a different route myself..

I like em!

Slightly better than BayTurtles, in that it sticks to the basic idea of how Ninja Turtles should look(body type and accessories), but far too realistic and still just unpleasant to look at.

Splinter is a billion times better though.

Nailed it. For this particular style, those are my only complaints with 'em. They're perfect otherwise, & I'd be more than happy to get a film with this design.

Are they scary? I think they're actually pretty cute. If they weren't so dang scrawny they'd be perfect, imo.

They make me nervous.:o Red eared sliders or semi aquatic turtle, the TMNT species, are not that scaly. That scaly skin is from tortoises, which they aren't. Master Splinter is OK.

With some tweaks, something like this would work so well with the Suit+CGI concept Peter Laird was talking up years ago. You'd get the advantage of smooth animation where you need it and avoid the uncanny-valley-ness of pure CGI creations against live-action everything else.

I like the skinniness, personally! They're teenagers, so you don't want them to be too big. And the jacked-up look isn't a good fit for ninjas, IMO. Take something like this and give them a Bruce Lee-esque physique and you're golden.

Agree on Splinter; would like to see some better shots of it, but from that little bit...way better than freaky rat-with-mange 2014 Splinter. Also looks a lot more kindly.

The Turtles... well... not my preferred flavor, definitely caters more toward those that long for a more animalistic-looking TMNT, but still pretty very well done. Agree scales could have been toned down, like the individual scale bumps are just to big/bold; reminds me of something, but can't place it at the moment.

They could totally make a cool looking ninja turtle outfit if they wanted too.
They used a costume for Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies, right? It's proof that it could work for the turtles.

I like em, they look trippy. Kinda scrawny and a bit too scaly, but the faces, plastron and overall look is pretty great IMO. Prefer this look over BayTurtles easily. Also Splinter looks boss as well, and also not as scary as the Turtles.

I'm not really sure why this fully animatronic display is being compared to what would have been in the PD movie had practical suits been used. This display is more comparable to something at a cheesy theme park or Chuck-E-Cheese. I'm not knocking the quality or craftsmanship, but this display just didn't have the sort of budget or dev time behind it compared to a big-budget franchise tentpole movie.

I'm not sure if there were ever tests completed (I heard there were pre-PD, but can't confirm). I'm guessing it would have been more in line with what was seen in Where the Wild Things Are. Practical suits worn by actors with mo-cap facial animation, not unlike what was used by ILM. That was the big rumor when Mirage was developing the movie.

Not perfect, but better than the sh*t we have to put up with now and for the next 10 years or whatever.

Creepy and too feminine. Best part is Donnie sticking his tongue out. Everything else is Nightmare fuel.

Um...actually, you are.:lol:
These are costumes, built by an practical effects house. They decided to take the costumes, and put them on display. The limited animatronics were an afterthought - it's all there in the video. :lol:

They also said PDMT was going to be just like The Avengers and The Raid. Unicorns and Fairies man...Just because it's a practical effect, doesn't mean it's going to be awesome, great, or even good. WTWTA is very impressive, and everyone loves to argue that a "mix of practical and CGI is the best approach" but for every WTWTA, you have hundreds of derpy abominations. Frolicing cartoony monsters are one thing; agile weapon toting turtles are quite another.

Feminine? I don't see it.
You must admit that this Splinter is miles better than PDMT's nightmare-fule-garbage-wretched-vomit-blight.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...0a7f85d588.jpg

Is that Leo there, or Venus? Can't pin point it. they just read as feminine to me. Maybe it's the body shape. Maybe it's the head shape/eyes.

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hp...72574088_n.jpg

And yeah. I'll give you that Splinter is an improvement.

I don't see them as feminine - I see them as adolescent. They're teenagers who haven't fully developed yet, so I prefer this take to the bigger, overly muscle-bound versions we get elsewhere. They do need some more muscle definition, mind you, but I think it's a nice touch that we don't see enough of considering "teenage" is in the title.

Feminine? Explain.

I'm mainly focusing on Leo. His body proportions read feminine to me. He looks like Venus minus the beeewbs. Maybe it's the slanted eyes. Maybe it's the less than broad shoulders and chicken legs (never skip leg day).

The point of them being actual 'Teenagers' above is valid argument though.

The slanted eye is characteristic of all turtles.
http://i.imgur.com/Wv6fydU.jpg

Characteristic of turtles or not, MY eyes are reading Leo there, as feminine. That's it. That's all I got. You're not going to change my mind, any more than I can change yours (and I'm not even remotely trying to...). I'll take the Bay-turtles any day over those ones. Funny thing perception and opinions. :tcool:

Now... do you see a bunny in these clouds, or are you going to argue with me about that too?

http://images.techhive.com/images/ar...75-gallery.jpg

Damn you Technodrooooome!

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/images...grysky2501.jpg

Okay, I'll give you that. I am knocking it. It looks terrible-- as huge budget blockbuster suits. These were built for conventions (also in the video) on what I'm guessing was a shoestring budget by a really talented group. I dig the creativity. I dig the craftsmanship. I dig the drive from the artists. The work is awesome. However, it's not even close to what practical, six figure budget suits for a major movie would be. If you were to ask any of the artists that worked on the project, I would be willing to bet that they would say the work was not meant to be compared to super budget costumes.

I'm not sure how tone and fight choreography fits in the discussion of creature FX, other than to just continue beating a dead horse. My discussion in this thread isn't meant to be taken as defending the idea as the ultimate solution to the creature FX.

True, practical suits could have turned out looking like trash... or really awesome. Immediately knocking the idea of practical suits based on some inexpensive (in relation to actual movie budget) convention suits doesn't really make a lot of sense. Look at the 1990 Henson suits compared to home-brew convention replicas. Night and day. Same issue here.

I would love to see whatever R&D was being developed, if any.

Alright then.

That's so cute.

This guy makes my point for me. Pay special attention to the Great white shark from kon Tiki at 3:20. The stand in was a blue pillow.



And we all know, this dude is just scraping the surface. The truth? Look at how incredible the Transformers look in that clip - and compare it to the 4rth film. Faster, and cheaper, these days, is really showing.

Practical, can't do what CG can, no matter how pretty it is.

I'm not sure how you read my replies to be pro-practical/anti-CGI. I make my living off of CGI. My replies were simply stating that knocking the possibility of practical suits working in a big-budget TMNT movie based on low-budget con suits doesn't really make a lot of sense. Apples/oranges.

CGI is a tool, much like practical effects. There is good CGI, there is bad CGI. There are developments in the field that lead to amazing results, just as there are penny-pinching producers that go with the lowest possible bid, leading to subpar work. The same can be said for the practical effects field.

Without a crystal ball or access to the pre-PD R&D FX tests, there's no way to say if practical suits would have looked better than the ILM CGI FX. My thoughts? I doubt it would have. ILM knocked the job out of the park. However, with a different creative team in the saddle, big budget practical suits with CGI enhancement could have been an interesting approach.

Fair enough. I might have been reading into your responses a little. :P We have similar occupations, and with certain clients, it's the sort of thing you hear over and over again; the addage that if it's not practical, it's not "real" or it's easier to do, etc etc. Everyone's always looking for the easy button that just makes it all happen. I'm not taking away from Clay and Paint artists - they're amazing - but if you hamstring anyone's time and money, or throw novice into the pipeline at any important point, you end up with, well, PDMT, and the tool gets the blame.

That mindset is changing gradually, but in general, we're seriously undervalued.

ILM, yes and no - Some very impressive technical approaches to the work, but they were still working with horrid designs and direction.

I can't get over the lack of respect there is for VFX and the artists while some celebrity who just got paid to walk through a door several times for a scene is treated like royalty. If the industry itself held it in higher respect and the directors/producers were more public in their praise for those covering that end of their production, maybe the public would have a bit more appreciation for the art and the fact that these days a number of their favorite films would otherwise be actors in front of a blank green screen and the film would not even exist. (Is the issue that it's "fake"? It's film making, in some way it's nearly all fake.)

The Turtles... they might not be too pretty and a bit overdone, though what is able to be accomplished with the addition of mocap nowadays is awesome. Practical suits are great if done right, and for the right films, but where mocap is concerned, the level of facial expressions and very subtle body language and mannerisms is just... :tlove: That has to be hard to combine suits and CGI faces though, I assume, and take some serious talent. Esp if you were going for that same level of realism on the Turtles; not personally sure it would be possible to quite hit the mark...

This is neat! I liked the little touch of giving them small claws, which makes sense for a more turtle-like design. I like it. Donnie with his tongue out- too cute!

I personally don't like CGI as much as practical for anything but touch-ups, because on some level, your eye always screams at your brain "That's Not Existing in a 3-Dimensional Space" once you're using it on something big, something that has weight and depth and girth to it. I do get the, "It's movies, it's all fake anyways" point, but I don't agree, as some things are, shall we say, "Less Fake" than others. As good as the Hulk model for the Avengers flicks has gotten... it still ain't doin' it for me. He's still too "Light" and "Bouncy". I use Hulk as an example because that's a perfect example of how you just can't put an all-CGI character front-and-center in a movie and not have a serious disconnect between Eye and Brain, and how they've tried a lot of approaches to just that one character with some pretty varied and often disastrous results.

Then you get sh*t like the "dinosaur stampede" in Jackson's King Kong... what the f*ck was THAT sh*t?! :lol: It looked like a bunch of dinosaur-shaped parade balloons crashing into each other. I was just getting into the movie and then for the next 5 minutes I couldn't believe the bullsh*t my eyes were being forced to ignore. Just Awful.

Those are obviously Bad Examples, or rather, Examples of Blatantly Bad CGI, but for me, even when it's "good", like the Hobbit flicks... it's still pretty bad, just by virtue of being everywhere. I mean, I like pretty much every super-hero movie... they all still look halfway like sh*t, because when they cut to CGI FX you can instantly tell, and even if it doesn't bother you, as you're watching it it's like listening to a vinyl record and suddenly there's a tiny pop or hiss, just audible enough to take you out of the moment right when you were getting into it, and once you know it's there, you can't NOT hear it ever again. You can make it look Great but it never really looks "Real". And I'm convinced it's because it's just way overused anymore, especially in places it may not be fully necessary, to the point where it stands out when it shouldn't.

I mean, I know it's work. And it's a tool, it can be used for Good or Evil. I still think the best mix for Truly Great SFX is to do as much as humanly possible in the camera with practical effects, and then use CGI to wipe out errors, make other things "pop", and take care of all the things you simply can't do practically. That's how it started and where it should have stayed. Computer effects used to be the seasoning; now they're trying to push it like it's the whole damn steak and it just don't taste right, ya dig?

Not really, because I'd always hoped to be doing it for a living and envy those who are good enough they leave me almost unable to wrap my mind around the fact that something isn't real; because some artists really are that good. (Obviously that's more true when it's representative of things that do exist, rather than inhuman fictional characters.) I've enjoyed watching the technology for it grow and evolve and it has come far over the years. But I respect a difference of opinion in a matter of personal taste. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like both when done well.


The practical stuff itself has gotten better though, too. Personally now I see the Jaws shark and it doesn't look too real anymore. lol Original Jurassic Park holds up pretty well given it's age now, though it's budget and access to very talented and innovative people was probably high. Similar goes for 3D/CGI/VFX (what ever you wish to call it).