Science fiction television shows have always been a fertile breeding ground for CGI talent. It has, however, always been seen as the little brother of feature films, and struggled to gain recognition in its own right. CGI in sci-fi TV has now got to the point where it has stepped out from under it’s sibling’s shadow and come into a world of its own.

CGI for TV has always had tight budgets and schedules to work to, and up until now has been looked on as a way to enhance those physical effects that already exist.  The latest sci-fi shows are now pushing the envelope proving that TV effects can be on par with film, and the latest technology, along with a lowering of costs, has brought a new ease of use to replace effects with CGI, rather than enhance.

This has been shown in shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Farscape, Smallville and now even the Star Trek series. Enterprise, Paramount’s latest foray into the space odyssey, is the first of the ‘Trek series to totally rely on CGI work for shots of the ship, without the use of models. Instead the ship was digitally designed and mapped by Paramount’s art department. From there the design was passed over to core members of the CGI team for the show, who working alongside Foundation Imaging, created the Enterprise NX-01 using tools such as Lightwave 3D and Alias/Wavefront Maya.

The gap between TV and film still exists, but the creators feel they are bridging it, even though judgements continue to be made. “Its hard to live up to those expectations because we have about one tenth of the time and about one tenth of the budget,” relates Loni Peristere, creative director of Radium, the company which works on shows such as Buffy, Angel and Smallville. “So we look for ways to trim time and trim budget but to keep the viewer expectation satisfied.” One of the ways to do this, as well as make the work simpler, is to look for tools on the market, and this year has been a leap forward for the industry as costs have lowered dramatically. “ Our render farm was able to grow rapidly, and our software process went down as well so we were able to acquire more licences. Maya which originally sold for up to US$15,000 is now available for $3,000. A single processor Pentium 4 render node is now $500 as opposed to $2500,” says Peristere. The increasing availability of quality software such as Lightwave, 3D max and Maya at a relatively low cost has improved situations. TV makers are finding that they can get increasingly sophisticated effects work for budgets that are not astronomical.

Another tool of the TV CGI trade is to archive re-useable effects.  “We have a library of accumulated models in Buffy.  We constantly have flying knives, flying axes, flying stakes, these kinds of things that need to be augmented or enhanced in scenes, so we just have a library of tools that we’ve accumulated that are photo real, and we use them regularly,” say Peristere.

Australia’s Animal Logic works on the Farscape series. Visual effects producer Eve Harrison says: “Television production often requires more lateral solutions. As a result we push technology to its limits.” Ben West, 3D supervisor, who has worked on Farscape since Animal Logic won its first contracts adds: “Unlike film, where one person does one small element of a shot, in our team an animator will deal with an entire shot. The animator needs a broad range of skills, as they deal with the entire process of the shot composition and context. If there’s a sequence of shots, one person will establish the ‘look and feel’ then direct the other animators.”

CGI has now started to be seen revamping old sci-fi programmes, such as the recent release of Dr Who’s Ark in Space. A special effects group worked on creating an updated version of the original miniature space footage involving a futuristic space station. Nick Sainton-Clark, manager of the special effects department at the BBC says: “I think the intention was to provide something new for fans to get their teeth into, without trying to erase what had been done before. Plus from our point of view it is nice to be able to show how technology is moved on and to show the public and others in the industry what can be done now.”

“I know the CGI in ‘Ark has created a considerable debate raging over the ethics of tinkering with classic material. However all we are doing is offering an alternative to the viewer, no original footage has been removed. I hope that any future releases will follow this precedent.”

Technology is so good these days that teams are able to create almost anything that their imagination can conjure up. Farscape weekly creates new planets and aliens, as Buffy and Angel create monsters, all organically, and so well created that they look real in their environment. This is all done to an extremely tight time limit.

Animal Logic deliver an episode every eight days, and Radium works to a similar schedule. Both have a fluctuating team number which can be anywhere from eight to 25 people. Peristere explains: “We did an episode of Angel that had about 35 fully CG shots and we had a team of 33 people working on it for a period of five weeks to get it done, but that’s not typical. A typical show we’d use about eight people.”

CGI shots per show also vary, however the teams both have a lot of artistic freedom and usually a three to six week window of time to work with. They collaborate with the writers and directors until a compromise is made on what will be created, and then they work alongside them to create all the shots. Sometimes this can be simple, others may need to create a specific toolset to come up with the goods.

This happened with a recent episode of Buffy. Two of the characters, Buffy and Riley, were attacked by a series of spider creatures. The monsters had to be able to emerge from eggs, skitter around, jump, attack, and get shot, and all had to be created within three weeks. In the end this was completed using a toolset that had come from a film. “Fortunately on our behalf an animator was able to convey a technical set up that he had done for a feature that basically allowed us to set up animation cycles for these insects that could be drawn through a 3D simple environment, mimicking the set, and then drawn to the antagonist,” explains Peristere. “ For example we would track a point onto Riley in a scene that existed in 3D, and those walk cycled creatures could then be attracted to that point, so all those spiders didn’t have to be key frame animated. We were able to get a lot of shots quickly because they were looking for a locator.”

The biggest effort was for an Angel episode, where the main antagonist was a CG creature – a cross between a cockroach and a jellyfish. It was semi-translucent, had subdivision surfaces and took a lot of time and effort to create, as it had to be capable of interacting with characters at a high level. Peristere says: “it was like a true feature project. It seemed impossible on paper, and yet the team was able to pull it off. It’s definitely the most difficult bit of television that I have ever produced for visual effects.”

Visual effects for sci-fi TV have clearly evolved, and are now so close to films in quality that the distinction can often seemed blurred. The Buffy team is most proud of the evolution of the dusting of vampires, whereas the Farscape team is impressed with the evolution of the main ship, Moya.  “We are constantly evolving the effects, building on the knowledge base we’ve created,” says Harrison. “For example the main ship has become more detailed, this is due to the continual exploration of the visuals as well as the technology that facilitates the process.”

The future looks set to hold more improvements, and TV CG could be as highly rated as that of film, perhaps even more so due to the time and cost constraints that will always slightly differ.

An area that looks likely to be seen more often is digital doubles. Radium started to premier these at the end of the latest series’ of Buffy and Angel. Digital doubles of the main characters have been created and archived as assets. “We’ve set up certain animation cycles – walk cycles, run cycles, jump cycles, so that we can throw them into live action very quickly,” says Peristere. The doubles were first seen in The Matrix, then films like Blade 2 and Spiderman. “There’s no reason why you can’t take stunts and action to the level it is in features. It is an art form that should be used to boost the production value of television,” he adds.

*also believes that CGI in sci-fi is going to keep on improving. “CGI will continue to get bigger and better as the technology allows us more creative freedom.  Many story lines are relying more heavily on CGI elements… The potential for GCI hasn’t been entirely explored - time will reveal how it will be more fully used to enhance the sci-fi genre.”

Peristere believe the growth of CGI will spread to other areas of TV rather than just be at home with science fiction.  He believes that when producers see how costs are lowered they will turn to CG to save money and stop dangerous stunts. “ I think these tools are going to find homes in non effect shows. CSI, Law and Order, ER these shows are going to benefit from them… I think that is where CG is going to come in real strong and handy in the next five years.”