Why did Transformers Look SO Realistic?

This movie from 2007 looks better than 90% of the big-budget movies we have today

Working for Bay was one of the highlights of my time at ILM. The Transformers movies were before my time, but the dude knows exactly what he wants, never messes you about with unclear feedback and dailies with him were always highly entertaining. Dude would and did approve some shots on almost their first version because he knows when something works. Very rare in a director.

Michael Bay really nailed the cool factor, because for me, a 7 year old kid in 2007, this was literally the coolest thing I've seen in my life

This is by far the best retrospective on the process behind Transformers 2007's cgi, glad I was able to help 🤘

It is still a crime that this didn't win the visual effects Oscar.

Something I've always love about this movie is the animation of the transformation. They're not these awkward transitions where a jumble of parts all move at once to create the robot form. Instead, the animators took their time by making parts move and settle before the next one does the same. It gives so much clarity and detail so that the audience knows exactly where each part goes when the bots transform.

We took Transformers 1-3 for granted. I rewatched them a couple months ago. Still incredibly fun.

It's absolutely insane that none of the Bayverse films won Oscars for visual effects, soundtrack or sound effects.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Transformers 1 were amazing CGI experiences in 2007.

Bay is an absolute master of direction for VFX. The fact that he did 3 movies in native stereo 3D with so many different camera types still blows my mind.

the metallic reflections and blending of blue screen was really good in a lot of these movies. Also it helps when theres so much visual pollution in every shot that you cant tell exactly whats going on until you rewatch it 8 times.

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Love them or hate them ABSOLUTELY no one can say the cgi was lacking in the bayverse

I revisited the featurettes for the 2nd film a while ago. It was the heyday of BTS material. I realized the CG of these movies was a monumental effort when they said the model of the villain Devastator was so absurdly large it would crash the computer if it tried to open the entire thing. They essentially had to build, if not animate him, in parts.

The Transformers movies really are some of ILM's best work.

You know what mad props on bay with using practical effects for things that could of been cgi, cough Snyder and disney cough like say what you will about bay himself but he prioritized the cgi in things that needed it

In my oppinion every Bayverse Transformers movie had FANTASTIC CGI

What I love is that the difference in cleanliness on the characters between robot and vehicle mode works in more ways than one. On one hand, it helps the animators/artists dealing with the shiny, reflecting surfaces in rendering, but it also adds to the fact the Cybertronians are "robots in disguise", so naturally there would be something about their bodies that allows their disguised forms to look shiny and clean, or at least depending on the type of vehicle they scanned if it was already dirty/rusty or not as shiny, then the robot mode is the real them with all the scratches, dings, etc. One theory is that it's basically a holographic projection, similar to how they can "scan" a vehicle form and know all the ins and outs of it and replicate it perfectly. Can't be in disguise when you turn into a Camaro that looks like it had a giant wad of steel wool dragged all over it with grease poured on after.

Short answer: Transformers was released during a time where CGI wasn’t used as much in films, so companies were not stretched thin since animation teams were not working on multiple projects, which is why CGI hasn’t been good in general since Infinity War nowadays. Teams are given multiple projects without enough time. The CGI in the Bay films progressively got better because the Transformers movies revived a dying franchise that caught everyone off guard and made everyone want to buy Camaros thanks to product placement, and Bay used real explosions and real locations as opposed to CG explosions and green-screening. He actually filmed the battle of Chicago in Chicago and made the city look like a warzone to entertain us. His crew put effort into the eye candy. Also, these movies fuck

i always loved the "CLING CLANG PLING CLAN" metal sounds the Transformers made wilhe fighting or doing anything in general, because it really felt like a giant alien robot and the sounds are just satisfying.