9

Whatever these guys are, they appear to be small in size. That is why the texture is so strong. It's a close up view of things they are made out of, thus making the texture more visible than it might normally be.

The textures are realistic and there is a large variety of materials shown in every shot. In this image we see several different kinds of metal, wood, textiles, paper. Notice his fingers are calligraphy pen tips and he has been drawing. Very clever.


More reused materials are shown in this screen shot. Namely zippers, ropes and buttons.


Everything appears to be very old, rusty and dirty. It's not hard to figure out that this movie is set in the future and most likely has some sort of commentary on environmental issues (as that is the case with many fantasy movies these days). What I find more interesting is the "realness" of the materials and their environment. This is a really interesting video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10 which talks about why we like things that have human attributes and why we don't like cg animation that looks almost like a real human because it gives us the creeps. Seeing a animated cg face can be really creepy because it lacks a genuine quality.

I wonder how much this concept of the Valley relates to how we view "real" cg animated materials. More specifically, how we feel about a texture looking perfectly real on a creature which we know does not exist. This was also the case with the creatures on "Where the wild things are" because they were composed of costumes with cg animated faces. The creatures in 9 are entirely cg animated but have the same concept of creatures with detailed textures. I think rather than creeping me out (like the realist looking cg human face), these creatures really stir me up emotionally. They evoke a positive reaction because I so love to pretend fantasy creatures exist and this is just one step closer to making them seem more real.

Images from http://www.imdb.com/media/rm840861696/tt0472033