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Jon (Breckin Meyer) and his cat, a CGI-created Garfield star together in the movie version of the

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Once, the defiance of gravity was exclusively the domain of those skilled with paper and pencil. And while animators have always had the ability to bring their most incongruous ideas to life, transcending the limitations of time and space have now become a pedestrian feat for live-action filmmakers thanks to a now well-established technique called computer-generated imagery.

CGI is has become so versatile over the last few years that it is seen in a variety of movie genres and can be used alongside traditional two-dimensional animation, such as the kid’s adventure “Titan A.E.” or the Farrelly brothers’ off-the-wall comedy “Osmosis Jones.”

CGI has even made major live-action films such as “The Mummy” appear more cartoonish, and animated films such as “Garfield: The Movie” appear more earthbound and realistic.

“The major obvious advantage of CGI is that it enables directors to employ more sophisticated cinematography,” said Dan McLaughlin, the chair of the Animation Facility at UCLA. “The process is faster and allows for greater freedoms to experiment with effects that are prohibited in two-dimensional media.”

When the use of traditional animation techniques, such as stop animation, were first incorporated into live-action movies, aliens, dinosaurs and mythological creatures stumbled their way through decades of cheesy sci-fi and larger-than-life action movies.

Mostly due to the struggles of many animators in matching live actors with three-dimensional puppets, there’s still a long way to go before CGI in movies can look “real”.

“Since CGI is three-dimensional and more lifelike, it demands a more live-action approach to filmmaking where caricatured motions do not fit well,” said Dug Ward, manager of the Animation Facility. “It puts pressure on animators to create more realistic characters and settings.”

Without the need to draw out every character or scene from scratch due to digitally saved data, movie companies save time and money.

“CGI is especially useful in sequels and TV series because there is a library of characters and motions the animators have saved and can easily be reused at (their) disposal,” Ward said.

However popular CGI may be at the moment, just like any fad it has its inevitable opponents who remain loyal to the 2-D style.

“It makes you concentrate on each frame of your film,” said animation graduate student Mark Fearing. “Tedious? Yes, but you develop a greater appreciation of what each second of a film can accomplish.”

The high amount of control CGI gives to its animators can easily be interpreted as a flaw of the technique. Since action is dictated through a computer keyboard and mouse, unexpected elements in motion are compromised for preciseness.

“CGI has no mass; it has no weight or inertia,” McLaughlin said. “The creator loses all randomness that is part of depicting something realistically.”

While the cost of these losses is hard to judge, one thing is certain; realism is not always what creates a good movie. CGI supporters believe that the content of the movie ultimately decides what is deemed successful.

“Most CGI movies are not trying to recreate reality; otherwise it would have just been made as a live-action film,” said Connie Kim, a third-year political science student. “No matter the method used, it still takes an artist to create art.”

Nevertheless, at this moment, CGI continues to ride its peak, especially with the success of such CGI-fueled films as “Shrek” and the “Matrix” trilogy. Through the eyes of aspiring animators, this spells jobs.

“The movie industry moves in cycles,” said Alan Estridge, a third-year animation student. “I think it’s a really good time to be coming out of school right now. The visual effects industry for live-action is booming.”