11/27/09

Improved Jedi Temple Hallway Texture Maps, continued

Brad's making progress on our digital fire and smoke. Here's his latest test footage (using the Carinda homestead model):

Pretty sweet! He's making more improvements, like making the flames shorter and less "stringy." But we're a big step closer and I can't wait to get my hands on the final version!

I spent last week improving the texture maps and geometry on our Jedi Temple Hallway model.

Here are before-and-after comparisons of Scene C115b (when Brad is escaping from the Jedi Temple):

I improved the lighting, added reflectivity to most of the surfaces (which makes everything look more 3D and realistic, rather than CG), and stuck a vase in that bump-out to make it look more Jedi Temple-like.

Here's a before-and-after comparison of Scene C115c (Brad muttering, "I have a bad feeling about this" before opening the blast door and revealing a bunch of droidekas):

As you can see, I removed that weird middle-wall (on the left) and added our Jedi statue to the background. I originally created that Jedi statue for our exterior Jedi Temple set, but we changed the exterior camera angles so the Jedi statue was no longer visible. Rather than waste our super-cool model, I stuck it in the background of this shot. :)

Here's a before-and-after comparison of Scene C115d (the background of Brad's reaction shot after he opens the blast door and is confronted by a bunch of droidekas):

This camera angle probably shows the most modifications to our Jedi Temple Hallway model. I completely changed the windows to look more Jedi Temple-like, and I also added those Jedi columns (which I kitbashed from the Jedi Council Chamber model).

Here's the final before-and-after comparison of our droidekas (which, unfortunately, aren't animated yet -- that's going to take a LOT of work!):


Of course, these are not final images. They're just another iteration in our evolution towards final footage. I still have to fix the lighting, improve the texture maps even more, etc. But it's another important step towards our final movie.

Later,
Bob

11/20/09

Improved Jedi Temple Hallway Texture Maps

I've been busy with other stuff, so I haven't had much time to work on our movie lately.

Plus, I spent a bunch of time trying to add "dirt" to our texture mapping to make buildings and other objects look dirty (and more realistic). Unfortunately, I haven't figured it out yet so I burned a bunch of hours with nothing to show for it (yet).

I'm currently improving Jedi Temple Hallway model. Here's a before-and-after comparison of Scene C115d (Brad's reaction shot when the blast door opens revealing a bunch of droidekas):

I replaced that sculpture (which is seen in "Return of the Jedi" in the Cloud City scenes) with a hologram of a planet, which I got from this reference picture of the Jedi Temple:

If you look carefully at the top-left of this picture, you can see the planet hologram that I'm talking about. Here's a close-up:


I'm still improving the geometry and texture mapping on this model, so that's the only picture I have so far. Even that picture may not be final, but it's what I have for now so you can at least see the work-in-progress.

We've scheduled 2 more shooting days the 1st 2 weeks of December. Most of the footage we shot over the past 1-2 months turned out to be animatic-quality, so we're pretty much re-shooting everything.

However, not all was wasted. If we hadn't shot that live footage, we wouldn't know how to improve the shots for the re-shoots. We'll re-shoot as many times as it takes to get the quality we're after.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Bob