12/18/11

Possible Change to Bibble's Bar

I've never been completely happy with the way Bibble's Bar looked. As I watch our current animatic, lots of things jump out at me as needing improvement. Bibble's Bar is one of them.

Right now, I'm creating a "Version 2" of the CG model for Bibble's Bar. Unfortunately, I'm not done yet so it isn't ready for before-and-after pictures. However, I'll post pictures as soon as the "remodeling" is complete.

Later,
Bob

12/5/11

Jedi Starfighter Cockpit Set

Last week, Brad and I started detailing the Jedi Starfighter Cockpit set:


Right now, the only thing we've done is paint the interior. However, we've collected a bunch of random parts that we're going to use to add details to the interior. Once it's done it should look WAY better than our previous CG model that we used for the Jedi Starfighter cockpit. I can't wait to post pictures!

Later,
Bob

11/27/11

Final Camera Angles on Improved Carinda Shuttle Interior

I figured out the problem with the camera angles, so here are before-and-after comparisons between the old Carinda shuttle interior and the new Carinda shuttle interior (using the model for the Millennium Falcon's interior)...

Scene M400 (Yane treating Ryke's injuries):


Scene M403 (Yane watching the holodisc security footage of Padme giving birth to Luke and Leia):

As mentioned in last week's post, I darkened the interior a little bit to make the holodisc footage easier to see.

Scene M404a (wider shot of Yane watching the holodisc security footage of Padme giving birth to Luke and Leia):


Scene M404d (Ryke using The Force to turn off the holodisc footage):

I'll probably have to add a little more detailing and improve the texture maps in close-ups like this.

Scene M405 (Close-up of Yane talking to Ryke):

Same here -- in extreme close-ups I need to improve the texture mapping and detailing so that it looks more realistic and less CG.

Scene M406 (Close-up of Ryke talking to Yane):


Scene M408 (Ryke sitting up and talking to Yane):


Scene M410 (Close-up of Ryke talking to Yane, different camera angle):


I haven't added any of the new-and-improved scenes to the animatic, so I'll probably do that next and see how everything looks. Exciting stuff!

Later,
Bob

11/20/11

Improved Carinda Shuttle Interior

I'm still in the middle of replacing our old Carinda shuttle interior with the new model. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have to reposition Ryke and Yane and/or fix the camera angles. Nevertheless, I figured I'd at least post some before-and-after pictures because they still show the new shuttle interior.

Here are before-and-after comparisons of Scene M400 when Yane is working on Ryke's injuries:

As mentioned in a previous post, I think it's obvious that we used the Millennium Falcon interior for our Carinda shuttle's interior. However, since the Carinda shuttle is a YT-2400 Outrider (which looks like an earlier version of the Millennium Falcon), I think we're O.K. with the similar interiors.

Also, I think the new model looks MUCH more realistic, which was the original goal. So it looks like all of the hard work texture-mapping and improving the Millennium Falcon interior model was worth it.

Here are before-and-after comparisons of Scene M403 where Yane is watching footage of Padme giving birth to Luke and Leia:


And here's Scene M404a, which is a wider shot of the same scene:

I'll probably have to darken the lights in the "after" picture to make the hologram more visible. But other than that, I think the "after" picture looks WAY better than the "before" picture.

Here's the last before-and-after comparison. This is Scene M404d when Ryke uses The Force to turn off the hologram:

This is an example where I'm pretty sure I need to change the camera angle, but ignoring that, the background looks way better than before!

That's it for now. I'm going to have to review the camera angles, fix it, then post the corrected screenshots later.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Bob

11/13/11

Improved Carinda Shuttle Scenes, continued

I finished replacing the old Carinda shuttle model with the new Outrider model. Here are before-and-after comparisons of Scene I500a showing the Carinda shuttle landing on Alderaan:

(In this scene, the Carinda shuttle flies towards the city visible on the middle-right of the screen.)

The next scene, Scene I500b, took a little more work. Instead of just replacing the Carinda shuttle model, I re-did the entire scene because I was never happy with the way the old scene looked. Here's the old scene, showing the Carinda shuttle flying into the Med Center's docking bay:

To make things easier to see, I circled the Carinda shuttle and also drew an arrow showing its flight path into the Med Center's docking bay.

In the old animatic, I didn't like the way the Med Center looked -- it was incongruous with the rest of the architecture. I also didn't like the way the overall shot looked -- it looked too CG and fake.

Here's the 1st revision, which I eventually discarded, along with the reference photo I based it on:

The red arrow shows the flight path Yane's shuttle would have followed as it descended into the Med Center's landing area (the same flight path the Slave I ship is following in the reference photo on the right, above).

I ultimately discarded this version because it still looked like crap. Here are 2 screenshots from the 2nd version:

In the 1st screenshot (above left), I drew red arrows showing the animated parts of this scene:
1) The landspeeder on the left goes from the bottom-to-top of the screen,
2) The droid (barely visible in these compressed images) goes from left-to-right in the middle-center of the screen, and
3) The Carinda shuttle lands in the Med Center's landing area on the right.

In the 2nd screenshot (above right), you can see the animated models in their final positions:
1) The landspeeder is at the top of the screen,
2) The droid has disappeared going through the doorway to the Med Center's landing area, and
3) The Carinda shuttle has landed.

This version is still rough, which is why the shadows look crappy. I'm also going to animate some of those people walking along the road, and probably add more set dressing. Nevertheless, I think it's a huge improvement over the old animatic.

Those were the final 2 scenes with the Carinda shuttle, so now that they're complete (at least for now), I'm going to go through the animatic and re-do all of the Carinda shuttle's interior shots. The interior shots are going to use the Millennium Falcon's interior, so they should look a LOT better. Hopefully I'll have some nice before-and-after shots ready for next week's blog post.

Later,
Bob

11/6/11

Improved Carinda Shuttle Scenes and Model

I've started replacing the old Carinda shuttle model with our new Outrider model. Here are before-and-after shots of the revised scenes:

Scene H301a (Yane and Ric Carinda (represented by the Stormtroopers on the speederbikes) seeing Ryke Thale's Jedi Starfighter crash on Dantooine:


Scene H308b (Yane leaving an injured Ryke behind to check on her father):


Scene M399 (Carinda shuttle flying past the camera on its way to Alderaan):


There are only 2 scenes left that need to be retrofitted, but one scene keeps crashing on me and I think I'm going to completely change the other scene because I think I can make it look much better. I'll post those before-and-after shots after I finish them.

In addition to retrofitting our animatic with the new Carinda shuttle model, I finished texture mapping the model that we're going to use for the shuttle interior. Here are before-and-after comparisons:

As I mentioned in a previous post, since the Outrider looks like an earlier version of the Millennium Falcon, we're going to use the Millennium Falcon's interior for our shuttle interior.

As you can see from the "before" image (above left), the model was beautiful but it needed to be completely texture mapped. After many long hours, we now have the "after" image (above right) which looks a lot more photorealistic.

Here are more before-and-after comparisons, from different camera angles:





This is only a preliminary texture mapping -- as I go through and retrofit each scene in the shuttle interior, I'll have to improve the texture maps and probably add set dressing after I know which parts of the shuttle have close-ups.

Nevertheless, I think this model for the shuttle interior looks much more realistic than our old model:

That just looks CG and fake to me, even though I spent hundreds of hours texture-mapping and adding set dressing to that model. Oh well, as long as our final movie looks as good as we can possibly make it, that's all that matters.

Later,
Bob

10/30/11

Improved Outrider

I finished improving the Outrider model -- at least for now. I may have to make another pass after I replace our old shuttle model with this one, if I discover that certain scenes require more detail.

Anyway, here are before-and-after comparisons:

Aside from the texture mapping, the red arrows show where I made physical changes to the model:
1) I removed those fins from the cockpit, and
2) I used "greebles" to add detail to the model's left side.

Here's a better view showing the cockpit with the fins removed, as well as some greebles that I added to make the ship look more realistic and less CG:


More greeble detailing:




As I mentioned above, I'll have to go through all of our scenes with the Carinda shuttle and replace our old model with the new model. Some of those scenes have close-ups, so I'll probably have to make another pass on this Outrider model and add additional detail.

I've also started improving the CG model for the Carinda shuttle interior. Since the Outrider looks a lot like the Millennium Falcon, I'm using the Millennium Falcon interior for our Carinda shuttle interior. I'll post before-and-after pictures as soon as I'm finished with the new-and-improved model.

Later,
Bob