4/15/12

Possible Improvement

I keep watching our animatic looking for areas that can be improved. One of the scenes that stuck out recently was when Ryke drops a cargo container on a bunch of Stormtroopers in the Star Destroyer hangar.

Even though the cargo container model we used is from the "Star Wars" universe, I thought it might look better if we dropped a more iconic Star Wars object on the Stormtroopers.

So... I replaced the cargo container with a TIE fighter. Here are comparison shots:

I had to change the camera angle because Ryke dislodges the object by shooting it with a blaster, and if I kept the old camera angle, you wouldn't be able to see the blaster bolts knocking the TIE fighter loose because the TIE fighter's wing blocked the view.

BTW, if we decide to keep this change, I may add more TIE fighters hanging behind this one.

And yes, I made sure that they DO have TIE fighters hanging in the Star Destroyer hangar. Here's a reference picture from "Return of the Jedi":


Here's another comparison, which is after the object has crushed the Stormtroopers:

Again, I had to change the camera angle a bit in the revised scene.

As much as I like the TIE fighter instead of the cargo container, my only concern is that it supposedly crushes 4 Stormtroopers beneath it. I'm not sure a TIE fighter is heavy enough to crush 4 Stormtroopers and still lie flat on the floor. A couple possible solutions are:

1) Cheat the size of the TIE fighter, making it larger and thus make it look heavier, and/or
2) Have the TIE fighter lying 6-12" off the floor, so it looks like the Stormtrooper bodies are keeping the TIE fighter's wing from lying completely flat on the floor.

What do you guys think? Do you like the TIE fighter better than the cargo container? If so, do you think I should make the TIE fighter bigger and/or a few inches off the ground?

Thanks,
Bob