Improved Med Center Room and Star Destroyer Bridge

I added some shininess and reflections to the Med Center Room's texture maps. Here are before-and-after pictures:

It's hard to see the changes in these compressed images, but they're most obvious if you look at the droid.

We don't have a 3D model for the Venator-class Imperial Star Destroyer bridge, so we were using a kitbashed version of the Death Star Tower. However, we were never happy with the way it looked, so we ended up using the Imperator-class Imperial Star Destroyer bridge. Here are before-and-after comparisons of Scene 297:



MUCH better, right?

Here's another before-and-after comparison, this time from Scene F402:




And here's the last before-and-after comparison, this time from Scene F414:



Hopefully you'll agree that moving the Venator-class Star Destroyer bridge scenes to the new 3D model was a huge improvement.

Anyway, I gotta go.

Later,
Bob

Improved Texture Maps and Script Change

I replaced the temporary "green slab" that Bibble the Hutt and his 3 girlfriends were on with a new-and-improved platform loosely based on Jabba the Hutt's platform:


When I was re-rendering the scene, I saw our original animatic for this scene. I thought it was interesting seeing this scene evolve, so I figured I'd share it with you guys:


The 1st picture (the Brad-and-Theresa-times-3 version) is our original animatic, dated 7-28-07 (yes, it's both shocking and depressing to realize that we've been working on this movie for so long...).
The 2nd picture is our 2nd animatic, dated 10-27-08.
The 3rd picture is our most recent animatic, dated 7-6-10.

I also added shininess and reflections to the Med Center Hallway. Here are before-and-after pictures:

It's hard to see the difference in these compressed images, so I pointed out some of the reflections in the "after" picture with red arrows. I know... I know... the pictures look almost exactly the same, but when you see the full-size pictures, the new-and-improved version looks much more 3D and realistic. Remember, our ultimate goal is for our digital sets to look so realistic that people can't tell if they're looking at a CG image or a photograph of a real set.

On the non-CG side, we decided to remove the 2 remaining flashback sequences (we used to have 3 flashback sequences, but the 3rd flashback was removed a long time ago).

The 1st flashback was Brad (during his Padawan years) learning how to "fight smart, not hard" from his Jedi Master:


The 2nd flashback revealed how Brad obtained his lightsaber (Brad lost his in a fight, but his dying Jedi Master gave him his (the Jedi Master's) lightsaber on his deathbed):



The original purpose of the flashback sequences was to add more character development (showing Brad during his Padawan years), to fill-out our movie to make the story line more like a real movie, and to provide a break from the constant, almost non-stop action in our story.

However, we ultimately decided that we are NOT real actors, script writers, or movie makers, and we're probably stretching ourselves beyond our capacity. So, for now at least, those scenes are gone, condemned to the "Deleted Scenes" featurette.

Of course, there's a slight chance we may add-back one or more flashbacks in the future, probably making them shorter and perhaps even adding some comic relief. But until then, they're gone... :(

On a brighter note for most of you, that also means ALL of my acting scenes have been deleted! (Well, at least all of my "face character" scenes are gone -- I'm still Darth Vader, all of the Stormtroopers, the Imperial Sympathizer, and many other masked characters, so I can still sit at the autograph table at our future publicity appearances. :D )

Later,
Bob