Improved Bibble's Bar Exterior

I realized that our CG model for the exterior of Bibble's Bar needed to be re-done. Even though it was kitbashed from Star Wars models (the Mustafar control room and a Mos Eisley building), it looked incongruent.

Here are before-and-after comparisons of the old model and the new model:

In the "before" picture (above, left), you can tell I basically took a piece of the Mustafar Control Room and stuck it on the front of a Mos Eisley building.

Here's a picture of the CG model for the Mustafar Control Room -- you can see the part I kitbashed for the old Bibble's Bar exterior in the back (those monitors with the yellow displays are the monitors with the red and blank displays in the old Bibble's Bar model):


Here's another before-and-after comparison from a different angle:

In the "before" picture (above, left), all you really see the Mustafar Control Room geometry.
In the "after" picture (above, right), you can see how the background looks a lot more Mos Eisley/Tatooine-like.

Here's the same "after" picture, but side-by-side against a reference photo from "Attack of the Clones" to compare the look and texture of the building:

I'll probably eventually replace that "garage door" with something better in the future, since we don't see any of that "garage door" stuff in the "Star Wars" movies. However, I just added it for now as a cheat since I didn't feel like figuring out what to put in that space (right now it's a big cut-out, like a garage).

Here's the last before-and-after comparison:

Bibble' Bar (right foreground) looks a lot more congruent with the building in the background in the "after" picture than in the "before" picture.

By the way, the building in the background is a photograph of an actual building in Tunisia (where they filmed the Mos Eisley scenes) -- it's not a CG model. You can see the seam between the picture and the CG model in the "before" picture (look at the sand -- it's one color/texture in the background photograph (behind the land speeder) and it's a different color/texture in the foreground). Here's that same background photograph all by itself:


Also, you may recall that our goal is to make our CG sets so photorealistic that they look like someone walked onto a real-life set and snapped a photo. We're getting closer with this model:

The 1st picture (above, left) shows the model rendered without the Yane stand-in and with "good" (i.e. ray-traced) shadows. You can see an example of the "good" shadows if you look at the top of the "garage door" and also if you look at the shadows cast by the moisture vaporator and nuna.

The 2nd picture (above, right) is the same picture (with the Yane stand-in and "quick" shadows) seen above -- I just re-pasted it here so that you can see them side-by-side for easier comparison.

We're getting there, slowly but surely...

Later,
Bob

Improved Animatic Backgrounds for Bibble's Bar

After improving the CG model for Bibble's Bar, I started re-rendering some of the background plates for our animatic. It's been very time-consuming because a few months ago I moved all of the files for this project from my old PC to my laptop. As a result, there have been growing pains with missing plug-ins, missing video files, etc.

Anyway, here are a few before-and-after comparisons of the re-rendered scenes from Bibble's Bar:

You've seen this before-and-after comparison before:

• The stadium seats were removed.
• A bar and tables were added.
  
• The lighting was changed to green and purple.
  

You can barely tell in these compressed images, but the background in the scene above looks much more 3D and realistic than before. In fact, here's a bigger version of the "after" picture:

It's still a little hard to see, but the stucco on the walls looks more realistic, the TV in the background looks more realistic, and the cup and bottle in the foreground are new (though we may cheat those out of the final shot).

This one also looks much better when seen full-size:

It will look even better when we replace those 2 stand-ins with real actors.

This is probably the best example of the improved CG model for Bibble's bar:

Aside from the temporary stand-ins (Theresa, Wookiee, and bartender), I think this scene looks much more like a real bar and less like the fake CG bar in the old version.

I'm going to keep re-rendering the background plates for the Bibble's Bar scenes. I also decided to redo the exterior model for Bibble's Bar.

Later,
Bob

Bibble's Bar with New Lighting

Looking at reference photos from "Attack of the Clones" and "Star Wars: The Old Republic," I realized that bars are very colorful:


So I experimented with different lighting combinations in Bibble's Bar. Just so you can see some of the trial-and-error that goes into this process, here are just a few of the lighting combinations I tried:

The first picture (above, left) is the original lighting.
In the second picture (above, right), I changed the yellow "neon" lights (on the walls and bar) to purple, just to see how it looked. It looked more like a bar to me, so I knew things were moving in the right direction.


In the 2nd version (above, left), I changed the floor lights to purple too. That seemed like overkill, so I tried a 3rd version with green floor lights (above, right). Hmmm... not quite right so I tried changing the entire bar's lighting:

The 4th version (above, left) has purple overall lighting.
The 5th version (above, right) has green overall lighting.

It's kind of funny, because the "purple lighting" version looks a lot like the "Attack of the Clones" bar:


And the "green lighting" version looks a lot like the "Star Wars: The Old Republic" bar:


Personally, I liked the green lighting better, but it still didn't seem right. Here are 2 more color combinations:

In the 6th version (above, left), I changed the wall lights to yellow. The yellow lights don't really match the purple and green color scheme, so I changed it again.

In the 7th version (above, right), I changed the wall lights to orange. This is the version I like best. Just so you can see them side-by-side, here's the original lighting compared to the new lighting:

I think the new version looks a lot more bar-like and night clubby -- it just has more "atmosphere." Also, on a technical side, the green overall lighting means we can get away with green spill on sloppy chroma keys when we composite-in our live actors. :)

Now that Bibble's Bar is essentially finished -- at least for now -- I'm going to re-render the backgrounds for our animatic.

Later,
Bob

New Version of Bibble's Bar

I decided to revise the CG model for Bibble's Bar. It still isn't done, but I figured I'd at least post pictures of the current work-in-progress.

Here are before-and-after pictures comparing the previous version of Bibble's Bar with the new version:

Of course, the main difference is the removal of the stadium seating that used to surround the room. The original Jedi Temple Briefing Room model had that distinctive stadium seating and I think removing it makes it less obvious that we used that model to create Bibble's Bar.

Here's a comparison of the original Jedi Temple Briefing Room model and our remodeled version of Bibble's Bar:

Hopefully, aside from the stairs, it's hard to tell it's the same model...

In addition to removing the stadium seating, I also changed the texture mapping on the walls, added a bar, and added tables. Here are some random close-ups of the bar:


And here's a close-up of one of the tables (NOT in its final position -- this was a test picture from when I was testing different texture maps on the table):

In fact, you can tell it's a test picture because not only is the table not in its final position, but the white/glowing tabletop panel is also too low (which is why it has that weird look rather than being a solid off-white).

Overall, I think we're moving in the right direction. The new version looks more like a bar to me, although it still needs finishing touches (set dressing, etc.). I'll post more pictures when the model is further along...

Later,
Bob

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

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