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

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

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

Props, Improved Texture Maps, and the CSD Studios Title Sequence!

We finally have a "CSD Studios" title sequence!

Thanks to everyone who voted. It was surprisingly close among the top 3 choices, but this version won in the end. I'd also like to thank Videocopilot.net for their awesome tutorials which have helped us tremendously during this project.

I think I mentioned previously that we're scheduled to shoot live footage next Sat. I can't wait! In preparation for shooting, we've had to buy/create a bunch of props:

The Jar Jar Binks doll is for the scene when a Stormtrooper steps on it after massacring the Carinda family. I can't wait to shoot that scene (mostly because I can't wait to step on Jar Jar Binks)!

The 2nd picture shows 2 props: a Jedi comlink, and a prototype command-detonated bomb.

Rather than building our own Jedi comlink, it was faster, easier, and probably cheaper to just buy an off-the-shelf "Jedi comlink" walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, it looks a little different from the Jedi comlink props used in the "Star Wars" movies:

As you can see from the 1st Jedi comlink and the 2nd Jedi comlink (above), there appear to be slight variations in the actual props (look at the top of each prop). So it shouldn't matter too much that our Jedi comlink walkie-talkies are a little different too. Of course, we'll paint ours silver and cut-down the antenna, but other than that we'll probably use our off-the-shelf walkie-talkie as-is. (BTW, the 3rd Jedi comlink, above, is just a rear view -- it isn't a 3rd variant.)

Also, back up to the picture of our Jedi comlink walkie-talkie and the command-detonated bomb prop (a couple pictures above)... since we were originally going to shoot live footage a few weeks ago, I rushed to throw together a "bomb" prop. It looks pretty crappy and I wasn't very happy with it, but it was better than nothing. Fortunately, since shooting got postponed a few weeks, we have time to build a better "bomb" prop, so we'll have something cooler-looking in the final footage.

On the CG-side, I tweaked our shot of the Stormtrooper getting his head blown off. When we shot this live footage, Brad missed catching me and I fell flat on my butt. As a result, you could see me backpedal trying to cushion my fall -- good for my butt, but bad for footage of a Stormtrooper who's supposedly dead and falling to the ground. :(

To make the shot look more realistic, I switched to a "digital fall." In other words, I digitally moved/rotated the live footage to make the Stormtrooper fall straight backwards, limp as a noodle. Here are pictures of the original scene:

You can definitely see my knees bending as I backpedal to soften my fall. Here's the improved scene, using a digital fall:

As you can see in the 1st picture, I'm stiff as a board as I fall backwards, and I also fall faster since my legs aren't slowing my fall (that's why I'm missing in the 2nd picture). I also added a digital blur to simulate motion blur.

I improved the texture maps on the Carinda shuttle. Here are before-and-after pictures:

More weathering and realistic textures on the "after" picture. I also improved the background mountains.

Here's another before-and-after comparison so you can see the texture mapping up-close:


Finally, I improved the texture maps on our Jedi Databank model. Here are before-and-after comparisons:


Here are reference pictures from "Revenge of the Sith" and "Star Wars: Movie Battles II" (an online game):


Here's another before-and-after comparison:

Aside from the fact that Brad's "Stormtrooper stand-in" is missing, you can see that I changed the wall detailing to more-accurately match the reference photos above.

That's it for last week. I don't know how much CG work I'll get done this week, since I'll be preparing for our live shoot on Sat. We'll see... Either way, there should be some awesome pictures -- live footage and/or CG!

Later,
Bob

Carinda Shuttle Interior

I made a ton of progress packing-up my house, so I was able to spend some time working on the movie guilt-free this week.

I made more progress re-texture mapping the Millennium Falcon interior. Here are before-and-after pictures:

Closer, but it still needs lots of work.

At first, I was leaning towards using a modified version of the Millennium Falcon interior for the Carinda shuttle. However, after checking possible camera angles, I discovered that I can't use that model without it being somewhat obvious that we used the Millennium Falcon interior.

That discovery also ruled out my second choice, which was to kitbash the cockpit from the Imperial Shuttle onto the Millennium Falcon interior. That way, we'd have the grittier, more realistic cargo hold and also the cool-looking cockpit with the lights.

So... I ended up keeping the Imperial Shuttle interior as our primary model BUT I'm kitbashing a bunch of stuff from the Millennium Falcon to make our model look more realistic.

Here's a before-and-after example showing what I'm talking about:

In the older version (1st picture, above), there were too many lights. It's even more obvious as video because they're blinking, there are animated displays, etc. It looked like a Christmas tree on steroids. :(

In the newer version (2nd picture, above), you can see that I replaced a bunch of lights with mechanical doodads (hard to see in this compressed, dark image, but they look cool -- trust me! ;D ). I also added hoses and other doodads to the walls.

Here's another before-and-after comparison:

In the newer version, you can see that I added 3 barrels (bottom-L, and 2 in the middle which you can barely see through the light beam from R4's holoprojection). I also added a grate to the flooring to give it a grittier, more industrial look.

I'm still in the middle of improving the Carinda shuttle model, so these "after" pictures only show what the model looks like now. I'm going to keep tweaking it until it looks super duper cool. :D

Later,
Bob