Starship Exeter: Exeter Rising" Fan Story mini-series

[gmd3d]

Well I mainly am currently doing animatics and storyboards for the effects reel for the first story of my Exeter mini-series posted on Dennis's site. I started with pencil sketches posting them in animated gif format. Out of effects shots for the first story, I have stopped halfway and began to shoot models and use photoshop for the effects and mirror the hand drawn animatics as closely as possible. I would like to eventually progreess to CGI full animation in all of the sequences. But for now I think what i have posted fairly well communicates clearly the action for the special effects reel for the first story. When I am done I want to go back and then do all the live action shots in hand drawn storybaord and then CGI animatics as well to post into the story thread. And if all that works then I would like to do that for the rest of the mini-serial I'm writing.

At raymar3d and snowmonky's recommendations, I've downlaoded truspace and Blender. I've downlaoded a couple of models and I have NO IDEA WHERE TO begin despite playing around with the application some. I've seen the pages for the online tutorials and am thinking starting there. The main problem is time. I persoanlly want results now and not sure if I have the patience to spend lots of time laerning when I am getting quick and dirty results form the physical models I am building my animatics with. I do intend i ntime after finishing all of the storybaords to render all the ships, sets, characters in CG models so to make them look as best as possible. I'm willing to use other people's models if that will speed up the process. Happy to give them the credit they deserve. I don't have the cash to buy any of the serious stuff since I'm marriend with a family and striaghtjacketed by my budget. I would be happy if the free sofeware can do what I want. In the end I want everything I render to look totally professional and not cheap looking. But I am ratehr intimidated at what that commitment may be in time and money to get those results. I'm also had some on Dennis's site express interest in doing their won renders of my storybaords and animatics. I perfectally cool with that and am honored that anyone would find anything I am doing of interest tha they would want to build out professionally the shots I'm trying to deliver. Again happy to give proper credit to those who want to sharpen their claws using my stuff.

God help me to have the patience to hang in for the long haul to learn and excercise this stuff. Where do I start? In time I want to build my own models and want to share them as well. My hope is that they would MINIMALLY look as good as Dennis Bailey's CG models / renders.

Hey Robert,
Take a look at this test footage of mine and then let me know if there is anything I can help you with. If you're on a broadband connection then play the larger file.

http://3dgladiators.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22728

I am more of an animator than I am a modeler and I can probably help you to jump right in and begin animating in a matter of minutes.
It's much easier than it looks!

As for storyboarding - man, that's the first step in Directing. LOL!
I know what you're going through man, I feel your pain. :laugh:

the story thread is here....

http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18223

the end of the thread is where the most current shots or revisions are posted. I am still in the early phases of this. All the current updates are revised int othe story thread inserted into the script.

I am on a 56k dailup. but I would be happy this evenign when my family is in bed to look at this when I lots of free time tonight. I'll look at the lionk you provided now and then try the larger version tonight.

Much Thanks......

Fretslayer,
Downlaoding the dailup version now. Will give it a look when it it's completed.

I forgot to mention in 1989 I did some animation trianing but my moeny restrictions wouldn't let me into animation school. Several of my friends got to go while I was stuck here sacking grociereis. Well I have a stable job printing envelopes for the state, and now that things are better for me as far as life in general, I thought i would begin to pursue a number of interests and goals I wanted to accomplish that have been put on hold for about 20 years. So the only limitations is what materials I have to work with and time. Hence my desire to move toward CGI so waht I am doing ultimately doesn't hopefully look cheap. I hate wasting my time and effort for my invested time and effort to not pan out.

I can help you make animated storyboards if you'd like.
PM me and he can hammer out the details and I will provide you with some still images so you can see a bit my work.

I also have an animated short film coming down the pipe that is Trek related.


I already have animated gifs posted on my first story thread. I'll be glad to entertain whatever you propose if it defiately can get me further down the raod to the finish line of whatr I am trying to accomplish. Much Thanks and I eagerly accept it from you or anyone that generous to offer. My main concern is when I am done with the effects reel, I'll be turning to the live action. And I haven't drawn in a long time. The pressing need for me to get resutls instantly is what forced me to start drawing again after 20 years. And it was about a month ago that I began to shoot my models to go back and clean up the animatics and storyboard shots. I didn't want them to look like a cartoon. A friend who is a fan of TOS Trek said I might do a animated cartoon sicne I was doing the drawings, and it kindof hurt since that is not what I am ultimately striving for.

I had a look at your story board Robert .. awesome work ..

Originally Posted by Robert Simmons

Fretslayer,
Downlaoding the dailup version now. Will give it a look when it it's completed.

I forgot to mention in 1989 I did some animation trianing but my moeny restrictions wouldn't let me into animation school. Several of my friends got to go while I was stuck here sacking grociereis. Well I have a stable job printing envelopes for the state, and now that things are better for me as far as life in general, I thought i would begin to pursue a number of interests and goals I wanted to accomplish that have been put on hold for about 20 years. So the only limitations is what materials I have to work with and time. Hence my desire to move toward CGI so waht I am doing ultimately doesn't hopefully look cheap. I hate wasting my time and effort for my invested time and effort to not pan out.

Man, I am self taught at every program I use.
The most I've ever had was access to some really solid tutorials and that made all the difference in the world. I've used free programs and I've paid a good dollar for programs and it all comes down to one thing for me...

Can I create art with this program?

There are guys here who are wizards in True Space and Lightwave (and in those apps they leave me in the dust) but those tools didn't fit with the way my mind works when I'm 'painting' and so I searched until I found one that did. I found my app on accident really.

As for being TOS era - I'm ok with that.
It is after all your project - I am not offering to change anything or distort anything... I'm just offering to help you bring your imagination to other people's reality. If you'd like I'll take one of your animate GIFs and render it into a CG one in order to give you an example.

I animate in Carrara Pro 6 (from Daz 3D) and they have a 'little brother' program that is pretty powerful, gives excellent results and is very easy to use....and it's FREE. Like I said, if you're interested then PM me so I don't clog up this thread and end up with my skull on a pike as a warning to all others. :laugh:

Robert we have a thread showcasing some of the free 3d programs around .. with links to take you there ..

http://www.3dgladiators.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=22681

I openly grant permission for anyone to do as they wish with my stuff. My goal is to elevate what i want to see in Trek. Fretslayer you...or anyone else has a blank check to imrpove on what i have done.

Knock yourself out and have fun! I'm the one benefitting from it while still being blown away that people like you delight in the fresh meat i nthe challenges you take pleasure in presenting.

I'm honored. Go to town and have soem fun i nthe process of updating the animatics with the model shots...

Thanks Tyranis.....

No Problem Robert Delight to help ..

I think you should open a new thread on your project. "it deserves its own". if you like I could move these posts that deal with it to there for you ?? ..

Originally Posted by Taranis

No Problem Robert Delight to help ..

I think you should open a new thread on your project. "it deserves its own". if you like I could move these posts that deal with it to there for you ?? ..

That's probably a good idea.

At least I think so.
Then again, I think that beer flavored donuts is a good idea too!
:laugh:

well I like to see more of this collaboration.. and see where it leads .. if you or robert can create the thread tonight I can move them

Sure. Fine by me.

Robert

Cool .. see you there

So where do I look for it? Which forum?

Starship Exeter: Exeter Rising" Fan Story mini-series.

This is a master list in order of the storys I've been writing. I've decided to name the 12 part mini-series " Starship Exeter: Exeter Rising ." I have been able to clear off a good segment of time and I'll be trying to produce a full nearly finished script once a week. That way the remainer of the 12 part serial will be done in little over 2 months from now, minus of course big jim performing the editing within these threads. ( Which he will be doing as I move on to each story in order. He will be posting new threads with the final edits of the storys. And these links will be updated to his final revisions of each episode script. ) But due to the different storys being scattered all over the Character and Stories Forum, I thought a full consecutive order list linking to each story would be helpful to any would be interested readers. ( Sorry for the silly typo in the thread title. But hey...it grabbed your attention..didn't it? )

Just click on each link in sequence, and it will take you to the next story in order. The percentage listed after each title represents where each story is along in each stage of that color represented. ( Example : Script 5 shows 90% with a brown indicates that it is 90% completed in it's initial rough draft. While a script in red shows 30% incicates that it is 30% completed into it's final editing by big jim. Script 9 shows 5% in blue means that it is only 5% into it's projected / intended rough story outline. This should offer a much closer report of the status of each story. The percentages offered are the best guess to the most current status of each story listed. I hope to have this list updated frequently as there is progress to report. ) Revision notes posted at the end of each act are follow ups to be added by Robert prior to big jim performing final edit prior to posting. Everything that is written by Robert prior to handing over to big jim for final editing shall be posted the night of it being written. ( for colors blue, brown. Red does not apply since this already posted, but being edited ) This is to get the story out into the public as fast as possible no matter how raw and unfinished so anyone who is interested IS NOT forced to wait. What is publically posted is as complete as Robert has personally offline. First date listed with each title mark when each story first posted in forum in earliest form. The following date is last date story was worked on and posted. To make time easier to understand as to the the Stardates as a frame of reference, each story is 2 days story time approximately. There is NO TIME SKIP BETWEEN STORIES and resumes immediately within a couple of hours maximum of the action from the previous story. The entire 12 part mini-serial fits into a 24 day span in story order.

EDIT: As of July 11, until further notice the story outlines of episodes 8 thru 12 will not be posted in advance, but will be posted online the night when scripting commences on that episode as done in the previous scripts of 3 thru 7. My apologies for the tempory incovnenience of the story outlines of 8 thru 12 being not current and not accurate to what is at present being revised prior to scripting and posting.


big jim's part....
Green is finished revised edited final version of the script shown at 100%,
Red is ready to hand over to big jim for editing or nearing completed editing...He will post final story when done.....0% to 99%

Robert's part....
Brown is posted and updated while in the progress of writing the rough script 0% to 99%,
Blue is stories yet to be scripted, but are posted in a rough story outline. 0% to 99%.

0. “So Shall You Reap” 50%...?Script ( Technically Episode 0 of mini-series by Jimm and Josh Johnson )

Romulan focused stories based on the "Story Mining:The Romulans Part 1" in Jan 19, 2004 post
http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...6&postcount=47
Kor Focused as vehicle to explore Romulan involvment.....
________________________________________________________________________
1."And Soon, Enough Even For The Praetor's Taste." 100% 1/21/2004 - 6/13/2007 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18223
2. "Sacrificial Lamb" 100% 12/19/2004 - 12/20/2007 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18294
3."Where Do We Go From Here?" 100% 7/12/2005 - 5/18/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18353
4.Through Your Fingers 100% 9/10/2005 - 6/3/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18361
5."Spiraling Out Of Control" 100% 9/10/2005 - 7/17/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...247#post214247
6."I Know That You Know That I Know" 0% 9/10/2005 - 5/28/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=17726
7."What Lays In Store"0% 9/18/2005 - 7/11/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=17731

Klingon focused stories based on the "Story Mining:The Klingons Part 2" that never really got discussed or pursued....but typed
Chang focused as a vehicle to explore Klingon involvement......
_________________________________________________________________________________
8."A New Player In The Hunt" 80% 12/27/2005 - 7/11/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=17827
9."Into The Mix" 10% 2/10/2008 - 7/11/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18310
10."The Heckler" 10% 2/10/2008 - 7/11/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18311
11."A Rude Surprise" 10% 2/10/2008 - 7/11/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18312
12."Ruminations" 0% 2/10/2008 - 7/11/2008 http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=18313

and episode 12 will lead directly chronologically storywise into.....

13."The Savage Empire" 100% by Jimm and Josh Johnson as a finish to the mini-series. ( Existing Video Episode )

A link for those who want to know where these stories fit into TOS Trek and Exeter canon. ( A chronological list by Mr. Tom Hudspethb...most honorable Trek efficianado and bookworm. This man does his meticulous homework. Mega Thanks Tom. )
Click here....http://www.starshippolaris.com/forum...ad.php?t=17219


Thank you all for suffering the confusion.

[gmd3d]

Wow just read through this .. some project ..

if I can help in the future I will be delight to do so

Thanks.

I'm in the process of copying and posting the lastest updates for starters. What you see represents 4 years of work. I very much would like to see Jimm and Josh produce this. But I can dream...and do it myself if they don't LOL.

Color Update for A3-86

Origional Animatic


Color Update.....


_________________________________________________________________

The episode effects wise visually up to this point....

1. T1-1


2. A1-1


3. A1-5


4. A2-16


5.A3-1


6. A3-35


7 . A3-48






8. A3-52


9.A3-57


10.A3-61


11. A3-65


12. A3-66


13. A3-71


14. A3-72


15. A3-77


16. A3-78


17. A3-80


18. A3-81


19. A3-83


20. A3-86


21. A3-88


22. A3-92


23. A3-96


24. A3-97


25. A4-1


____________________________________________________________________

Inventory / Correction and Development Notes of Story One Storyboard / Animatics "Special Effects Reel" shots....

Finished in Blue....Yet to be done in Red.


1. T1-1 Exeter approaching camera animatic redo totally do over more smooth
2. A1-1 Exeter frontal shot next to Outpost 3 still redo realistic with Episode titles
3. A1-5 Exeter 3/4 rear shot next to Outpost 3 still done
4. A2-16 Exeter next to Outpost 3 / 3 starships pull into formation still redo later as animatic / 1 layer of keys and 2 layers of inbetweens minimum
5. A3-1 3 Romulan ships approaching camera still redo later as animatic add 3 keys and 2 layers inbetweens minumum
6. A3-35 Front shot of 4 starships next to Outpost 3 still done
7. A3-45 / A3-48 Exeter viewscreen shot of decloak and destruction of Republic animatic redo more real / replot keys add at least 2 layers of inbetweens
8. A3-52 4 starships destroy Rom ship that destroyed Republic animatic redo opposite angle close in to Fed force to better show ships firing
9. A3-57 Fed formation next to Outpost 3 turns to face next Romulan ship animatic redo opposite angle close in to Fed force seen in front of Outpost 3 / plot layer of keys and 2 layers of inbetweens
10. A3-61 4 starships with back to Outpost 3 facing Romulan ship still done
11. A3-65 Fed starships begin to move on next Romulan ship animatic redo add at least 2 keys 1 layer inbetweens
12. A3-66 3 Romulan ships fire plasma at Fed force animatic redo drop B segment and have A show both Roms firing by adding 1 layer of keys and 2 layers of inbetweens / Add 3 keys and 2 layers of inbetweens to smooth and extend length at end of C segment
13. A3-71 Fed force from 3/4 rear spread in front of plasma when Exeter turns animatic redo Exeter's turn to be more banking and smooth in frames 1-4
14. A3-72 Potemkin viewscreen of Exeter cutting across near collision animatic add 1 layer of inbetweens
15. A3-77 Exeter finishing it's turn into path of 2 plasmas / plasma seen behind it passing through middle of scattered Fed force add 1 layer of inbetweens / add 3rd Rom plasma to shot.
16. A3-78 Shot of Potemkin shooting past Romulan from below add 1 key 1 layer inbetweens
17. A3-80 shot of Potemkin fumbling of phaser / photon fire at Romulan. All miss. Potemkin turns.
18. A3-81 Exeter from rear with 2 plasmas to it's front -done/ redo as animatic

19. A3-83 Exeter weaving right / plasma passes to it's left - done
20. A3-84 Shot of Garrovick and Harris in front of viewscreen. One plasma on screen from left
21. A3-86 Exeter weaving left / plasma passes to it's right - done
22. A3-88 Frontal of Constitution and Hood beginning wide right turns toward Exeter. Potemkin halts pivoting - done.
23. A3-92 Exeter & Outpost 3 launching 2 ph / 2 photons each at Romulan next to Outpost. Plasma is shredded by Exeter's warp field / Large explosions seen on Romulan front -done
24. A3-96 Exeter coming head to head with Rom #3. Exeter fires 2 ph 2 photons -done
25. A3-97 Exeter viewscreen of Romulan ship closing fast. Romulan fires plasma before Exeter's weapons hit Rom-done
26. A3-99 Exeter main screen blinding flash
27. A4-1 Fade in to plasma splash and explosion on Exeter. Exeter is shoved down and tunbles as flash dies down done

______________________________________________________________
28. A4-2 Constitution exiting it's turn toward Exeter. Hood is following.
29. A4-12 Hood viewscreen of Contitution racing ahead. Exeter is seen tunbling in background
30. A4-14 External shot of Exeter tumbling toward asteroid field
31. A4-17 Exeter coming to a halt with back to asteroid field
32. A4-22 shot of Constitution and Hood closing towards Exeter
33. A4-28 Constitution viewscreen showing Hood overshootign and slowing. Exeter is seen in front of asteriod field
34. A4-33 External sluggishly turning left and moving forward evading Romulan closing. Romulan is turning
35. A4-34 shot of 3 Romulan ships facing camera in he distance
36. A4-39 shot of Constution and Hodd side by side fire 2 ph/ 2 photons each at Rom closing on Exeter
37. A4-40 Romulan from rear arcing right toward Exeter hit by full barrage. Romulan shatters into a ball of fire.
38. A4-44 Exeter in background approaching Outpost 3. Fireball behind Exeter dies out.
39. A4-46 Close alongside Outpost 3 firing gatling phasers in a pan shot at cloaked ship. Rom turns to Outpost 3.
40. A4-48 Potemkin following Romulan just hit by Outpost 3's fire
41. A4-50 shot of Romulan ship decloaking finishing turn toward Outpost 3
42. A4-52 Shot of Outpost 3 with Exter approaching. Exeter fires 2 ph. Outpost fires 4 photons and 3 ph. Romulan melts.
43. A4-53 Potemkin racing near the ball of flame
44. A4-56 Constitution and Hood begining back to back turns skidding pivots
45. A4-59 Last Romulan ship fires it's plasma at Outpsot 3 on far side of Outpost 3. Rom gently turns and recloaks
46. A4-62 Exeter in distance charging head to head with Romulan recloaking
47. A4-64 shot of Romulan finishing recloaking as Exeter fires
48. A4-68 Exeter main viewscreen of plasma splashing agaisnt Outpsot 3. Fede to show debris scattering
49. A4-70 Potemkin drifting sideways facing the Romualn ship
50. A4-72 Potemkin facng camera drifting behind Outpost and firing 2 photons. One miss. One hit.
51. A4-74 Exeter external pivoting right in shallow turn. hood in foreground also pivoting toward Romulan.
52. A4. 75 Constitution closing fact from front
53. A4-77 Constitution fires 4 ph / 4 photons at Romulan. Rom falls out of cloak glowing white and melts into a fireball
54. A4-78 Exeter main viewscreen

So, Robert -
Would you like me to help out with some of your storyboards?
I can make them static or dynamic, the choice is yours.
And when dealing with TOS I am cool with keeping to the limitatons of the origianl show - it's all about continuity.

Ok your post went up when I was writing mine - so - should I animate one of these shots?

[gmd3d]

Ok after a screw up on my part I have posted the main point of our chat to your thread Robert .. it showed as the first post ..

I am particularly looking forward to this collaboration.. It will I hope jazz or Star Trek threads up too..

Fretslayer,
Pick any shot you want .I am trying to stick with the storyboarded angles that I've done so to show as much overall ection in the battle while trying to keep it all cose as possible to the camera. I know i am intending to redo the shots of the attack force firing on the first Romulan and then the next shot where the formation turns toward the next Romualn. I want to do them from the oppisite angle so to get the starships closer in the shot.

Pick any shot you like. It's a smorgusboard. So fill your plate and ENJOY! I'm enthused to see what can be done off the bat.

Note: The animatics do not convey the accurate timing of the shots. They are more of a gneralized representation of the aciton. The aciton is supposed to start slow but graduate up to fast and furious.

Originally Posted by Taranis

Ok after a screw up on my part I have posted the main point of our chat to your thread Robert .. it showed as the first post ..

I am particularly looking forward to this collaboration.. It will I hope jazz or Star Trek threads up too..

Fine by me. Thanks for the assist.

[gmd3d]

its a massive body of work ..and very impressive to boot.. I have give this Thread a 5 rating and it something to behold..

Thanks...I'm honored.

I'd be pleased if it sufficiently gets rated "doesn't suck"

Feedback on it has been slow over time on Dennis's site. I can't blame them impatiently waitng for "The Tressairan Intersection" to finish being released.

[gmd3d]

I saw some of that over there but .. fan work is fan work .. no great studio behind them ..

what they do is mighty stuff

Ok, I'm going to stab at 12. A3-66 through 14. A3-72.
It will probably take me a few days since it's a good number of shots.
Also, do you want the shots all edited together so they play out as one larger scene?

I'm going to render to image so this way if you need to pick just frame X from shot Y you can do that easily. Once the shots are rendered to image I can edit them into video files (individual as well as the whole scene) and for that, let me know what type of compression you want. I will do a standard WMV file because you don't need a codec for it and it can compress the tar out of a file. More compression = lower quality though.

Also - Let me know what resolution you want this in.
My usuals are 800x450 or 720x480 - If you need something else, let me know and I can render to that.

With luck and caffiene I'll have something pretty cool to share with you in a day or so. I'll also post a few pics along the way in case I have something way wrong.

Fretslayer,
You are free to do as you wish. The size I upload to photobucket is 640x480. I like the anmiated gif due to I don't know how to make a movie file play in a browser window like a animated gif. If you can make it do that ...GREAT. I can't since I am still fumbling my way in learing to do this stuff. I'm winging this on the fly, and if you can do better then I can learn something to imrpove my presentation. I liked the anmimated gifs also due to it require no aciton on the part of anyone looking at the thread with nothing to click on to see it.

I normally would like them as separate shots. But if you want to string them together...fine by me. Just have fun. I'm definately wanting to see the results of your work.

By the way.....Thank you.

Thanks for the info.
I'll see if I can come up with a few different ways of presenting the video footage with no effort on the part of the viewer. I was sure if you were doing as I am and making a full on animated film (voices, effects, music and 'stuff').

I use a few different apps for video editing so odds are at least one of them will work for what you need.

I hope I come up with something that works for you.

Ultimately I want to go to video. Until then I am treating this as animated illustration to a storybook. As all this snowballs toward the goal of making the transition to video, I'll then hopefully have enough to where I can begin to edit sound in. If you want to do that to..great!

I am using fullphotoshop 5.0 to scan in my drawings and output them to pict files and pull them into Premirere 6.0 on a Mac G4 using OS 9.1. The digital photos of the models are opened and edited in photoshop before outputting them as pict files to premiere. I can only view the windows movie files on my wife's window's machine. So I can't view them unless I am on her machine. And I can't manipulate them either with her machine. Everything I have been doing has been on my old mac. I'm hoping to buy a Macbook by tax time next year. Our transmission on our van went out this year and I had to kiss the tax return goodbuy to keep our only vehicle running. LEt's hope something else doesn't break down before then.

Ok, that's cool. I need info like that because other wise I would have made you a 20-30 second clip like you'd see in a film. At the moment I have a few different animated short films in production and so my natural instinct is to create another.

But I see where you'er going with the book.
I think I can still come up with something that will work by improving the over all look of the images and still be in a form that is easy for the viewer to access.

I do all of my work on a machine that I assembled.
My system specs are in the thread where I posted my test footage.
It might not be a billion Ghz but I get a lot of horsepower out of it.

At the moment I'm rendering a scene for a friend - this scene has been rendering for 10h 47m and still have 4h 17m to go - it's 240 frames (10 sec @ 24fps) rendering at 720x480. The reason it's taking this long is that it is an explosion scene. I have mesh (high poly) being blasted to bits and motion blur on each bit. Add to that the lights and AVI file imported onto a plane and it can take some time to craft a scene like this. Oh, I use real video footage of explosions for my ...well, explosions. LOL!

Once it's finished I'll start on some of your scenes.

When you do get to the point where you make the leap to full on animated short film, let me know and I will do my best to help you any way I can.

Thanks. You bet.

The drawback I am having currently with the animated gif formats is that if I try to put too many frames into it, it starts dropping and skipping frames. So I am stuck in not overlaoding each file with too much. I have taken some of the hand drawn animatics to a more smoothed out file. But when i added another layer of inbetweens ot a3-48 the gif format chiked and I was forced to go to a .mov file format. And for me that stunk sicne I watned it to be playing automatically inside the browser window. And for me that is important since I am not only wanting the automatic visuals to assist in the story telling, but also have the visuals be a big fat baited hook for anyone browsing the stroy thread. I tohught it might work as a magnet to draw people into reading the stories. A friend on Dennis's site recommended a couple of months ago that I ought to do some drawings since most people ar visually oriented and don't read as much these days in relation to TV. So I did a few drawings and got mad realizing that I was going to need to do a wehole lot more if I was going to make any visual presentation of this work. Hence the hand drawn animatics which I began to do and post about 2 to 3 months back. I started about little over 3 weeks ago in making and posting the phtographed model updates to the animatics to upgrade the look and make it look less cartoony.

I'm willing to try anything seeing which way works best. But in time I want a full blown episode on DVD. Well...12 fully done eipsodes on DVD. But I have tottake it one step at a time. And anything offered by anyone to help is most welcome. Especially yours. I'm surprised at the swiftness of the responses on my first day on this board. Over where the story thread origionated...I was mostly hearing the crickets chirp. Encouraging difference here.

I hope to soon get back on drawing with pencil the last half of the shots for the episode and then doing model shots as well. Any CG done buy you or me or anyone here if working to the storyboards that work...WILL BE USED. And I'm not stingy about giving credit to those who help and will credit them up front.

It's nice to see some interest beginning to be seen given all the effort I've put into writing these withthe hopes that they one day would be produced. For a while I was beginning to think I was out of touch and not understanding what I was doing wrong in the appeal of the stories. I've had some feedback in the past year that has been reassuring and I'm not baffled anymore what the deal is. Alot of what is going on is in the VISUALS. And jsut text only is a lacking way to communicate that.

EDIT: One more thing. I am trying to do these shots in a way that is if they wee done by Anderson for Star Trek in 1968 like Starship Exeter is doing. But except when I need specific shots for the battle, I want everything to be completely indistinguishable from what was produced for Star Trek then. In a nutshell I am trying to be careful that the final look does not look "too perfect". The best exaple I can point to is how Dennis Bailey handles his lighting and contrast and details on the models. This is ultimately for what I am striving for as a end goal. But I am flexible on the road to getting there later on.

This site has some awesome model builders and the people are way cool as well.
I'm not surprised that you got the response that you did but I've been around here long enough to see (for lack of a better term) the quality of people here. Most of them (myself included) are found elsewhere around the net but I notice a different vibe here than I do with other CG forums.

Anyway, I think I understand where you are coming from with regards to your story.
I am a writer who taught myself to animate so I could get my stories out into the wild.
For me, it's all about the story - beautiful meshes are a thing to behold but without a story they're a still image - still something I think is really cool - but - when you see that mesh come to life and in combat or on that mission, it's much cooler.

As you may have noticed the ratio around here of modelers to animators is...well, I'm not sure there are many other animtors around here. LOL! I get a huge kick out of taking the meshes these guys work so hard on and then using them in animated shorts. I've gotten some feedback by a couple of modelers who enjoyed seeing their mesh(s) in action so it's a cool relationship between animator and modeler. I am all about giving credit to the guys who's meshes I use to tell my stories.

I have a few programs that I use to do my video editing with and I'll start taking a look at what their animated GIF limitations are. Perhaps there is another format that will work the same way but provide a smoother video. I'll look into it and see what I come up with. Also my main animation software might animate to GIF - It does just about everything else. LOL!


Speaking of full lenght projects - One that I am currently involved with is being done in 5 mintue mini-episodes. There will be a total of 5 of them (so the webmaster can update his site with a new chapter every two months) and when I get to the final episode, I'm going to go back and edit them all into one large file. That large file will be a 'Directors Cut' and instead of each episode being 5 mintues long they'll each be 6 minutes in length. This will keep the viewer (hopefully) interested enough to keep them coming back to the site for the next chapter and then finally for the full blown one.

If it goes over well and the response is more positive than negative I will begin production on part 2 which tells the 2nd half of the story. The story ties a bunch of different SciFi universes together in a pretty crafty way (if I do say so myself. ) but i can't let that cat out of the transporter just yet. LOL!

No spoilers please. Just provide the link and I'll be glad to give it a look. On the other hand my first 7 of the 12 stories are posted, so there really is no surprise ruined there since the web is the only place for now they can encouter them. I want them to be out in the open where the can be seen and read. Gotta get it to them somehow and I've got to start somewhere.

If you want to just do as you suggest as one windows movie file...that's fine. If I can watch it then that will be more than fiine. Who knows. You may start a contest in how cranks out the shots the best and the fastest. Odd idea that some may want to fight over which shots they want to do like kids fighting over who gets to play the part of the lead role in the school play. LOL:laugh: I would be so lucky. But for me it's like an employer in an environment wanting to hire someone, but the workforce is at full employment and no unemployed to be free to hire. That's realy what my siuation is here. Jump at the first offer and be happy about it. You bet!

[gmd3d]

I hope to see more Contests here in any direction possible .. its a idea for the future.

Most likely you will have to use many different programs to accomplish what you want. or a renderfarm of some kind.

Lightwave and Truespace etc. . can easily handle Space environments

and for you Bridge Crew and Sets. Poser or Cararra, DAZ would be the way to go proven by Fretslayer.
***********************************************************
I have not animated in a long time in lightwave .. but in you asteroid scene . there are a few ways to do it .. Hypervoxels.. it has been done, and done well
(I was talking with Fretslayer about this. and I started to think on it) if you have in your scene space filled with hypervoxel Asteroids your render is going to rocket up.. so your going to have to find some cheats to help that.

No now I am no AL3D or Fabio .. who know what they are about work in the business .. But I have an idea ..


in your Space shot. lightwave speaking I am sure other programs will be the some, (EG180 jump in here with any Truespace info )

You can render a background with distant Asteroids. and use that

then create your nearer Asteroids with very low poly details. these you could give a general motion


Close to your ships you can have the big ones small ones to interact with your ship..

just a few thoughts for that scene.. not sure how it would work. but worth a try.

Just got in from work and cleaning up after dinner.

Tyranis....thanks for the suggestions. The easiest way that i can think up for now is one that oyu mentioned. Do the asteroids separately and render the ships separately and then output them to premiere where I can composite the elements for output.

Contests. Fine by me. Execpt you guys already have me beat since I am a beginner. As soon as I learn how to build sometihng in 3d I'm happy to contribute and upload it here. Happy to do my part. Multiple applications? I would consider myself happy if I can get the live action in poser and the ships and sets in either the same package or do all in a dynamic app. I hear Blender is good for that. But I seem to read from some of the comments here that Truspace is good for mechanical stuff, but I am unsure if it could do decent characters.


The main characters I would need built for my storys would be...

Captain Garrovick
Commander Jo Harris
Commander Cutty
B'fuselek
Helmsman
Navigator
Commander Shelley
Kor Military Governor of Organia
Sub Praetor Darius kind of a David Werner / Jurgen Prunchow face personality
Commodore Stone
Commodore Wesley
Admiral Fitzpatrick
Captain Krasnozsky
Captain Chandra
Command Represenative Lindstrom
Captain Levy of the Hood
Commodore Jennings
Samuel Cogley
Numerous Romulan Officers and crew
Nunerous Klingon Officers and crew
Cyrano Jones
Bartender at K7
Station Manager Lourey of K7


That should MINAMALLy cover the bases.

I have 2 of the 3 shots from the first storyboard done and the 3rd is just waiting for me to create an asteroid layer and large rock-base-thing.

Fretslayer,
So tell! Do I get to open before Christmas?

Here is what I am doing at the moment.
I am making a ribbon of 1024x100 with little asteroids painted all over it.
I'll then map that onto a long plane and do a 'tile' effect on it so that it makes thousands of asteroids. With an 'Alpha Map' added the ribbon will then go transparent and only the asteroids will be visible.

Because this is a 'long shot' I can be a little 'loose and sloppy' with it where as if it were a close shot I would do a mixture of this and physical rocks (low poly with high def maps) and that would sell the effect.

I'll up load a couple of still shots to show ya.
I just need to remember how to do that darn thumbnail thing. LOL!

Goody!!!

Ok here are two still shots.
The red light you see is from the weapon which I added in post production but because I wanted the weapon to illuminate the ship I used a light source in the animation.

Sorry about the image size, I forgot how to do the thumbnail thing.
I've only done it once before and I've spent the last 3 days animating so my mind is focused in a different direction. I hope the image size doesn't give you grief on a dial-up connection.





edit-
Sorry - I forgot to credit the artists.
I don't have them on the image as the image is part of a series of moving images.

Mesh: Ktinga
Artist: Ebolii
LWO conversion: Matthew Christou
Carrara/DAZ/Poser conversion: Me

As a demo looks great. Movie era...but still fooks fantastiquo...just a little word I just made up to say how pretty I think it looks. The illunination looks awsome.

IMpressive for a demo still. Can wait to see this all put toether.

If the mesh is too movie era let me know and I'll rebuld the scenes with a different ship.

But if I might suggest something... There is a thread here where some of us are expressing disappointment in the digital remaster version of TOS because of the lack of quality models used in it.

I know (and do honestly understand) your desire to keep your story in the TOS era and settings, but I really think it could be a good idea to use some of the meshes with a more realistic look to them.

For these storyboards I've been trying to find a even keel between the TOS look/feel and the awesomeness of some of the meshes I've found.

I like your project and I want to do my best in helping you bring it to life.



Oh another thought/question.
I know you want to make it so that people can log in and check out your story without having to download anything, however if we make the images/movies in a flash format we can add sound and a lot better look. You can make a link to download Flash on the site and really, most people already have the ability to view the files because of the popularity of sites like YouTube.

I'm not trying to steer you down a bad road - I'm just brainstorming.
I hope you do not mind.

Brainstorming is fine.

The whole project is to have the look of 1968 Desilu / Anderson Star Trek in the models and effects to fit seamlessly into the Starship Exeter TOS 2nd / 3rd season timeframe. But what you have posted looks awsome nevertheless. And for realism...great bring it on for the demo your gonna wow me with. But when all the dust has settled my preference is to the best TOS ship models avaialbe. I personally would love to have my shots done with Dennis's Exeter model. But rewallistically I can only wish for that. He worked hard on it and I can't expect him to hand it out willy nilly to every person who asks.

I personally HATED TOS-Remastered. There's a thread for that here? Just a sec while I sharpen my meat cleavers......