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On The HorizonWorking on something? With a 2D or 3D app? Is it SF - Fantasy - Real world? Let's see it!
To post art for Battlestar Galactica, go to our sister site- Colonial Fleets
This is the first time I've really gotten involved with things around here. For anyone who doesn't know me, I very recently finished production of what I'm told is the Star Trek fan community's first complete CG fan film, Star Trek: Specter. In that project, feedback from my fellow 3D-ers proved invaluable in improving the story and visuals. If you haven't seen it, check out the Wiki for a synopsis and links to where you can see it.
Well, as the title of the thread implies, I'm starting work on the sequel, Star Trek: Retribution. So far, the primary discussion has been at another site whose name I won't mention, but I've been encouraged to seek fan involvement here as well, so I thought I'd offer up the project and see what the clientele around here might think.
Here are the first four scenes, as well as the fifth, all on YouTube.
The basic plot of Retribution is: the year 2388. It's been almost ten years since the events of Nemesis, since which the Romulans have plunged into a bloody civil war. Then, suddenly, about one year ago, the Romulan sun went supernova, with no warning and no explanation. Then, when allegations surface that a Starfleet vessel was sighted in the area just before the nova reaction began, the Romulans unite behind a call for revenge.
On the eve of a massive Romulan invasion, Starfleet learns of the rumors of their involvement, and dispatches the USS F. Scott Fitzgerald under the command of Captain Bradley Prentice to New Romulus to investigate the possibility.
But things take an unexpected turn when, while en route to New Romulus, the ghost of Dr. Braiyon Garr appears on the Fitzgerald, and warns Admiral Gaius Reyf that only death awaits him beyond the Neutral Zone, and that even if the Romulans don't kill him, Garr certainly will.
Facing an unstoppable Romulan foe on one side, and a superior officer on the other who he's certain is hiding something, it falls to Captain Prentice to prove the Federation's innocence and discern Reyf's dark secret--or everything will be lost.
Last edited by tnpir4001; January 26th, 2011 at 07:10 AM..
Thanks for posting this here too tnpir. I know its a big deal posting such a involved project on more than one site. I hope our members here will be post ideas and feed back. I know its like a fuel for creative drive. at least for me..
there are many different elements in this and many great models and for someone working alone a incredible task, its a pleasure to have you posting it here too.
I watch the new clip and the clips before and its shaping up to be another great story.
I like the personal little quirks for the crew, and I am wondering if relationships between the Captain and Admiral will strain more over the course of this mission.
Are there any tutorials around that we could host here.
or in the future if you can pass on any of your skills. (of course when if ever you have time, being the director, producer, grips and chief bottle washer is time consuming )
we have tut for other progs in the tutorial link above but nothing for Daz Bryce or poser sadly
I've never made any real tutorials so unfortunately I don't have anything like that to offer. The best advice I can give is to quote Tanis from the VOY episode "Cold Fire." He said, "Focus on the goal--not the task."
I'll give you an example. In Specter, by far the most elaborate set I built was the Voyager bridge. The wireframe on it would drive lesser beings mad because of how ridiculously cluttered it is (by necessity--Bryce's tools are primitive and practically everything on that set is a Boolean of one size or another). But, I approached that exactly the same way as I did the other sets: started off with the Paramount blueprints for the set (the layout from above anyway), and then just started building, one item at a time. The way I kept myself going was by focusing on one single item and just going at it until it was finished.
My advice to anyone else who wants to duplicate what I've done is to not let the overwhelming nature of the task daunt you. A lot of people seem to chase instant gratification, but if you want the quality I've achieved, it's not going to happen quickly. I put a lot of TLC into all of my sets, and I daresay it shows--I researched the evolution of each set as its respective series progressed (mostly through screencaps from TrekCore.com), and chose the color scheme and lighting setup I liked the best. Then I searched for LCARs--Adge's Site was and continues to be an incredible asset there--and once one set was finished, I'd simply move on to the next.
As for Poser, the bulk of my time goes into working in Poser on the characters. Advocates for motion capture will tell you that it's a much easier way to go--easier maybe, but it doesn't give you the kind of control over the motions of your characters that I prefer to have.
My approach when animating in Poser is to start off with the lip synch--which is done with DAZ's Mimic Pro--and then synchronize the motions of the characters with whatever dialogue is being said. Most of the shots will be a character against a black screen, with the background plate matted in later, but some shots will involve a character moving, and the camera moving to follow. For those shots, what I'll do is render a super-sized background plate, add a touch of blur to it, then import it onto a large wall plate (what you might call a "billboard") that will be fully visible at all times during the animation.
This has the net effect of a character walking around in front of a matte painting. As they move and the camera moves, the "scenery" behind them appears to move accordingly. This approach does have its drawbacks, it's quick and efficient and, in the right hands, can make for some good scenes. An animator who knows what they're doing can completely disguise the fact that this is taking place.
As for the character motions themselves, all I can say is that for best results, perform the dialogue yourself before you animate it, and it'll give you a better feel for how your characters will move and look. Then the animating process becomes easy--trying to animate motions and expressions you don't understand results in the CG equivalent of "wooden" performances.
That's just some quick and dirty thoughts I'll see what else I can offer as I make the next clip.
That´s great and very informative. as you post any hints or trick over time. I well see that they are compiled together and added to a PDF or loaded to the site tutorials area...
we can review it first and edit it too.
if that sounds good to you.
at the moment I am working on a classic Enterprise tutorial
That's some really nice animation work. I haven't watched all of the clips yet but I will later. Do you have a link to Star Trek: Spectre? I tried Google but didn't find it.
Have you seen this one? http://www.auroratrek.com/index.html It's not complete but it's another totally CG Trek film. (the final act is due out in the spring)
@evil_genius_180: links to several different versions of Specter are available at The Wiki, my recommendation would be to view The Ultimate Edition, which is all on Vimeo and in much larger chunks than The Director's Edition, which aside from being older is in 15-minute blocks on YouTube.
@evil_genius_180: please do let me know how you like Specter when you watch it Just be warned of the runtime, it's three hours nine minutes in length. Make sure you have plenty of popcorn!
@evil_genius_180: please do let me know how you like Specter when you watch it Just be warned of the runtime, it's three hours nine minutes in length. Make sure you have plenty of popcorn!
I liked it, nicely done on the story, animation and everything else. How long did it take to put that together? It seems to me like a lot of time spent animating and rendering. Also, I noticed an extensive voice cast and yet a lot of the voices sounded the same. Is there another audio track?
I also watched the scenes from Retribution that you have done. It looks like it's shaping up to be a great sequel. I'm looking forward to seeing more.
@evil_genius: Specter was a WIP for almost four and a half years, it was started in August 2006 and it was finished right after New Year's 2011. As for the voice cast, the names that appear in the credits are people who auditioned and were cast for various parts, however there were complications and I decided not to move forward. (Long story short, I let myself get pressured into doing a casting call before I was ready, and then when the time came for my voice actors to do their part, many of them didn't; and rather than go through the whole process again, I decided to simply chalk it up as a learning experience and move on. I won't make that same mistake again--some of the folks I cast in Specter have been nagging me to send them scripts, but based on the number of rewrites I did in Specter before it was finished, that's not going to happen until a full cut of Retribution is complete)
And I'm just curious...there's one scene in Specter that split the fan base right down the middle, and that's Scene 38, "The Holodeck," right after Reyf visits Garr's old office, in which the good captain finally cracks the case. How did you like that part?
@evil_genius: Specter was a WIP for almost four and a half years, it was started in August 2006 and it was finished right after New Year's 2011. As for the voice cast, the names that appear in the credits are people who auditioned and were cast for various parts, however there were complications and I decided not to move forward. (Long story short, I let myself get pressured into doing a casting call before I was ready, and then when the time came for my voice actors to do their part, many of them didn't; and rather than go through the whole process again, I decided to simply chalk it up as a learning experience and move on. I won't make that same mistake again--some of the folks I cast in Specter have been nagging me to send them scripts, but based on the number of rewrites I did in Specter before it was finished, that's not going to happen until a full cut of Retribution is complete)
And I'm just curious...there's one scene in Specter that split the fan base right down the middle, and that's Scene 38, "The Holodeck," right after Reyf visits Garr's old office, in which the good captain finally cracks the case. How did you like that part?
yes its a problem at the best of time with team efforts some don´t follow through. pity
@evil_genius: Specter was a WIP for almost four and a half years, it was started in August 2006 and it was finished right after New Year's 2011. As for the voice cast, the names that appear in the credits are people who auditioned and were cast for various parts, however there were complications and I decided not to move forward. (Long story short, I let myself get pressured into doing a casting call before I was ready, and then when the time came for my voice actors to do their part, many of them didn't; and rather than go through the whole process again, I decided to simply chalk it up as a learning experience and move on. I won't make that same mistake again--some of the folks I cast in Specter have been nagging me to send them scripts, but based on the number of rewrites I did in Specter before it was finished, that's not going to happen until a full cut of Retribution is complete)
Thanks for the explanation for the voice cast. Did you do most of the voices yourself?
I figured you had to be working on this for years. Your hard work certainly paid off. I noticed a couple rough spots but most of the animation was smooth. Though, those could have been due to the film itself, the fact that it was streaming or the Nvidia driver for Linux. I was watching the video in Chromium (the open source version of Google Chrome) on PCLinuxOS. Every now and then, I see funky stuff happen with video that's fine in Windows due to the Linux video card drivers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnpir4001
And I'm just curious...there's one scene in Specter that split the fan base right down the middle, and that's Scene 38, "The Holodeck," right after Reyf visits Garr's old office, in which the good captain finally cracks the case. How did you like that part?
I don't have a problem with that. We've seen on lots of episodes where various characters have had fascinations with the past. Picard and Data recreated Shakespeare plays on the holodeck all of the time. Additionally, Picard also had his Dixon Hill fixation, Data loved Sherlock Holmes. Tom Paris on Voyager was a huge 20th century buff. He recreated all kinds of 20th century stuff on the holodeck, he even built a car on there. B'Elanna even replicated a TV for him once so that he could watch it in their quarters. Trip Tucker on Enterprise loved old horror films. There are other examples but I've made my point.
So, Garr being a 20th century buff and liking that particular TV show was not a problem for me. (for the record, I love that show also, so at least he has good taste) The truth is, we have no idea how popular media of today will be accepted 300+ years in the past. A show, song, book, whatever, that we find dreadful might become some future person's love. So, for me personally, what you did works just fine for me.
Unless that wasn't what split the fans.
BTW, did you guys build that set or was it pulled from the PC game and converted? Either way, it was beautiful.
Thanks for the explanation for the voice cast. Did you do most of the voices yourself?
I did all of them myself. For Reyf, the pitch was simply lowered by 10%. You can tell I'm voicing him though because he and Garr pronounce certain things the same way. Also, "Dennis Gard Robb" is an anagram of "Brandon Bridges."
Yes, yes I do
Quote:
Unless that wasn't what split the fans.
Nope, that's what split the fans (Well, that and the piano version of the theme from King of the Hill that Reyf is listening to in his quarters early on!) As I said, that split the fan base right down the middle, between those who thought its shock value made it perfect for Garr's character, and those who thought it didn't show his insanity nearly so well as it showed mine.
Quote:
BTW, did you guys build that set or was it pulled from the PC game and converted? Either way, it was beautiful.
You guys? Specter was all me That's why it took so long, I did everything from start to finish! But no, this wasn't from the video game, I built that set through six years of painstaking research. We have Golden-Road.net to thank for a lot of the reference material I used (you'll notice the site's name appears during the end credits), along with HD screencaps from the current seasons of the show, and consults with actual staffers (again, see end credits). I'm very proud of that set because it's as accurate to the real thing as it's possible to get--you can even see the producers' tables off to the side, which feature fully detailed control panels and everything.
I'm going off on a tangent, but on the subject of sets recycled from other franchises: the Dimensional Portal Room from the Technodrome (classic TMNT cartoon) and a redressed version of the Genomex set (Mutant X TV series) also appear as rooms in Garr's laboratory complex. I'm going to try to keep that to a minimum this time, but we'll see.
Last edited by tnpir4001; February 1st, 2011 at 11:27 AM..
I've thought about doing what you did with Spectre and doing a one-man-show kind of deal with a CG animated film (not that long, though.) However, the sheer enormity of such a project gives me pause. Even using other peoples' meshes (which I rarely do because I hate converting meshes) it would be a huge undertaking. You are certainly very high on my list of cool people right now. You did that all yourself. Wow.
@evil_genius: now you know why it took four and a half years Those sets didn't build themselves, you know! That's also why Retribution is going so much faster, because now I have all the source material already made, constructed, and lit, and so it's just plug and play.
Yeah, I don't think I'd want to do everything myself. For one thing, rigging characters in trueSpace is a PITA. I've been trying to learn Blender but it's been slow going, even slower since I got involved in a project in late 2010 that required actual skills, so I had to default back to trueSpace for that project instead of trying to bumble around in Blender.
BTW, what kind of hardware did you use to render everything?
If characters are your hangup, do what I do: cheat 97% of my character animations are Poser animations rendered against a bluescreen, with the backgrounds matted in later. Most of the remainder (those with moving cameras) are still Poser animations, just rendered with a matte painting in the background to facilitate the camera motion. The remaining 1% are Poser animations imported into Bryce, to make use of interactive lighting (these are the rarest because they take the longest to render). The former two are being used in Retribution, while I have yet to make use of the latter.
As for hardware, I have a total of four systems that I'm using: two quad-core Dell towers, each with 8GB RAM and multi-gigahertz 64-bit processors, which handle basically all the animations. Those systems are running Windows Vista, if you can believe that...I should've taken advantage of the inter-movie downtime to upgrade them to Windows 7, but that'll come later. Then I have a quad-core Acer Aspire 8930G (one of their Gemstone Blue line) that handles most of the still background plates, also with a multi-gigahertz x64 processor. The Poser animations were rendered on my primary development machine, a more humble dual-core system with 4GB RAM and a 2.66gHz 32-bit processor.
Here's a little tip: some of the animations I'm rendering have absolutely atrocious render times. That Price is Right set from Specter is one example--a simple 5-second (150 frames, 1128x480 frame size) animation could take as much as eight days to render, and that Voyager bridge is almost as bad, with each 1128x480 frame needing around eight hours to render (so just think about how long that one scene that had a bunch of shots of the Voyager bridge took to put together!).
My answer to this is to do one of two things:
1. Partial Renders - to the frustration of some of my viewers, background plates have appeared in some preview and demo clips that are heavily pixellated and very much only partially done. What I'll typically do is get just enough of a background plate rendered so you can tell what it is (or less than that if it's not important), and then move on with production while one of my secondary machines renders the full plate. When ready, the full plate can be easily substituted for the "quickie" in my video editor.
2. Rough Animatics - I discovered this approach while working on Scene 38, but it's a good trick because in situations where you need the entire background animation or plate and you need it quickly, because it matters that much, the solution is to render the shot using the least memory-intensive settings possible. In Bryce, this means turning off shadows, reflections, refractions, transmissions, turning off anti-aliasing and turning on the Preview Render option. This will give you a render at the proper frame size really quickly, which has the added benefit of allowing you to see if the camera motion you've made will work the way you want it, and also allowing you to line up any other effects or Poser shots you might need. Then, as before, while I move on with production, the two secondary computers do the render work, and when the real one's ready, like before, the real ones can be easily subbed in for the quickies.
I need to get a quad core. I bought a motherboard that could handle one when I built my PC but the price was right (ha) on a dual-core and I was on a budget, so i bought that. Though, from the sound of things, if I want to get serious about animation, I need at least a couple more computers. My other computer is an Athlon single-core, I might be able to do some light animation on it, but that would involve installing Windows on it (ugh) or learning how to animate in Blender. Right now I mostly just do flybys with blinking lights and camera movement and things like that but I'd like to get into some more serious animation. Your films are motivating to that end, they make me want to go animate everything right now.
"They make me want to go animate everything right now."
Beware these words As I said, Specter took four and a half years of building, rebuilding, rebuilding again, and just plain patience. I would urge you to be patient in what you do, there were some points during Specter when I got in a hurry and cut corners, but it came back to haunt me every single time. My strongest advice is to take things one step at a time, be efficient as I described earlier but also, be aware that if you cheap out on set design or character animation, your product will suffer greatly. (I'll give you an example from Specter when I cheaped out and I still hate myself for it: there's a scene where Data and Reyf are talking to Dr. Falwell via subspace, and they're both basically just standing there the entire time, little or no movement, and to me that amounts to a boring scene! Much less dynamic than the two scenes that bracket it)
Dude, you're preaching to the choir. I'm meticulous to the point of being anal retentive when I build and render anything. I'll stop a 24 hour render at hour 23:59 if I think something isn't right, go back and rework it and then start the render again. In fact, that's probably why I don't get things done as quickly as I'd like to. I'd probaby take at least a decade to do anything near as complex as Spectre. Aside from being anal retentive, I also get bored and have to take "breaks" from time to time.
Fan Film WIP: Star Trek: Retribution
