My Old USS Enterprise

[scifieric]

I gave another try to recreating the look of the 11 foot model for the opening of The Galileo Seven.  I think closer, but I need to work on the warp engine domes and the film grain.  A little too pronounced, I think.

[scifidude79]

It looks good to me, but I also haven't watched that episode with the original effects in years.

[scifieric]

It looks good to me, but I also haven't watched that episode with the original effects in years.

Thank you!

Here's a screen capture of the original effect.

[Prime_8]

cool .
looks like the original has a hard light someplace off to the right.

I wonder if they have info on the set lighting layout, ie model the original set lighting rig. LOL  .. crazy ?

[scifidude79]

They did some pretty harsh lighting back in the day. It's doubtful anyone still alive even remembers how the lighting was done.

It looks like your bussards are a tad golden and black compared to the original effect, which are more of a wine color with the bright highlights.

[Freak]

Look good Eric.
I agreed with Chris, your bussards look the wrong colour, but the monitor I am using is not that great.
So I am glad that Chris mention it.

[scifieric]

cool .
looks like the original has a hard light someplace off to the right.

I wonder if they have info on the set lighting layout, ie model the original set lighting rig. LOL  .. crazy ?

They did some pretty harsh lighting back in the day. It's doubtful anyone still alive even remembers how the lighting was done.

It looks like your bussards are a tad golden and black compared to the original effect, which are more of a wine color with the bright highlights.

Look good Eric.
I agreed with Chris, your bussards look the wrong colour, but the monitor I am using is not that great.
So I am glad that Chris mention it.

The color is probably because of some of the settings I'm choosing in Filmic Color Management. I think I have the domes too reflective.  I think the original was more "frosted" so I'll give that a try.

Scott, Chris is right.  Plus, there were a couple of effects houses that provided the effects.  If I get nutty about really trying to completely duplicate everything, including the lighting,  all I'll have to do is study a couple of frames and see where the highlights are on the model.  I should be able to extrapolate from that.

It would all have to be done with spotlights instead of area lights.  Hmm.  I'll have to think about that.

Thanks guys!  I appreciate the feedback!

[MadKoifish]

Hard thing is your looking to reproduce not just a filmed object and the lights and grain but a printed FX object which was printed multiple times after the first print.

What I would do is render a plate then do post to correct light color balance etc as much of the effect of color is due to the process of how they got the ship on that starfield. This avoids you re rendering fooling with material A to match then having material B all wrongs or fooling with contrast etc.

Tip
Render out a color diffuse pass. This is full ambient and only contains color. I usually do this with a skylight in max. This can be used to adjust color or as a way to boost color. It also allows toy to adjust color tone or temperature without re rendering.

Render a monotone image, drab out saturation or better if the tool has it render to film B&W Adds some nerdflow. This gives you a plate to work with by adding a desaturation layer over the color. Or to isolate brights and darks in the image. Effective as another method in controlling contrast etc.

Render a AO pass for all those darkened corners. This is used as a multiply or darken overlay sometimes as a burn and adjusted in how transparent it is. It effectively darkens corners or joins between changes in direction of a object.

Render a basic plate so this is where lighting and enviro comes in do this as a fairly flat image so try to get as much range from purle black to pure white. Avoid any blow out of either range. EXP white as more often you can recover some detail in the darks (most monitors are set up too dark with blown whites) This all relates to clipping of light or dark. It gives you a range to work in correcting it later on. You can levels adjust or brightness contrast or overlay other diffuse passes to create other lighting efx or even overlay a higher contrast render and adjust the transparency. You can even break this up more and render a ambient pass directed light A B C D and composite them all then you can adjust them independently of each other. Currently I can see at least 3 key lights with a full ambient rig. Gloss on the front of the saucer light A, shadows of the strut on the hull light B Highlights or brightness on the aft end top of the near nacelle light C
Light A is set to the Right between camera and ship and slightly below causing the bridge to darken.
Light B is set to the Left kinda behind and slightly the ship.
Light C is to the left between the camera and ship and above the waistline.


The original starfield is more variable, instead of starting out with what they have Id do a plain non altered starfield with the tos color ranges and then overlay a blue noise layer perlin or something blotchy as a additive layer so you get that gradient in those blue stars in the cap.

Base plate should look something like this. (sans my overlay dark deflector)


The ship I would increase your ambient a bunch avoid ant black clipping or anything dropping to black at all. Darkest things in the original are the rings around the bussards and maybe shadowed details in those pipes at the back of the nacelles.  Compare the darkest range to the lightest range IE where it clips. you will see that the original fx the shadows are all very "thin" or transparent. So this means a contrasty projected key is coming in from the left backside (closest strut is casting a shadow on the secondary hull)

nacelle domes a lazy way to fix those is to render them as unlit flat light colored objects and add your lit domes as a separate layer and adjust the strength of them (of course the layer should be additive (screen dodge etc) I found a pinky orange best matches it.

Something I see in a lot of the TOS fvx is a ambient shadow color that goes rusty. Look at some outdoor images and youll often see shadows are blue toned. Then look at that fvx cap youll see a lot of the shadows are this rusty tone. So keep that in mind when you render. ATM your render looks like the shadow tone is set to black. This is something I think coolhand mentioned to me to NEVER use black as a shadow color in light settings always a few clicks of blue. So in the RGB field most of my lights are 0.0.2 or 0.0.7. In this case you might want to set to a yellowish red or red. then use the AO pass to adjust it further. This coloured shadow can be seen in the fx shot around the top and bottom of the neck over the front of the bridge and the front of the far nacelle. In max it is called object shadows, dunno if that would help in relating to blender etc.


Key thing if the wall of words is too much is to render a bland plate shot and do it in post do not attempt anything in render, you just spend hours on something that is done with a few sliders in PS or as an adjustment layer.

Oh it might also help to use I think it was trekcore to see if they have caps of the brd prints of the original efx. The brds have a option to see cgi or original. ok nevermind it is som eother site as trekcore is cgi or dvd originals only. GRRR

their caps are really blown vs yours. software filters and settings likely. first image really shows that rusty shadow thing.
http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_001.JPG
http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_002.JPG

Oh and one more thing be careful with spot lights. You can get a tonne of sharp shadows. You might want to look at omnis with attenuation to make up for the uneven lighting. IE she is a 11foot model in a confined room. 60s lighting is not as strong and 60s film likely from the 50s or older was not as sensitive. We do know it was HOT as all the blokes are nearly nekkid in promo shots of them then again it is likely LA in july too. hah. Anyhow the fx cap shows some fall off in strength in the lighting. IE backside of the nacelles vs the near front it dimms down and picks up light from the right.

[MadKoifish]

Ok that was getting hard to edit and work on as the entry window was so small. What I will do is show some examples of the mentioned renders. All files are alpha pngs so they can be played with. Keep in mind the final comp is weak as always work about 2 to 3 times final rez. This makes the efx appear more subtle and gives you more to work with.

base ambient plate

this matches as best the lighting conditions. note bussards are capped as even at 800X it was taking forever.


Full diffuse or ambient. This is a color plate.


AO plate adds corner shadowing and can be used to adjust shadow tone some or as a AO intensifier without render time chewing set up in a diffuse pass. AO should render the fastest.


mono pass or grayscale. This is to use to desaturate but can be skipped. I should have blacked out the windows.


Self light pass. this allows adjusting of all ship lights. It can be chopped up into peices or rendered as multiple passes to suit needs. This is always used as an additive layer. Can also be used for light blooms streaks and even lens flare generators.


This one is a mono lighting pass. Note I remembered to black out the ship windows. I tend to do this to avoid odd bloom or rainbowing of various layers having various tints on them as well as they tend to blow out. If you reander one of these for each light you can use this to lite the ship with just these and that full diffuse render. This gives you control of intensity as well as control over shadow and light color.


This is the same as the last one but not in monotone. You loose some control with this but I used it in the final comp to show how it works.


This is my final comp of the layers while the ship is off a bit and shadows are not matching and I have a few issues here and there I was able to adjust it to match much easier than in render.

What I really lack is that unbalanced contrast and really probably should have been lit stronger IE flattened out in a wider HDR look.

Anyhow might be what you are doing already lol. Ill try to upload the psd too.
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[scifieric]

Madkoifish, this is absolutely spectacular!  You've given us a complete course in rendering!  I shall absolutely study this and try to do what you suggest.  I love the result, so I'm going to try my best to duplicate what you have outlined here.

Thank you.

[Prime_8]

wow yeah .

like holy heck.  Im happy when i have like 2 or 3 layers.

[MadKoifish]

no prob

real issue is animation, without resorting to pro soft and silly prices for it such as finalcutpro vegas or premier/after efx. Not found a good freeware or cheaper alt yet. Though there is the hard way of doing this all in photoshop and exporting it to a video. lol

Anyhow most of the above apps work just like photoshop gimp etc so the layer tricks work there. You just have to animate your noise/grain fields or find a good plate sample of multiple versions of the same make of film grain. I tend to like Tmaxx as I used to shoot with it a lot. dunno I just liked the grain on that brand exp when making enlargements.

[scifieric]

I still need to devote time to the Madkoifish approach to imaging, but I've been working every day for 12 - 16 hours, and getting calls when I'm asleep, so I've been a little busy.

But, I did some thinking the other day about where I started.  I'm attaching two different attempts at the same image.  One is from when I first started with TrueSpace, and one from this year.  There is a bit of a difference.

[scifidude79]

Obviously, the Truespace image is far superior.

Seriously, it's fun looking back sometimes. But, it can also be traumatic. You've definitely come a long way in 21 years.

[scifieric]

Obviously, the Truespace image is far superior.

Seriously, it's fun looking back sometimes. But, it can also be traumatic. You've definitely come a long way in 21 years.

Even though I had the same thought and wondered if anyone would mention it, I laughed SO HARD at that!  Thank you, my friend!