B5 Special Effects Remake (attempt)

I don't envy your CPU when you start blowing things up.

I was wondering about costs, because a lot of the nicer models I've ever seen are sold.

You said you are at around 30 mins a frame right now? 30 minutes times 30 frames per second of video, several minutes of CGI in that episode...

Yeah.. lol, thats going to take a while.

You said you are at around 30 mins a frame right now? 30 minutes times 30 frames per second of video, several minutes of CGI in that episode...

Yeah.. lol, thats going to take a while.

The post work takes some additional time as well because if its a scene with more than one layer (most fx heavy scenes) i have to combine them in post.
But using real explosion footage for example will make this a little easier. If i would use computer generated fire and explosions it would take decades

Edit:

Ok just started working on the fx in one short scene.
This particular scene is almost complete in its setup there are just a few things i have to address like the lightning on the aft section the H on the forward Section and proper alignment of the background.

That is a really beautiful shot. I have to say, I actually really like the lighting in it. The dark rear and front of the ship give the illusion of the camera adjusting to the brighter explosion at the center of the image, the way your eye does when suddenly exposed to a bright light.

I noticed, however, the edge of your backdrop image is visiable in the upper right.

Edit: I've also always favored darker lighting in space than most Sci-Fi shows have. Space is retarded dark, unless youhave a local star to illuminate things. Even then, anything facing away from the star is going to be very dark uness there is another object to reflect light back at it. And honestly, space is mostly empty. Shape distinctions between light and dark have always given me a better feel for just how dark and cold most of space is

[TheTechMaster]

Thx for you offers and i think its a very nice idea to split up the workload but there is one issue Lightwave 8.3 lacks several features that are needed in the render process like the photorealistic motion blur and the perspective camera.

Oh, I've got it. I just never installed it because I am not using a 64 bit OS because I hate VISTA.

Now, if 9.x version will work in XP at 32 bit then I can install it and we can rock this pig!

Just a small update note i havent forgotten about this i am still on it I was just a little busy the last few days with other tasks.

[Tigerclaw]

Cool.

I know, I'm so looking forward to more shots! They are beautiful. And, I'm better there are at least a couple on here that would pay the cost of a DVD-R and shipping and handling to get a copy when you are done

Ok i got the short scene finished i was working on well sort of i am still not happy with a few elements of it like the camera shake.There is one very annoying limitation to all this,all the animations must be exactly as long as the originals otherwise video and sound start to de-sync.

http://lemon-wolf.de/animation_test.zip
Its encoded with Xvid which should work with most media players.

I have another scene almost ready and i keep you updated

Apparently this computer doesn't have the codex... Rebuilding my system right now, so I'm on someone elses. Can't wait to check it out.

An option for sound might be to redo it as well. Instead of worrying about the timing, do the sound yourself. The only real issue, I think, would be dialog. The sound effects and music would be easy enough to generate.

Redoing the sound? Oh boy i have no idea how to do that.
Besides i am not sure that it will work because i would need the music as a separate audio stream i think.

I have several CDs worth of Babylon 5 music I'm pretty sure I could find the matching music to rip to mp3 for you.

Weapons fire and explosions are typical SFX stuff.

I just figure thats really the only possible way you can render the scenes longer than original.

[Tigerclaw]

We don't have to re-do the sound.

We just overlay the new FX and we make sure they match the sound.

That is exactly what they did for Star Trek the special edition.

Just an update i havent forgotten about this but i was very busy with a new job lately and i am working again on this.
I finished the scene i was working on the last time.
Here one screenshot of it:



I am working on the next one now and i might be able to post a quick preview picture of it if rendertimes permit it.

[TheTechMaster]

We really need to get on the stick and start actually trying to do this.

If it were possible to find several CGI artists willing to donate the time, we could probably re-do every CGI shot in the show.

That would be great if we could find some artists willing to help. A friend of mine has a medium sized renderfarm and he might help. The problem is the actual amount of data involved. The used 3d meshes,textures the rendered raw data.
But once that is split up amongst more artists it would become easier to handle.

Oh btw here a quick preview shot of the next scene. Its just a raw scene setup so nothing too fancy yet.