DS9 on blu ray?

The wormhole was a CG effect. I believe it was created by Rhythm & Hues (the same company that did the CG for the Klingon Encounter ride at STTE), unfortunately the company went under last year.

 

Well there's no way CBS-D would let something subpar pass for the wormhole. Considering it's so critical to the show, and will be reused again and again throughout the series. If the VFX for it are lost and/or too old to be used in modern software you can bet that they will take a lot of time and energy getting it right.

 

We'll see how 20+ year old files stand up to a modern HD treatment when it happens. For right now, I'd assume that it would be easier and more practical to just recreate new ships from scratch with the newest CG technology.

As for recreating the scenes faithfully, that wasn't my issue. It was having the opportunity to show more ship designs than the outdated Excelsior, Miranda, and Klingon BoP we constantly saw. What actually happened in those scenes makes no difference to me.

I wasn't talking about the model shots needing to be changed, only the CGI fleet scenes we saw in seasons 6 & 7.

And as I said before, that HD upconvert of the Nebula looks fake and cartoony to me. They can say it looks awesome all they want, but it doesn't to me.

Who said anything about changing every little detail? All I said was that if they have to recreate the CGI fleet scenes (a possible necessity for an HD transfer, not a change just for the sake of changing things a la Lucas), then it would be nice to have a little more variety with the ship designs. That's hardly making Greedo shoot first or have R2-D2 peek out from behind a boulder sideways.

 

Recreating from scratch is easier? Not at all!

The sheer amount of effort CBS-D have to put in to recreate the few TNG CG elements from scratch is HUGE. Doing that with DS9 would be financially crippling for any project.

 

Have you even read the article on TrekCore? It says that the models were generally "overbuilt" for SD resolution by the CGI artists.

With some tweaks and obviously some updated/higher res versions of the ship's textures it sure seems like they could be just fine. Re-rendering them with modern tools to create more realistic interactive lighting, etc. would make all the difference. That is not starting over from scratch, just enhancing what assets they have. As FrontierTrek said, it would be one helluva task to actually start from scratch.

 

Fans hoping for 15 minute space battles with thousands of ships should prepare to be disappointed.

 

I'd settle for some battling starships not missing names and registry numbers.

 

But if the original CGI won't stand up to an HD remaster, then the point is moot. Just like Babylon 5, the CGI would have to be recreated from scratch (which is why Babylon 5 will never be on BluRay, for exactly the reasons you mention).

Yes, I did read the article. I just don't buy that the files will still be viable several years down the road when seasons 6 & 7 get remastered. But we'll see.

 

That's only part of the problem, some of it was in fact rebuilt for HD for The Lost Tales. The bigger problem is that the original CGI appears to be long gone since the two companies that did it have folded up. So we may never know what the state of those assets were.

This is also a bit of inappropriate comparison since we're talking about B5 which was widely using CGI earlier than DS9, and B5 had a smaller budget than any '90s Trek series.

Viable how? It's not like 1080p will suddenly become higher resolution. 1080p is 1080p.

Did you mean viable in software compatibility? If that were true, it should be a problem now, given the leaps and bounds Lightwave has taken over the years. Yet Bonchune said his models load up fine.

 

No offense, but reading the latest posts makes it almost sound like I missed the announcement for the release date of Season One of DS9.

According to The Making of DS9 they used early SD resolution CGI Tools to paint over production flaws on the sets. If an "We can fix it in post production" attitude was rather the rule than the exception the remastering work could get more extensive (= expensive) than on TNG.

And one of the things that are impossible to fix are scenes that were out of focus. In SD resolution they could get away with this but in HD such flaws will show.

I think CBS-D will first need to check and estimate how to fix those early production hickups before even worrying what do with the CGI VFX of - Seasons Six and Seven (!)

Bob

 

Interesting, there have been several instances where they've done this in TNG-HD, typically covering up mics, stands or ceilings that weren't supposed to be seen. If this was a common issue in DS9, it would indeed take quite a bit more time to remaster the show than TNG.

 

One has to wonder why they didn't just do it right the first time while filming instead of wasting money "fixing" things after filming.

 

I think that was very common at the time (and even still today), where directors and producers get the idea that they can "fix it in post." DS9 was created at a time where it was becoming easier and cheaper to correct mistakes digitally after filming had completed.

That doesn't really answer the question as to "why" they decided to not "do it right" while filming, but it was pretty common in many TV shows and movies.

For example, look at almost any of today's movies FX reels and there will be what appears to be needless CG manipulation. An example I see over and over is a scene outside, in a park or otherwise, where their may be a bare spot in the grass, rather than spend then $25 and half an hour of work to patch in a new section of turf, they spend X thousands of dollars to "fix it in post" and go in and paint in the grass, frame by frame.

 

Possible reasons

Money. (After all it might be cheaper to fix it in post)
Time.
Guest star availability.
No one noticed untill the episode was being edited together.
It was the best take.

 

Working as a professional 3D artist I'd like to point out that the original scene files would still provide a perfect starting point for any upgraded CGI-shots, because 50% - 75% of the work is basically the choreography of the shots - camera angles and movements, ship positions and trajectories, the lighting... even effects like lasers, torpedoes and explosions might already be part of the scenes in some form or another (be it just as placeholders or sprite cards). All of this is stuff that could easily be kept as is, which saves an incredible amount of work.

Based on these scene files it's relatively easy to swap out ships for more detailed 3D models and higher-res textures (should that be necessary), but all the animation work is already timed and framed to exactly what's needed. Updating the scene to make use of modern rendering and lighting techniques is also relatively straightforward, but the bulk of the work is the animation.

 

Precisely! Couldn't have said it better myself.

Without the scene files, CBS Digital would have a hell of a job going frame-by-frame to replicate the original animations.

 

As somebody who edits and does VFX for commercials, there are fewer things that I HATE to hear more than somebody saying the words "we can just fix that in post". Personally, I don't believe that anything will ever look as good "fixing it in post" as opposed to just getting it right when you're out in the field filming it. I've spent hours working on fixing little things that it would have taken all of 10 seconds to correct and get right when they were out shooting.

 

So, for example, CBS Digital could take its CGI Enterprise-D and use it to replace the Galaxy-class ships in the existing scene files?