Season FOUR OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by Savage Dragon, Apr 24, 2013.

  1. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Wal-Mart will price match the Target deal, including the additional $10 off. It is where I got the combo last time.
     
  2. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

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  3. Borjis

    Borjis Commodore Commodore

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  4. Hober Mallow

    Hober Mallow Commodore Commodore

    The Picard family vineyard looks amazing.
     
  5. Tosk

    Tosk Admiral Admiral

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    Except for the cloning tool duplication, but I doubt that will stand out when watching the episode. :)
     
  6. SpHeRe31459

    SpHeRe31459 Captain Captain

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    In regard to what? The matte painting or the CG space creature?

    If you're referring to the matte painting, it was done by hand by the classic style matte painting master Syd Dutton in his shop called Illusion Arts (Syd learned from a real old school matte painting master and TOS matte painter Albert Whitlock). So that's only an apt term if you're referring to the digitally rendered space creature ;)
     
  7. Tosk

    Tosk Admiral Admiral

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    The vineyard. It has been touched up digitally in several spots (visible due to the tweaked elements being sharper than the rest of the painting) and there are repeating patterns in the leftmost row in this cropped pic:

    [​IMG]

    The four "dots" up top, and the foot-track itself is duped lower down. Like I say, I'm betting it looks fine in the ep itself, what with movement and all. :)
     
  8. Aatrek

    Aatrek Rear Admiral

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    Who is going to be watching that at 300% zoom!?
     
  9. Savage Dragon

    Savage Dragon Not really all that savage Moderator

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    I'm sure no one is but it's still fun to find these little oddities.
     
  10. trekker670

    trekker670 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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  11. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

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  12. trekker670

    trekker670 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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  13. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah these ship shots look freakin amazing.
     
  14. Savage Dragon

    Savage Dragon Not really all that savage Moderator

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    I'm inclined to agree with TrekCore that the digital recreation of Junior's birth in Galaxy's Child doesn't look very good.
     
  15. Maxwell Everett

    Maxwell Everett Commodore Commodore

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    It also has a small, telltale compositing error. Notice the sharp, one pixel wide matte line around the mother creature in the lower left quadrant of the shot? That's because the compositor used the animation's alpha channel as a holdout matte, which pulled in a bit of gray around the edge. The compositor could've possibly fixed this by "choking in" on the matte just a tad.

    http://tng.trekcore.com/bluray/images-s4review/s4review-galaxyschild-birth.jpg

    If this animation was done in Maya, I believe there's a "composite" checkbox in the render options that would've eliminated the problem in the first place. It's a little odd that something this basic got overlooked... but I suppose either they were rushed or CG animation isn't Modern VideoFilm's forte -- though they claim they do 3D visual effects on their site:

    http://www.mvfinc.com/credits/visual_effects.htm
     
  16. SpHeRe31459

    SpHeRe31459 Captain Captain

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  17. tomalak301

    tomalak301 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm not sure if I'm surprised at the complaints Trekcore had for the upcoming special features. It almost seems like on this season the features are kind of an afterthought. Yeah I know the biggest reason is to see TNG remastered, but I've been loving the new features for each set and even I had to look up what exactly these features were. It's disappointing there isn't anything on Wheaton leaving but hopefully that might come in Season 5, since he was on two episodes. Also, I'm not sure if I'm looking foward to a talk with the Arts department. Yeah they do a great job, but how many times do we have to hear a monotone Dan Curry talk about matte paintings. I would have rather loved an indepth conversation regarding the music of the series, or maybe talk to some of the guys from ILM and talk about the shift from Models to CGI over the years.

    Also, maybe a good feature might be "Remastering 101". Yeah they kind of did this for Season 1, but everyone is talking about various remastering techniques and for someone who doesn't know what "Grains" are other than crumbs of wheat, something like this could be interesting. I do know it might have been a missed opportunity to not have a representative from Modern Video or HTV talk about trying to duplicate CBS-D.

    I guess now that TNG is running on all cylinders, and the "Honeymoon" period is wearing off, what more can they do with special features to keep them at top quality? I know for Season 4, no one is talking about these features and like I said, I even had to go look to see what they are. I still want to be excited for the extra material, but speaking to the Arts department for the 100th time isn't all that exciting.
     
  18. Start Wreck

    Start Wreck Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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  19. Savage Dragon

    Savage Dragon Not really all that savage Moderator

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    I guess it's just after what we saw them do with the Crystalline entity it's a little disappointing. It's certainly not a deal breaker for me though.
     
  20. SpHeRe31459

    SpHeRe31459 Captain Captain

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    Well to be fair we didn't see "them" do it. Remember CBS Digital did Season 1, but Season 4's CGI is Modern Video's work, not CBS-D.