Star Trek: The Doomsday Machine - Special Edition Screencaps

Discussion in 'Fan Art' started by Professor Moriarty, Jun 12, 2009.

  1. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The fine line between continuity and fanwank.
    Ssssssssssweet! :D
     
  2. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

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    Does anyone have the DDM script and can quote the actual description given?
     
  3. M'Sharak

    M'Sharak Definitely Herbert. Maybe. Moderator

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  4. Professor Moriarty

    Professor Moriarty Rice Admiral Premium Member

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  5. Savage Dragon

    Savage Dragon Not really all that savage Moderator

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    Nice! I really like that first shot.
     
  6. doctorwho 03

    doctorwho 03 Captain Captain

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    I earlier suggested going with something similar to the opening shot from Star Wars: Episode 4, but the asteroid field sequence from Episode 5 works great too. :bolian: I especially liked how the Enterprise has to avoid the asteroids, but the PM just has to eat them and plow on through. :bolian:
     
  7. Professor Moriarty

    Professor Moriarty Rice Admiral Premium Member

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    Pretty much exactly what I was trying to convey... glad you liked it :)
     
  8. TrekkieMonster

    TrekkieMonster Commodore Commodore

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    again, I say simply ... :drool:
     
  9. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That is faaaaan-tastic, Prof. :techman:
     
  10. Professor Moriarty

    Professor Moriarty Rice Admiral Premium Member

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  11. Santaman

    Santaman Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Ah, that looks like the firing sequence of Captain Future's Comet. :techman::cool: cool stuff prof!
     
  12. ST-One

    ST-One Vice Admiral

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    How long does it take your system to render a frame like that?

    BTW: Do you care for another criticism from me? :D
    LW's lens flares don't really look all that good... *runs*
     
  13. TrekkieMonster

    TrekkieMonster Commodore Commodore

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    :lol: ^^^ Beat me to the obligatory lens flare comment. ;)

    Prof, that looks incredible!!! I suspected you were going to use the "spikes" around the maw in that manner, but had no idea how amazing it was going to look.

    I cannot WAIT to see this puppy in action! :bolian:

    * EDIT * [Spock]I am a fool.[/Spock]

    I was so dazzled by the pretty picture that I completely missed the link. D'oh!

    Now that I've seen it, I hope you don't mind a few comments.

    First, I love, Love, LOVE your models and takes on Ent, Contellation, and PK/DM. I love all the asteroid litter, and that opening shot of one being sucked into the PK. I love the PK's weapon effect, and pretty much everything else you've done. A couple of thoughts, though, if I may: I think, as a viewer, I really wanted to see the PK's beam hit the Ent, and then see it careening away. I rewound it a few times at that point and just kept feeling like I was missing something. Also -- and please take this as coming from the untrained eye that I possess -- something about the way the Ent is moving flying through the asteroid field in those opening shots makes it look ... I don't know ... sort of like a toy. I know it may be essentially toy-sized in scale as compared with floating chunks of planet, but it just didn't seem "substantial" to me. Maybe I'm just too used to the standard Trekverse lumbering motion for starships. I don't know.

    Anyway, please take the comments for what they're worth, and in the purely constructive frame in which they are offered.

    Great work, as always. And now I think I have to go back and watch it again. ;)
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2009
  14. Professor Moriarty

    Professor Moriarty Rice Admiral Premium Member

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    Oh, no worries... I completely agree (in fact, I really rather detest lens flares--it was the one thing I hated about this summer's Star Trek movie). I just wanted to give it a try on this test image. If you watch the animated sequence on YouTube by following the hyperlink, you'll see that there are only some glows around the emitters and one anamorphic flare where the four bolts coalesce.

    How long does a frame take, you ask? The answer is, "it depends". Depending on the scene, there are up to fourteen different layers of screen elements that are rendered separately and composited together in post-production:

    1. Foreground hero asteroids
    2. The Enterprise
    3. The Constellation
    4. Background hero asteroids
    5. The planet killer (including particle effects for the red-orange fireball in the maw, the blue-white conversion drive flames, and the antiproton beam where required)
    6. Background asteroid shell #1
    7. Background asteroid shell #2
    8. Background asteroid shell #3
    9. Background asteroid shell #4
    10. Background asteroid shell #5
    11. Background asteroid shell #6
    12. Background asteroid shell #7
    13. Volumetric interplanetary haze (crap but this one takes forever to render!)
    14. Starscape
    The asteroid shells can be thought of as those nesting Russian toys, one spherical layer of asteroids nested inside another. Each shell has 2,000 asteroids, with seven layers altogether, so there are 14,000 asteroids in every scene (although you will almost never see all of them in one scene unless the camera does a LOT of panning!). (Why seven layers of 2,000 objects each instead of one sphere of asteroids with 14,000 objects? Memory.) The layers are different thicknesses to keep the overall density of the background rocks relatively even throughout the asteroid field.

    On average, one frame of the Enterprise takes anywhere from 3-10 minutes depending on how close the camera gets. The Constellation takes slightly longer--all that damage is extra polys to render. The planet killer is about 5 minutes if the antiproton beam isn't firing and 10-15 minutes if it is. The asteroids are all about 2-3 minutes each. I've got four computers in my render farm, so you can add up the various scene elements and divide by four to figure out how long it takes to render one frame (and don't forget post-production editing!!!)
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2009
  15. Vektor

    Vektor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Hey, Prof, what are you using for post-production and compositing?
     
  16. Professor Moriarty

    Professor Moriarty Rice Admiral Premium Member

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    Hi Vektor! A very old (circa 2006) version of Adobe Production Studio. My usual workflow is to use After Effects 7.0 for compositing all of the scene elements (which are rendered as 32-bit PhotoShop *.psd files) and applying most post-production effects, which I then render out to uncompressed AVI. Sound mixing is done in Adobe Audition 2.0. I then assemble everything for editing in Adobe Premiere 2.0, where I render out to MPEG-2 for uploading to YouTube or encoding onto DVD.
     
  17. Soar_Dude

    Soar_Dude Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Where's my cookie I like the Christmas tree shaped ones :D:guffaw:
     
  18. Professor Moriarty

    Professor Moriarty Rice Admiral Premium Member

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    Ahhhhhh. Now it is all clear. :)

    [​IMG]

    Although if you tilt your head to the left and look at that screenshot, those lance beams do sorta look like a Christmas tree shape :D
     
  19. Soar_Dude

    Soar_Dude Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    THANK YOU SCOTT!! I most definitely like you planet killer it is really to bad that the remastered guys did not look at the orginal production notes for how the planet killer was really supposed to look like. I think I remember reading about the spiked planet killer in a Starlog or some other Star Trek magazine.
     
  20. The Cutest of Borg

    The Cutest of Borg Vice Admiral Admiral

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    This is fantastic. As cool as the graphics are, I have to admit my favorite change is fixing Kyle's line about the transporter being out. That line has bugged me since I was a kid, and it's about time someone performed that minor tweak to make it work.