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Visual Effects in Discovery

I keep hearing good things about the new Lost in Space, about not just the effects but the show overall. Sounds like it's worth adding to my list. But! I am someone who has literally never seen an episode of the original (nor have I heard much good about it). So let me ask: without any prior sentimental attachment, is this a show I can enjoy as a newcomer?

I've only seen a few episodes of the original, mostly when I was a kid, and I am enjoying the show immensely. It has adventure and discovery that a certain other franchise show is sorely lacking. :shifty:
 
Discovery's CG models are fine. The ball is getting dropped on lighting and compositing. I don't know whether this is due to time constraints or bad art direction from the higher ups, but
Pixomondo has the talent to match Lost in Space's CG if given proper conditions.

Well, Pixomondo is leaving shots from 'Discovery' suspiciously out of their website.:guffaw:
But to be perfectly honest: Those guys apparently also did the vfx for "Red Tails" and "Justice League". So it's not as if they hadn't done shitty work before. I might be in a minority here, but I also think the vfx work on "Into Darkness" was pretty dissapointing - like, it at least looked like the render was finished, but overall, the camera movements, and movements of elements in shots were extremely fake looking.

I think their best work might actually be "Game of Thrones" - when they composite CGI elements into real shots. Those are coincidentally also the same typoe of shot on DIS that usually look pretty good. But suspiciously whenever the entire shot is cgi - even in things like "Amazing Spider-Man 2" - things look very fake. At least from what I can see on their demo reels:

http://www.pixomondo.com/2017-summer-reel/
http://www.pixomondo.com/
 
I think their best work might actually be "Game of Thrones" - when they composite CGI elements into real shots. Those are coincidentally also the same typoe of shot on DIS that usually look pretty good. But suspiciously whenever the entire shot is cgi - even in things like "Amazing Spider-Man 2" - things look very fake. At least from what I can see on their demo reels:

I know I've said it before, but I think the smeary filters they put the space combat shots through - along with the weirdly close cropping so you never get to see the ships travel through space - unintentionally creates the same "tilt-shift" effect that is consciously used in photography to make things look much smaller than they are. As a result, the ships in Discovery often feel much more like models to me than the actual models did in the earlier Trek series.
 
If Pixomondo did Justice League they clearly can do first-rate stuff.

Justice League had IMO some of the worst special effects I have ever seen in a movie! Let alone a major blockbuster one! :guffaw:

But that movie was plagued by production issues that make look Discovery's behind-the-scenes struggles look like a sunday afternoon...
 
I think it's a combination of these two things; the directives about lighting and visual style that come down from production on pretty much every shot seem to boil down to 'more spec, more spec!' and 'can we make this nebula more intense?' Plus, the color grading favored by the cinematographers in s01 isn't doing anybody any favors. But when there's time, as with the pilot or with the battle to rescue the Gagarin, the team still is able to make some really beautiful images out of that, IMO, even though it's not the visual style I'd pick.

There's a noticeable difference between stuff like that and some later stuff in the season like the flashbacks to the Charon and the ISS Buran, and the fact that this stuff is most apparent late in the season (i.e. at crunch time) tells a story. Additionally, one of the things mentioned in some of the interviews about budgeting and delays is that a ton of money went into sets and production design, and I'm not sure if a lot of the EPs had a sense going in of what the VFX were going to cost; most of them just haven't had to do breakdowns on a show of this scale (there's a interview with Ted Sullivan or somebody to this effect, I think from a convention back in late fall). So I wouldn't be surprised if S01's VFX were deeply underbid, compared to the volume of work.

I think that is probably the most realistic explanation so far. The creators of DIS simply underestimated the quanitity of vfx that need to be done by a mile.

Even with additional money, you never gonna' make up for such a gross miscalculation. I doubt anyone wanted DIS's fx look like the way they do. It was just the best result they were capable of delivering under the given circumstances.

Interesting side note (completely different topic, but I'm not gonna' post a third message in a row):
IMO it seems like the late season vfx tried to make up a lot for the previous criticisms: There was still wonky stuff (the Charon chasing the Buran...). But overall,, their approach seemed more "traditional":
We got the first actual beauty shots/establishing shots for our starships. We saw the Discovery at regular warp on the end.

And IMO: Very subtle, but when the klingon fleet approached Earth (ugh... from a story-wise perespective), they actually tried REALLY HARD to make the fleet look more like "traditional" klingon ships: They chose to put those models most resembling the traditional klingon ship styles in the foreground, even changed the illumination on them a little so they looked like a more traditional main body/nacelles/extended forward bridge combination (No sight of the misshapened "D7" ship). And gave all the klingon starships a more traditional grey hull plating, instead of the funky colored blue/green/yellow surfaces they had before.

The difference was so stark, that I first thought they created new starships. But they just used the most "traditional" looking background ones from "Battle of the binary stars", but noticably changed them even more to fit with prime universe aesthetics.

IMO it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume, that visually, from this point forward, the show will be trying to capture the aesthetics of classic Trek at least incrementally a bit more.
 
i saw the 1998 lost in space, but even as a teenager i knew that was awful.

I feel like the only person in the world who loves that movie.

I think that is probably the most realistic explanation so far. The creators of DIS simply underestimated the quanitity of vfx that need to be done by a mile.

Discovery Season 1's VFX were underbid, by how much, I don't know.
 
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I sure hope a newcomer can enjoy because that's what I am.

I saw various episodes of the original LiS over the years, and always found it to be laughable. In contrast, I am thoroughly enjoying the Netflix reboot (only into the second episode so far).

Kor
 
I feel like the only person in the world who loves that movie.
I have vague memories of it, but I certainly didn't hate it. I liked a lot of the design work on it.

And, I'll probably be contradictory, but I don't really count watching the film back in high school as the same as watching the original show. I don't really equate the two.
 
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I have vague memories of it, but I certainly didn't hate it. I liked a lot of the design work on it.
i really love the robot(s) in the film, they still stand out to me, also appreciate some of the costume work and the design of the ship itself. all of which i think is more interesting than the netflix series, but two totally different approaches.
I feel like the only person in the world who loves that movie.
all the good stuff i remember from that movie is washed away by matt leblanc squinting through the entire runtime to look like a tough guy.
 
I know I've said it before, but I think the smeary filters they put the space combat shots through - along with the weirdly close cropping so you never get to see the ships travel through space - unintentionally creates the same "tilt-shift" effect that is consciously used in photography to make things look much smaller than they are. As a result, the ships in Discovery often feel much more like models to me than the actual models did in the earlier Trek series.

"Into the Forest" had some really wonky depth-of-field effects on the Klingon Bridge. The big ones were a wild misunderstanding of how reflections work, and a shot where the bridge, Discovery, planet, and stars were all at different focal planes, as if Discovery were an actual eight-foot-model hanging out the window and not a huge ship miles away.
 
I sure hope a newcomer can enjoy because that's what I am.
If you are at least vaguely familiar with the show in any meaningful way, some of the callbacks to the original will make you go "Aha! So that's what that is!" If you have no familiarity at all with the original, those callbacks will make you go "Oh. I see."

I watched the first two episodes with my wife who has never actually seen any of the original and even she started grinning at their first "danger will robinson!" moment, if that tells you anything.
 
As to the original topic of this thread, I consider the visuals in STDisc to be somewhat "stylized."

Kor
 
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