I'm very sorry you got sick. I'm sorry your partner got sick. I caught COVID-19 last year and it shook me up. I hope you both have no lasting repercussions from the illness. I'm bothered by some lasting effects. Very nice render!
I’m also a native. Austin is my adopted hometown (it’s where I went to school far more years ago than I care to admit!) and it’s frustrating to watch what my family is going through back there. It actually is green, believe it or not. The color of the Enterprise hull is very dependent on the lighting. For this quickie shot (which is the first time I’ve touched LightWave and OctaneRender since late September) I cranked up the white so that I’d have a nice clear backdrop for Fled Cruz to walk in front of. Thanks everyone. Between the move, the job scare, and the existential scares it’s been a rough five months. I still can’t believe that I bought that explosion VFX package a year ago and still haven’t really gotten into how to use it yet. It’s been a lost year... excuse me while I go make up for lost time.
@Professor Moriarty - I hope you got thru the freeze unscathed (if you're in Texas). It's been a rough week.
Thanks. I moved to the suburban Washington DC area over thirty years ago and have now lived more of my life here than in Texas, but it's still my home and all of my family is still there. They're fine for the most part, but yes, it has been an exhausting week. A quickie before bed.
Neat... Vimeo has added a plug-in that lets you make a GIF of a video. Lessee how it works! The actual video: Fair warning: my sound card seems to have died, so I guessed at the sync of the phaser sound effects.
Well, I could see the waveform of the phaser audio effect track in my NLE, I just couldn't hear it! But I figured it would be pretty close. And since all I really wanted to do was see how the phaser effect (which was originally created on the Constellation) looks on the Enterprise, mission accomplished. Already spotted a couple of problems: The wavy shimmering effect seems to slow down/freeze on the fourth bolt. Probably an issue with the animated texture used on the bolts; easily fixed! I deliberately delayed the port phaser bolt a single frame before the starboard bolt, which looks great (imo) for the first bolt but looks a bit weird for the second, third, and fourth salvos. I'll sync them up next time around.
I agree about keeping the delays. They are reminiscent of the original TOS FX. I actually wish the phasers trailed off in a delay as well.
Agree with everyone above about keeping the delay. It looks closer to the original FX and it gives it a feel of energy pumping through to each emitter. The audio synced up beautifully as well. The phasers firing sequence rocks
I was looking at the other videos you've posted to your Vimeo account, and I'm in awe of this one where you were experimenting with different styles: The third and fourth passes were my favorites.
I'll repeat what I said on March 2 of last year about this clip... Of course, Vimeo gives the superior image, but the YouTube upload allows for some additional fun. Try playing the sequence at different speeds. At one quarter, the Sol Kaplan score slowed but artificially maintaining its pitch sound like some 70s independent film (I keep thinking of "Phase IV" about the ants rapidly gaining sapience). At twice normal speed, the ship is blasting away "Star Wars" or "Abramsverse" style and the "cantor" of the bursts almost sound like the opening beats to Fred Steiner's "Amok Time" fight music.
I was thinking that I like the first two! The third is too JJ (or WoK?) and doesn’t make me fear too much the destructive power of any individual blast. The fourth I think is more in line with later era ships and phasers...which is what these orange beams are anyway. These clips fit what I’d imagine a 23rd century Constitution would look like if it were transported to the 24th and refitted. But the rate of the first two fit for this ship’s era/technology, so they’re my favorite. The blue beams from the latest video basically being right. Actually, they could be simplified and look smoother and fit TOS more. Less liquid-y (like 24th century phasers) more hollow beam-y. Of course, then they would look like a different technology on top of being less complex visually, but then that’s what the show was. ...You could say maybe say they were Pike-era lasers?
Well thanks, now I can't unhear it. I'll admit, I was just having a little fun with those last two. Or was I? See, as you pointed out we have seen this style of phaser blasting in Wrath of Khan, and we definitely have seen orange phasers in TOS (heck, we saw them in the friggin "Doomsday Machine" episode!), so there's an argument to be made that I'm at least dancing on the edge of screen canon. (ETA: Having the Constellation use orange phasers while the Enterprise uses blue will also add some nice visual differentiation.) If I did decide to include rapid-firing phaser bolts in the prequel attack sequence, my thinking on the barrage style is that Commodore Decker is trying different attack profiles to see if anything can punch through the hull of the planet killer. But unless I can find someone who does a passable William Windom impression for some voiceover work, it's going to be hard to convey that notion to the viewer without resorting to captions. I'm a big fan of showing, not telling. Since the project goal is to achieve a (hopefully) more realistic look without ditching Matt Jefferies' timeless design, I'm OK with visual effects like the phasers looking more like particle weapons and less like someone at Van Der Veer drew glowing lines on the 35mm prints. Thanks for the comments!