Perfect example of what they SHOULD have done with the TNG-R FX

[NewHorizon]

Well, I've bought the season 1 bluray and I can honestly say that the quality of the recomposited model FX is far better than that CGI example posted here.

This is not TNG: Reimaged, this is TNG: HD...and all of the model footage IS in HD, so there is no reason to remake it with half baked CGI like they did with TOS:R. I would never buy another season if they started doing that. They have 7 years worth of top quality model work that is going to look better than it could have ever hoped to look 25 years ago.

 

[davejames]

Still, I have always found TNG space battles like this one, which seemed to be emulating the style of TWOK, to be implausibly sluggish and compact.

I frankly preferred it that way. Realistic or no, it really conveyed the huge, epic scale of these ships to see them moving around a lot like giant ocean liners in space.

When ENT started having the NX-01 zipping around and doing barrel rolls like the Millennium Falcon, it bugged the hell out of me, and didn't look nearly as realistic.

Plus it just looks a lot more elegant the way TNG did it.

Ugh, it looks horrible. The frame just looks cramped, and it doesn't help having the tops of people's heads cut off.

It didn't look that horribly cropped to me. And in any case, that's the style most TV shows use today anyway-- to really push in more on the characters and action.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely see the value in preserving the original aspect ratio, but I also like seeing the show look a lot more modern as well. As it does in that clip (minus the crappy CGI, of course).

 

[Christopher]

Indeed, and you can fit two pages on one screen, which I find really useful when writing documents. And they are brilliant for spreadsheets.

Maybe that could work if I'd gotten a bigger monitor -- assuming it had sufficient resolution that I could reduce the pixel size commensurately. But I kind of underestimated the monitor size I needed, plus I went for the smallest, least expensive one.

I frankly preferred it that way. Realistic or no, it really conveyed the huge, epic scale of these ships to see them moving around a lot like giant ocean liners in space.

Well, maybe if I saw it in HD that would work, but I never got that impression watching them before.

It didn't look that horribly cropped to me. And in any case, that's the style most TV shows use today anyway-- to really push in more on the characters and action.

But they're composed that way from the start. This wasn't. And removing parts of the original image never makes sense, regardless of whether you're cropping widescreen to fullscreen or vice-versa. They're both equally destructive to the original image and its composition.

 

[Trekker4747]

The CGI in the OP looks like it came out of a video game. A PC game designed to run on a mid-power computer.

Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with the excellent effects work we already have with the series. The HD film of the -D model looks fantastic.

 

[JoeZhang]

Was the size difference between C and D as big as that video suggests? the scale looks entirely wrong, the D looks about 50 times the size of the C!

 

[Trekker4747]

The -C was slightly smaller than the -D but not greatly so.

 

[davejames]

But they're composed that way from the start. This wasn't. And removing parts of the original image never makes sense, regardless of whether you're cropping widescreen to fullscreen or vice-versa. They're both equally destructive to the original image and its composition.

Eh, I thought the story and drama were still perfectly well conveyed.

I mean, we're not talking about a Stanley Kubrick movie here, where every shot is a gorgeous, beautifully-composed work of art; it's an 80s TV show that was usually shot in a pretty standard, routine way.

If that show can look a lot more dynamic by losing some of the picture here and there, then I'd be perfectly fine with that.

 

[Christopher]

And I don't see what's so "dynamic" about making a picture wider -- let alone slicing off nearly half of it. There are contexts, as I said, where a wider composition better serves the purposes of the shot, but it's not some simplistic one-to-one relationship where that shape is always better for everything. Probably you just feel that way about it because you've been conditioned to associate the widescreen format with feature films and modern television. So it's not really about the aspect ratio, it's about the other things you associate with it.

 

[Harvey]

There have been plenty of films that have looked dynamic in 4:3 (including much of the aforementioned work of Stanley Kubrick).

The framings of Star Trek: The Next Generation may have been routine (I'd even argue that Berman's house style, which really imposes itself in season three, is rather quite dull) but they weren't framed haphazardly. Re-framing them to 16:9 doesn't make the images more dynamic; it just makes them claustrophobic and awkward.

 

[Christopher]

It's probably worth noting that the main reason movies adopted widescreen format was because people were staying home from theaters to watch television, so movie studios decided they needed to offer something TV couldn't -- like a picture too wide to fit on a TV screen. Although of course the only reason TV had a 4:3 aspect ratio is because that was the original movie aspect ratio!

Of course, now history has repeated itself and modern TVs use the widescreen ratio, so movies have to do other things like go to IMAX and 3D, or that superhigh frame rate Peter Jackson's using for The Hobbit. But now movie theaters have commercials before the films and modern screens are just really big digital TVs, more or less. So the lines keep blurring.

 

[SoM]

The -C was slightly smaller than the -D but not greatly so.

In that plan view, it doesn't look much smaller at all. Comparing saucer-to-saucer and the same with the secondary hulls, the C's slightly shorter and taller

 

[Trekker4747]

The -C was slightly smaller than the -D but not greatly so.

In that plan view, it doesn't look much smaller at all. Comparing saucer-to-saucer and the same with the secondary hulls, the C's slightly shorter and taller

Yeah, it's shorter. But technical specs put the -D at about 7 meters "taller." But we could probably argue both ships are the same height. The -C is about 100-meters shorter, and 167 meters narrower than the -D.

So overall volume has the -C as pretty "smaller" than the -D. There are a few establishing shots in the (unaltered) episode that also makes the size of the ships look very, very different though it could be argued the -C is "further away" from the camera and thus only looks smaller.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

ITT old people moan about CGI....and how it was better in the olden days when models were used...

I think the YT clip is getting unnecessary scorn.
Chris, the poster (who also posts here you know, so be nice) is just a fan who makes stuff like this in his spare time, he's not a visual artist who is paid to make that stuff full time.
And since he's just using his computer not some special computer design one like CGI guys would use, I don't think he does a bad job at all, look through the rest of the videos to see some of the great work he comes up with, certainly a million times better than anything anyone here could come up with and a lot better than the grainy, blurry, static model shots you'd get pre-HD

CGI is such an easy target on here when in fact its as varied as model work.
The model work grace will only last until mid-season 3 is released because as soon as the episodes with the higher detail (and superior, imo ) 4 foot model come out people will go right ahead and begin bitching about that too.

It isn't CGI bad, model good, it's good Special Effects of both types vs bad special effects of both types.

And yes, I am a little disappointed they didn't do a proper job on TNG HD.
As good as the model shots will look, there's still only about 10 of them spread across the entire 7 years and I'm just sick of seeing the Enterprise fly past the camera in the same 2 ways each week.
CGI is just a more cost effective way to make sure the series doesn't have to solely rely on stock shots, or have space battles where the ships just sit still and fire their weapons, or have interesting alien ships instead of the same kitbash of the cargo ship with a water pistol stuck on it this week, or a cheaper way of getting a few new starfleet designs, etc etc

But I guess I'll just have to settle for the limited amount of "new stuff" with the remastering, like the explosion of the Oberth class, which was pretty cool (and already people are decrying as too OTT...can't win with some people)

It's the little things that keep me going...

 

[mswood]

davejames

When ENT started having the NX-01 zipping around and doing barrel rolls like the Millennium Falcon, it bugged the hell out of me, and didn't look nearly as realistic.

When did the NX-01 ever done a barrel role? Now the Defiant certainly did harder, and sharper moves then the NX-01 did, and it's not actually that much bigger then the Defiant.

 

[mswood]

Of course there is good CGI, but the poster was comparing the restored HD material to this you tube clip, and that isn't good CGI. No one is lashing out at the person who created the clip, just that clip is not in any way shape or form high quality CGI.

And while I also would like some changes in stock footage, I also don't trust CBS to actually use high quality CGI for fully realized ship space shots. So far, they haven't in any form.

 

[Trekker4747]

ITT old people moan about CGI....and how it was better in the olden days when models were used...

I think the YT clip is getting unnecessary scorn.
Chris, the poster (who also posts here you know, so be nice) is just a fan who makes stuff like this in his spare time, he's not a visual artist who is paid to make that stuff full time.
And since he's just using his computer not some special computer design one like CGI guys would use, I don't think he does a bad job at all, look through the rest of the videos to see some of the great work he comes up with, certainly a million times better than anything anyone here could come up with and a lot better than the grainy, blurry, static model shots you'd get pre-HD

CGI is such an easy target on here when in fact its as varied as model work.
The model work grace will only last until mid-season 3 is released because as soon as the episodes with the higher detail (and superior, imo ) 4 foot model come out people will go right ahead and begin bitching about that too.

It isn't CGI bad, model good, it's good Special Effects of both types vs bad special effects of both types.

And yes, I am a little disappointed they didn't do a proper job on TNG HD.
As good as the model shots will look, there's still only about 10 of them spread across the entire 7 years and I'm just sick of seeing the Enterprise fly past the camera in the same 2 ways each week.
CGI is just a more cost effective way to make sure the series doesn't have to solely rely on stock shots, or have space battles where the ships just sit still and fire their weapons, or have interesting alien ships instead of the same kitbash of the cargo ship with a water pistol stuck on it this week, or a cheaper way of getting a few new starfleet designs, etc etc

But I guess I'll just have to settle for the limited amount of "new stuff" with the remastering, like the explosion of the Oberth class, which was pretty cool (and already people are decrying as too OTT...can't win with some people)

It's the little things that keep me going...

Perhaps, maybe I mis-interpreted the intent of the OP but it seemed to imply the video was made as a "suggested replacement" for the effects in the original show.

Which the effects aren't good enough to be put in as replacement for the effects in the series. Given the limitations the animator apparently had with equipment, time, skill sure it's "good" but it's not better than the model effects used in the series.

Even the CGI effects used to recreate the Pegasus scenes in ENT weren't that good IMHO. (Neverminding the "mistakes" in it.) Because it too looked like CGI.

I can't help but have a special spot in my heart for the effects in TNG. It would be nice if some effects shots and such were replaced with CGI. I'd like to see the ship being presented consistently (getting rid of the horrendous 4-foot model's use.)

But it's not likely going to happen so, meh. What we've seen looks good so far and I think it is way to early to see what they're going to do down the road once we get into the more middled seasons where effects were more in use and where the old stuff won't hold-up or can be replaced with something better.

 

[Christopher]

ITT old people moan about CGI....and how it was better in the olden days when models were used...

Come on. Not all CGI is created equal. Nobody here is saying "models are better than CGI." They're saying that the CGI in that particular clip is clearly not on the same level of quality that the remastered, recomposited, HD version of the original photography is likely to be. A professional CGI artist like Doug Drexler or Mojo, with sufficient software, time, and budget, could certainly create effects that were better-looking that the model shots created for "Yesterday's Enterprise." But whoever made that YouTube video did not.

I think the YT clip is getting unnecessary scorn.
Chris, the poster (who also posts here you know, so be nice) is just a fan who makes stuff like this in his spare time, he's not a visual artist who is paid to make that stuff full time.
And since he's just using his computer not some special computer design one like CGI guys would use, I don't think he does a bad job at all

All good points. But I don't think we're criticizing the video itself; it's fine for what it is, an amateur exercise paying tribute to a favorite sequence. What we're criticizing is the original poster's allegation that the video represents a template for how TNG Remastered should be done and that it's in some way fundamentally superior to the original. As I said, I don't even see how it materially differs from the original in action or composition, aside from the aspect ratio.

look through the rest of the videos to see some of the great work he comes up with, certainly a million times better than anything anyone here could come up with and a lot better than the grainy, blurry, static model shots you'd get pre-HD

Maybe it is a generational thing, but I don't think a clear image of a computer construct of middling resolution and detail is better than a grainy photograph of a genuine object that actually, physically exists. Grain is not always a bad thing.

And yes, I am a little disappointed they didn't do a proper job on TNG HD.

Define "proper." The purpose of these exercises has never been to do a Lucas-style alteration, but rather to perform a restoration, to come as close as possible to the original work in maximum possible quality. TOS-R only replaced the original footage with CGI because the original film elements no longer existed and thus there was no way to remaster the FX shots, only to recreate them digitally.

So I think it's a little solipsistic to use the word "proper" to mean "what I would've preferred." Personally I agree that it would've been nice to see some of the ponderous, limited FX shots of early TNG (or major errors like the too-big Stargazer in "The Battle") replaced or rethought. But just because they chose to go in a different direction than I would've, that doesn't make my opinions more "proper" than theirs.

 

[Start Wreck]

ITT old people moan about CGI....and how it was better in the olden days when models were used...

You should listen to them; old people have more refined taste.

I love good CGI. Star Trek '09 had fantastic effects. This YouTube video, while excellent for a fan creation, is not up to that standard, or the standard of physical models shot on film. And I should know, I make bad CGI myself.

I'm not old, though. Yet.

 

[NewHorizon]

And yes, I am a little disappointed they didn't do a proper job on TNG HD.

Proper in what context exactly?

The intention with this project from the outset was to 'restore' the original show in HD. That's exactly what they are doing, SFX elements and all! That IS the proper way to do this particular job. If it were a reimagining or a modern upgrade, then CGI would probably be the way to go.

Likewise, if TOSR had been a 'restoration' project in the truest sense, they would have pulled the Enterprise out of the Smithsonian, restored it and re-filmed all of the original shots with physical models...likewise the other ships used throughout the series. TOSR was a reimagining / update of the effects though, so that wasn't the case.

I prefer the approach taken with TNG and it looks outstanding.

 

[RAMA]

Don't know why I can't get "embed" to work, so link will have to do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Kk2GINcW4&feature=related

Completely respectful of the style of the original FX with improved dynamism and production value.

This guy picked a good one to "redo"...Love the Ent-C/D vs Klingon fight in "Yesterday's Enterprise" in concept, but it was WAY limited by what they could afford to do with the models.

I like the youtube video, its well integrated and I'd have loved to see more of this, but still, what we've seen so far is impressive.