A question about the Voyager intro

[BlobVanDam]

I'm trying to find images that are similar to the space backgrounds in the Voyager intro. The last shot is quite similar to the Orion nebula so it may have been based on that, but the rest don't look so familiar. I figure they had at least some real life reference when making the intro.

There are two backgrounds of particular interest to me.

Any idea if these were based on real areas of space?

 

[Unimatrix Zero]

Hi,

I'm an astronomer and a graphic artist who uses photoshop on a frequent basis.

Those "reflection" nebulae are made up ones, and the starscape is cloned, as you can see in the intro, and especially during the bit when the ship goes to warp.

Nice work though, and was pretty mind blowing during the first airing when CG was in it's relative infancy.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Thanks for the info. Since you're an astronomer, do you have any suggestions for similar real-life things I can search to find similar images? Either the name for the type of formations, or some specific things that look similar enough?
I'm looking for similar backgrounds to recreate the Voyager intro, and I'm not much of a Photoshopper when it comes to this kind of thing. Doesn't need to be exact, but I'd like to have similar backgrounds for the more prominent ones.

 

[Unimatrix Zero]

M42 Orion Nebula

California Nebula

Horsehead Nebula

You can search for more using this excellent site...the images are large enough to be downloaded for your requirements.

It makes me wonder if you would actually see these nebulae in deep space...some of these objects are only around 2% brighter than space itself and require a lot of photo processing with regards to light levels! (however many nebulae can be seen with a modest telescope but appear grey/blue due to our eyes' woeful inability to pick up colour in the dark.)

 

[BlobVanDam]

Thanks for your help.
I've found some really dramatic images that will look amazing as backgrounds, and easily high enough res for what I'm working on. After seeing some of these pictures, I'm not too worried about finding similar images anymore, because these are better!

As for realism, I'm sure they didn't care, and neither do I. Maybe you could argue that because they're so far away from stars, that the exposure is cranked up to a point where the ship and nebulae are visible, but I'm not too worried about accuracy as long as it looks pretty!

 

[F. King Daniel]

IRL I don't think you'd even see the stars outside the windows, owing to the brightness of the rooms inside (to say nothing of the constantly-illuminated starship exteriors).

I recall reading someone's suggestion ages ago that the windows, perhaps equipped with all sorts of unseen filters and holographic equipment (as seen on the Kelvin and Enterprise in STXI) actually crank up the contrast for the viewing pleasure of the people inside.

 

[froot]

^ An interesting theory!

So, since we're talking about APOD and the Voyager intro, I thought I'd share this link!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110315.html

I have yet to see an image from Cassini that has not floored me - but to compile the images into such an awesome video - WOW. Anyway, note the uncanny similarity between Cassini's approach and a certain part of the Voyager intro It's almost scary, lol. And we can see how the reality differs from the CG: the rings do not appear to be that much different at close range, nor are the stars in the background visible.

And Mimas really IS the Death Star. This video proves it.

 

[BlobVanDam]

^ An interesting theory!

So, since we're talking about APOD and the Voyager intro, I thought I'd share this link!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110315.html

I have yet to see an image from Cassini that has not floored me - but to compile the images into such an awesome video - WOW. Anyway, note the uncanny similarity between Cassini's approach and a certain part of the Voyager intro It's almost scary, lol. And we can see how the reality differs from the CG: the rings do not appear to be that much different at close range, nor are the stars in the background visible.

And Mimas really IS the Death Star. This video proves it.

I remember reading about the process this guy used to work on these, and I'm not sure it would exactly depict the way the rings would look in a fly through like that, at least at the scale the Voyager intro is. The ship is so tiny compared to the planet that the rings should be pretty sparse relative to Voyager's scale, I believe. But the intro shows the ship so immensely large compared to the planet that it's wonky no matter how you look at it, so maybe this guy's video is correct for that scale.
I really like the true realistic look though, with no ambient light to fill in the shadows, and the lack of stars. I find it very interesting that even at that distance from the sun we still can't see stars.
Artistically speaking, I like to see at least see some stars to add visual interest to the background, but they do look better toned down rather than obvious. Although the intro shot of the sun should definitely NOT have stars! I'm pretty sure the intro still shows very faint stars, but even with the exposure dropped enough to keep the sun within range, there is not a chance you would see stars. And again, Voyager just further breaks the realism in terms of scale and lighting.

Basically, the intro would not work if you made it realistic. You have to bend the rules a lot to make it work.

 

[froot]

^ An interesting theory!

So, since we're talking about APOD and the Voyager intro, I thought I'd share this link!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110315.html

I have yet to see an image from Cassini that has not floored me - but to compile the images into such an awesome video - WOW. Anyway, note the uncanny similarity between Cassini's approach and a certain part of the Voyager intro It's almost scary, lol. And we can see how the reality differs from the CG: the rings do not appear to be that much different at close range, nor are the stars in the background visible.

And Mimas really IS the Death Star. This video proves it.

I remember reading about the process this guy used to work on these, and I'm not sure it would exactly depict the way the rings would look in a fly through like that, at least at the scale the Voyager intro is. The ship is so tiny compared to the planet that the rings should be pretty sparse relative to Voyager's scale, I believe. But the intro shows the ship so immensely large compared to the planet that it's wonky no matter how you look at it, so maybe this guy's video is correct for that scale.
I really like the true realistic look though, with no ambient light to fill in the shadows, and the lack of stars. I find it very interesting that even at that distance from the sun we still can't see stars.
Artistically speaking, I like to see at least see some stars to add visual interest to the background, but they do look better toned down rather than obvious. Although the intro shot of the sun should definitely NOT have stars! I'm pretty sure the intro still shows very faint stars, but even with the exposure dropped enough to keep the sun within range, there is not a chance you would see stars. And again, Voyager just further breaks the realism in terms of scale and lighting.

Basically, the intro would not work if you made it realistic. You have to bend the rules a lot to make it work.

As far as I know, it's not just a realistic look; the video is made up of actual images from Cassini. They are tweaked for contrast and composited together, yes, but I think the raw material is entirely made up of images straight off the probe (the middle bit is also composed of Cassini images but obviously they're arranged in a line.) But yeah, the lack of ambient lighting is the most surprising thing and something we're not used to seeing. On the side of Saturn facing away from the sun, it's jet black!

But, yeah, the scaling in the VOY intro is badly off, lol. I know the rules have to be bent, particularly because the human eye could never see the sort of vivid color and detail we get from all these long-exposure photographs of nebulae and other galaxies and the like. I was just mentioning an interesting comparison between idealism and (almost) reality since it seemed pertinent.

(But yeah... the Voyager crew would all die flying that close to a star.)

My guess why the stars aren't visible doesn't have much to do with the distance from the sun - it's just because Saturn is a huge, bright object reflecting a whole boatload of sunlight. It's the same reason why stars aren't really visible in the famous "Earthrise" photograph. The main subjects of the images are just too darn bright. I would assume longer exposures could bring out some background stars, but then the foreground objects would be completely blown out.

EDIT: The IMAX movie the dude is making with that footage is going to be so awesome.

EDIT2: holy spit he composited and made that whole fly-through with After Effects CS5...

 

[BlobVanDam]

It shouldn't be surprising that he used After Effects CS5. It's only using very basic animation with some flat 3D planes for the rings. It's the quality of the source material that makes it look good.

I'm definitely going to be doing the same fudging as the original intro when I remake it, but I'm going to try to find a bit more plausible balance between realism and eye candy (although I certainly won't be letting reality get in the way of some purdy pictures )

The first shot is going to be implausible if you want the sun that big in shot, and Voyager visibly flying that close. No way around that. Definitely no stars, and Voyager will be much more overexposed in the lighting.

The second shot of Voyager flying past the camera is plausible, aside from being lit from the dark side, which I'll be retaining for visibility (It's the DQ, so we can assume it's flying near something else either reflecting some light, or creating it. It's only low level anyway).

The nebula shot is ridiculous, but there's no way to make that more believable while retaining such a beautiful shot. Not sure what I'll do here yet. If you give the nebula 3D depth, it doesn't look dramatic to fly through it, and of course if you made the nebula realistic, you wouldn't even see it.

The shot of Voyager flying past the planet and ice rock is plausible enough (in the context of scifi). There are probably scale issues, but they're acceptable enough to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

The ring planet shot is also ridiculous. I was thinking a bit more realistic scale, with Voyager flying inbetween the big rocks that form the ring. The scale will still be off, but it will be a lot more believable than a 1 mile wide planet with rings you can drive on.

The last shot doesn't work either, but it's pretty enough to get away with it.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Voyager had an absolutely beautiful opening. It blew away the openings of all the other Star Trek series.


It's too bad they didn't use each of the places visited by Voyager in episodes scattered across the series. Like, imagine:

- Flying past that solar prominence in Season 1 while trying to evade an enemy ship whose hull can't stand that much heat (Kazon)?

- cruising in some Season 2 ep with that purple/brown nebula in the distant background.

- passing through that blue gaseous cloud in say Season 3.

- Visiting that planet with the space station, icy moon, and that beautiful aurora-like phenomenon visible in space around Season 4.

- Studying that blue gas giant with the ice ring in Season 5/6.

- Going to warp past that M-class planet towards the split red/blue nebular space in Season 7.