New Redesigned Starship Enterprise Revealed ?
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trevanian
Rear Admiral
Hell, I'd be pleased (well, pleased as I'm likely to be, given that I'm not going to see the movie but will be happy to cover it if I get an article assignment) if the E wound up being something the baddies were trying to steal, so you don't see it till they sneak up to do it (something like the reveal of the big cargo 747 toward the end of DIE HARD 2.) That would be a way of justifying a big payoff reveal shot.
Or it could be something moronically stupid as well. Maybe the villain is Sybok's real father (if you say spock's first mom cheated on Sarek, why not, they could reinvent whatever else they choose to?), so father like son, he wants to steal "something very big."
Or it could be something moronically stupid as well. Maybe the villain is Sybok's real father (if you say spock's first mom cheated on Sarek, why not, they could reinvent whatever else they choose to?), so father like son, he wants to steal "something very big."
Looking at Gabe's design (which has been around forever, I can't believe people are still finding it) it's Ok, although some of the later details he came up with were pretty wierd looking, like the Voyager windows on the top of the saucer.
But if I were to look at this from a purely neutral pov, assuming it wasn't a fan ENT but some other ship, the only real complaint I have is that it doesn't have any clear 'style' but is rather a pretty random mish-mash of styles. It's kinda techno, & mechanical, & sleek, & boxy, all sort of stuck together.
But if I were to look at this from a purely neutral pov, assuming it wasn't a fan ENT but some other ship, the only real complaint I have is that it doesn't have any clear 'style' but is rather a pretty random mish-mash of styles. It's kinda techno, & mechanical, & sleek, & boxy, all sort of stuck together.
Am I the only one who think's Gabe's version here---though nice and a very neat alternative view of the NCC-1701---looks like the old TOS Enterprise cross-bred with the Ambassador-class Enterprise-C from NEXT GEN?
^^^
Not at all, I was referring to that in one of my earlier posts. The nacelles and other aspects seem cribbed from parts of TNG-era ships, plus some other additions. It seems rather derivative and doesn't improve on the 1701 to a any degree like the TMP version did, although there are some good ideas in there.
Not at all, I was referring to that in one of my earlier posts. The nacelles and other aspects seem cribbed from parts of TNG-era ships, plus some other additions. It seems rather derivative and doesn't improve on the 1701 to a any degree like the TMP version did, although there are some good ideas in there.
So, essentially do what Wise did in TMP? (How convenient for the transporters to be offline so that we get to play peek-a-boo with the Refit through the drydock structure.
)
I Grok Spock said:
So, essentially do what Wise did in TMP? (How convenient for the transporters to be offline so that we get to play peek-a-boo with the Refit through the drydock structure.
Essentially what ENT did in "Broken Bow."
(If only there hadn't been spoilers in TV Guide... 
)by the way, we got gabe to give us a quote on this yesterday and Orci dropped by to comment as well
http://trekmovie.com/2007/12/04/gabe-kroener-concept-mistaken-for-leaked-enterprise/
http://trekmovie.com/2007/12/04/gabe-kroener-concept-mistaken-for-leaked-enterprise/
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I Grok Spock said:
So, essentially do what Wise did in TMP? (How convenient for the transporters to be offline so that we get to play peek-a-boo with the Refit through the drydock structure.
Well, no, to me they didn't tease it well enough, and showed way too much before the big music moment. If you'd only seen bits like a nacelle end or the torp part of the engineering hull, or just a supercloseup of the art deco lines on the saucer, those are the kinds of things I mean. You saw the ship pretty damned clearly during the side views, which was a disappointment to me given the way it was written in the novelization, where it really was a big hide and reveal.
I honestly don't remember the shots in BROKEN BOW, just that the fx weren't satisfactory (given they only had six weeks in the vfx dept to put it together from what I recall, I guess it is actually amazingly good work, but compared to the first moments of the DS9 pilot ... nuh-uh!)
trevanian said:
I Grok Spock said:
So, essentially do what Wise did in TMP? (How convenient for the transporters to be offline so that we get to play peek-a-boo with the Refit through the drydock structure.
Well, no, to me they didn't tease it well enough, and showed way too much before the big music moment. If you'd only seen bits like a nacelle end or the torp part of the engineering hull, or just a supercloseup of the art deco lines on the saucer, those are the kinds of things I mean. You saw the ship pretty damned clearly during the side views, which was a disappointment to me given the way it was written in the novelization, where it really was a big hide and reveal.
I honestly don't remember the shots in BROKEN BOW, just that the fx weren't satisfactory (given they only had six weeks in the vfx dept to put it together from what I recall, I guess it is actually amazingly good work, but compared to the first moments of the DS9 pilot ... nuh-uh!)
especially given that they used the exact same reveal trick as in TMP, with the inspection pod, and also established that the captain was a pansy in the same scene. The NX-01 reveal scene was one of my least favourite parts of Broken Bow.
That's as may be, but Dennis's statement that you challenged referred to CGI being equal or superior to large filming miniatures in terms of raw physical detailing. While subtle lens effects are another benefit of very large models, they have nothing to do with what he was talking about, hence my confusion.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
detailing without credibility is pointless, and the links to the new Galactica are a pretty good example for me. While I like a lot of Galactica, story and fxwise, I think some of the images you linked to are decidedly painterly, or at the very least, they need the black level taken way down to create greater contrast, to distract away from the lack of realism (for me anyway.)
One of the main things that makes the detailing on a miniature successful is the shadow aspect, and if you keep your fill too high, that defeats it (and a good example of this would be how bad photography and/or comping of a fine miniature winds up looking like mediocre CG is TRIALS & TRIBBLEATIONS ... the fill level is WAY too high, and the look is very soft, not contrasty, and so the modelwork is wasted, they may as well have done it all CG. Most CG doesn't seem to have decent black levels, so regardless of the amount of detailing you build into the model, it still doesn't read right unless you have those rich black shadows, not mush-to-grey. It is dynamic range again, and you usually wind up with midrange stuff, so the bright whites are only looking like mailing labels, not all that luminous, and the blacks lack snap.
If you go to the trouble of doing a superb job of 3d modelling and texture mapping a cg model, but the final output doesn't measure up to what you can do with a physical model, then it is all for nothing. You can zoom it to infinity, but you're better off having a beauty miniature for close shots (and probably a rough duplicate of that for pyro, which helps amortize the expense of going miniature.)
It has. Your bias with regard to CG and models is so complete that it prevents you from seeing clearly. You've made that clear in any number of posts over the years as the entire entertainment industry has moved on.I love Gabe's design. its what the TMP Refit should have been.
The Enterprise C and E are the closest we've gotten on screen to seeing the Phase II movie design. So, yes, I like the the influence it these 2 designs have Gabe's.
The April Fool's Day joke design ua great as well. :thumbsup:
The Enterprise C and E are the closest we've gotten on screen to seeing the Phase II movie design. So, yes, I like the the influence it these 2 designs have Gabe's.
The April Fool's Day joke design ua great as well. :thumbsup:
trevanian
Rear Admiral
North Pole-aris said:
You'll forgive me for disregarding this notion as it is coming from someone who seems to put a lot of effort into cg, and seems biased as to its effectiveness. On the other hand, I have noted how effective cg can be in SOME instances, so I do remain aware of what can be done with it on some level, either on its own or augmenting a real-world or practical effect.
But your embracing it as superior strikes me as a willingness to abandon higher quality imagery for the sake of convenience or trendiness, and that is absurd unless there is a point to producing lesser-quality imagery, and if there is such a point, I haven't seen it yet.
You seem to be misunderstanding the definition of "superior".
Take for example the opening of Star Wars Episode 3 or the Fight in Sector 001 in First Contact, admittedly, individual frames would look amazing with highly detailed well lit physical models, but when it comes to animating them, do you really expect models could come anywhere near the level of motion required for the opening of Episode 3?
Also, CG models are alot easier to produce if you take into account you can build an entire city to scale in a bedroom given a powerful PC and still have a level of detail you'd expect from a 400 ft set.
CG hasn't replaced Model Making completely, but where A model would have been made for a hero ship in star trek before, it just makes more sense from an economic and a stylistic viewpoint as You can pack more detail in cost effectively and blow it up as many times as you want while still keeping the original ship intact (bet the effects artists on Search for Spock would have loved that feature
)
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Dac said:
You seem to be misunderstanding the definition of "superior".
Take for example the opening of Star Wars Episode 3 or the Fight in Sector 001 in First Contact, admittedly, individual frames would look amazing with highly detailed well lit physical models, but when it comes to animating them, do you really expect models could come anywhere near the level of motion required for the opening of Episode 3?
Also, CG models are alot easier to produce if you take into account you can build an entire city to scale in a bedroom given a powerful PC and still have a level of detail you'd expect from a 400 ft set.
CG hasn't replaced Model Making completely, but where A model would have been made for a hero ship in star trek before, it just makes more sense from an economic and a stylistic viewpoint as You can pack more detail in cost effectively and blow it up as many times as you want while still keeping the original ship intact (bet the effects artists on Search for Spock would have loved that feature
The issue here (in THIS thread anyway) wasn't whether you could do flips with a motion control miniature (obviously the flexibility with CG is superior), but more about credible-looking close-in detail with a well-shot and well-comped miniature being leagues above most CG ships.
'
Superior' image quality relates IMO to a full range on the image, that on most space scenes you have bright whites AND crisp dark blacks and bold contrast levels PLUS credible close-in detail to represent your ships in space, and cg as it stands now (in conventional approaches, not like Cinesite's work on SOLARIS) doesn't usually handle all of that successfully, REGARDLESS of how much modeling you do on your digital construct. You can refer to earlier posts in this thread for more on all this, I'm tired of rekeying.
As for your blowing it up thing, I'll agree that you can achieve some effects through deformation, but pyro is still a lot better when you're blowing up a real object, and most superimposed pyro looks mediocre at best, whether you super it over a cg or practical model.
Ep 3 isn't a good argument for me, because nobody has offered to pay me money to watch it yet, and after fastforwarding through a lot of a free rental copy of ep2, there's no way I'll watch ep 3 unless somebody pays me. But except for defects of the times (garbage mattes printed too hot in the vid transfer and matte lines), the huge battle in JEDI looked pretty damned good to me as I recall.
While most cinematographers I've talked with are okay with shooting digital as opposed to film, they are going with this because it is an economic solution, not because it is a superior image.
If you are going to embrace cg as a be-all/end-all, do so on the economic basis, not on some limited notion of what constitutes superior imagery (though I still haven't been able to figure out why motion-control shooting, which usually only requires 1 or 2 people on a stage plus what you're shooting, would cost more than all these geeks on their computers.)
^^^You cant motion control a few thousand ships at once, and while doing it one at a time with a few different actions and then duplicating them IS a feasible option for motion controlled miniatures, I believe it is still not as dynamic as a CG animation.
Admittedly I did stray off the topic a bit, and for that I apologize, as for your original comments about detail In a CG model versus a Physical one, I believe the New Battlestar Galactica mesh has been mentioned in this thread as an example of moving toward the same level of detail as previous physical models have achieved.
I do not wish to argue over a trivial subject such as CGI and Models, as it is still a heated debate which will most likely not be settled in this thread, I'd rather just sit back, admire Gabes work and just wait in anticipation of the real Enterprise
Admittedly I did stray off the topic a bit, and for that I apologize, as for your original comments about detail In a CG model versus a Physical one, I believe the New Battlestar Galactica mesh has been mentioned in this thread as an example of moving toward the same level of detail as previous physical models have achieved.
I do not wish to argue over a trivial subject such as CGI and Models, as it is still a heated debate which will most likely not be settled in this thread, I'd rather just sit back, admire Gabes work and just wait in anticipation of the real Enterprise
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I think we were talking at cross purposes too. For that matter, I have no interest in seeing a few thousand ships at once, I'd rather see a couple beautiful ones close up (I'd also prefer many fewer FX shots, but ones that ran a bit longer, were a bit more ambitious in scope and told more of the story, rather than the current Bay-like overreliance on cutting to vfx.)
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