Suggestions Please: belivable CGI ships

[ST-One]

I love both of these shots

and

but the first one feels like it has weight.

and yes, I know there is more weight in space. It's an expression. there's also no sound in space.

I don't know how you 'see' weight in either of these shots.

Well i obviously I don't. I don't have a magic scale. I'm talking a sense of weightiness. I'm talking about something that has a real sense of mass and texture.

Perhaps you could point out what triggers this sense in those images and what doesn't.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

That's tough to do obviously. It's all how you look at it.

One thing though, is the black path on the TWOK Enterprise, located on the nacelle. Sure you can CG that, but somehow it looks like a real, solid material to me. It's all in how the eye is fooled or not fooled.

 

[ST-One]

That's tough to do obviously. It's all how you look at it.

One thing though, is the black path on the TWOK Enterprise, located on the nacelle. Sure you can CG that, but somehow it looks like a real, solid material to me. It's all in how the eye is fooled or not fooled.

If you say so...

It's a TMP shot, btw.

But, I too have to say that this:

looks a lot better than this:

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I got it from the TWOK pictures... they reused the footage

 

[ST-One]

I got it from the TWOK pictures... they reused the footage

I know.

BTW: I've quoted that TMP shot now, what, three or four times... despite your keen eye for detecting the 'weightlessness' of CGI, you don't seem to have noticed that I've replaced your image with that of a CG-recreation of that shot.

 

[JarodRussell]

That's tough to do obviously. It's all how you look at it.

One thing though, is the black path on the TWOK Enterprise, located on the nacelle. Sure you can CG that, but somehow it looks like a real, solid material to me. It's all in how the eye is fooled or not fooled.

If you say so...

It's a TMP shot, btw.

But, I too have to say that this:



looks a lot better than this:

Yeah well, one is obviously CG, and the other one isn't. I wouldn't say the TMP Enterprise looks realistic in this shot, as it lacks a lot of details a real 300 m long ship would have, but it looks real. It still doesn't look as real as in the original shot, but closer.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

good call.. and on my netbook i didn't notice but should have. Looking at them together, there is more detail on the model. Still, your point is well taken.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

As far as I'm concerned, CGI overtook model work in this genre as soon as Babylon 5 hit the airwaves.

 

[Manticore]

That's tough to do obviously. It's all how you look at it.

One thing though, is the black path on the TWOK Enterprise, located on the nacelle. Sure you can CG that, but somehow it looks like a real, solid material to me. It's all in how the eye is fooled or not fooled.

If you say so...

It's a TMP shot, btw.

But, I too have to say that this:

looks a lot better than this:

What throws it for me is the lighting, which is much blander and artificial, and also the much more washed out blacks. However, it's not really fair to compare an image from a movie (or from a remaster/re-envisioning of a movie) that was widely-known for having amazing effects to a television series...that had decent-to-mediocre at best.

If you compare it to the 2009 Enterprise, the ship FX are far more comparable. Heck, even to the E in Nemesis.

 

[JarodRussell]

One thing in Nemesis that in my opinion was rather badly done was the scene where the Enterprise rams the Scimitar. You can clearly see that they used a different model for the crash because of the hull color.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2156.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2160.jpg

I know this falls well into the "who the fuck cares" category, but it wouldn't have been too hard to paint it to actually match the CG model, would it?


But - to me at least - there's no difference between the two models regarding how "real" they look. Both the CG model and the real model used for the crash look equally real to me.

 

[Amaris]

"its entrance" meaning this?

That's also the real model.

But all other ships, Defiant, Akira, Steamrunner, etc... are CG.

Huh. I could swear I'd heard that was the CG version. Then again, going by the DVD commentary, some folks involved with the film weren't even aware there was a model. So maybe I shouldn't trust what special features say.

He's right, that's the 'miniature' (that thing was huge).
The warp-jump before the Borg-battle - that's the CG-Enterprise.
The initial intention for First Contact was to go all CG with the Enterprise, but the reference model they built for the CG-ship turned out so good that they used it instead.

Personally, I think the shots of the CG-Enterprise-B in Generations still look pretty good (the D, not so much).

The B was CGI? God, that was a gorgeous ship.

 

[bullethead]

One thing in Nemesis that in my opinion was rather badly done was the scene where the Enterprise rams the Scimitar. You can clearly see that they used a different model for the crash because of the hull color.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2156.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2160.jpg

I know this falls well into the "who the fuck cares" category, but it wouldn't have been too hard to paint it to actually match the CG model, would it?


But - to me at least - there's no difference between the two models regarding how "real" they look. Both the CG model and the real model used for the crash look equally real to me.

That looks like a lighting effect to me. The CGI E is greener because it has all that green light from the nebula bouncing off it, while the model is shot fairly close up, so there isn't as much green light being reflected.

 

[Manticore]

One thing in Nemesis that in my opinion was rather badly done was the scene where the Enterprise rams the Scimitar. You can clearly see that they used a different model for the crash because of the hull color.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2156.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2160.jpg

I know this falls well into the "who the fuck cares" category, but it wouldn't have been too hard to paint it to actually match the CG model, would it?


But - to me at least - there's no difference between the two models regarding how "real" they look. Both the CG model and the real model used for the crash look equally real to me.

That looks like a lighting effect to me. The CGI E is greener because it has all that green light from the nebula bouncing off it, while the model is shot fairly close up, so there isn't as much green light being reflected.

I think that he's talking about the noticeably darker sections, like the armored section with the transporter emitters, or the lower half of the vixible saucer.

 

[Candlelight]

I always thought the model work done in Starship Troopers was pretty good.

The early seasons of BSG (under the command of Zoic) were pretty good too.

 

[David cgc]

The B was CGI? God, that was a gorgeous ship.

About half the time. The two drydock shots, and the long shot down its length at the end of the sequence where you can see the three folks looking out of the damaged section were the physical model. The shots near the Nexus, with the red light reflecting off the ship, were all CG. Well, I'm not sure about the shot where the energy bolt hits the ship. That might be the model, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

 

[DWF]

The B was CGI? God, that was a gorgeous ship.

About half the time. The two drydock shots, and the long shot down its length at the end of the sequence where you can see the three folks looking out of the damaged section were the physical model. The shots near the Nexus, with the red light reflecting off the ship, were all CG. Well, I'm not sure about the shot where the energy bolt hits the ship. That might be the model, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

As far as I know the Enterprise B is only CGI in one scene and that's when it's hit by the energy ribbon.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Generations#Effects

 

[David cgc]

^I think they're using "interacts" in the sense that the light from the Nexus was visible on the ship, not just when the one is touching the other.

 

[Crystalline Entity]

Does anyone know if the aircraft carriers in Transformers 2 were CGI? If they were, perhaps we can compare shots from that movie with pictures of real ones.

 

[ST-One]

One thing in Nemesis that in my opinion was rather badly done was the scene where the Enterprise rams the Scimitar. You can clearly see that they used a different model for the crash because of the hull color.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2156.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/nemesishd/nemesishd2160.jpg

I know this falls well into the "who the fuck cares" category, but it wouldn't have been too hard to paint it to actually match the CG model, would it?


But - to me at least - there's no difference between the two models regarding how "real" they look. Both the CG model and the real model used for the crash look equally real to me.

I guess the difference is mainly due to lighting (but the miniature still is much lighter in colour).
But since they only built the very front of the saucer for the crash, you have to admit you can't see the transition from the model to the CG-extension in that shot.

Huh. I could swear I'd heard that was the CG version. Then again, going by the DVD commentary, some folks involved with the film weren't even aware there was a model. So maybe I shouldn't trust what special features say.

He's right, that's the 'miniature' (that thing was huge).
The warp-jump before the Borg-battle - that's the CG-Enterprise.
The initial intention for First Contact was to go all CG with the Enterprise, but the reference model they built for the CG-ship turned out so good that they used it instead.

Personally, I think the shots of the CG-Enterprise-B in Generations still look pretty good (the D, not so much).

The B was CGI? God, that was a gorgeous ship.

The B was CGI? God, that was a gorgeous ship.

About half the time. The two drydock shots, and the long shot down its length at the end of the sequence where you can see the three folks looking out of the damaged section were the physical model. The shots near the Nexus, with the red light reflecting off the ship, were all CG. Well, I'm not sure about the shot where the energy bolt hits the ship. That might be the model, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

Spot on.
I too am pretty sure that all Nexus shot with the B are CG.

 

[ST-One]

About half the time. The two drydock shots, and the long shot down its length at the end of the sequence where you can see the three folks looking out of the damaged section were the physical model. The shots near the Nexus, with the red light reflecting off the ship, were all CG. Well, I'm not sure about the shot where the energy bolt hits the ship. That might be the model, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

As far as I know the Enterprise B is only CGI in one scene and that's when it's hit by the energy ribbon.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Generations#Effects

^I think they're using "interacts" in the sense that the light from the Nexus was visible on the ship, not just when the one is touching the other.

I just checked the shots on Trekcore; all four shots of the B in the Nexus were done with the digital model.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/generationshd/generationshd0192.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/generationshd/generationshd0219.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/generationshd/generationshd0288.jpg

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/generationshd/generationshd0292.jpg