The OFFICIAL STNG-R general discussion thread!

[Sho]

Model work of 1987 compared to CGI work of 2011?

The problem with that line of thought is that you're choosing to selectively ignore the reality of the situation.

You have to actually compare 1987 high-budget model work benefitting from recompositing and cleanups with modern post-production technology and 2011 low-budget CGI by a studio with a bad track record at it (let's face it, the space CGI shots were by far the weakest part of TOS-R).

Yes, 2011 CGI might well be awesome if done on a comparable budget to the model work done in 1987, but those monetary resources are not available. With the available resources, combining the 1987 model work with modern compositing is going to produce the best possible results.

Heck, just look at the CGI Galaxy done for the Enterprise finale to prove the point that the refurbished model shots can outdo low-budget CGI (which it was by S4).

It's not being old-fashioned, it's being pragmatic rather than wishing for things that just aren't in reach. (Though personally I'm also rather happy they're reusing the original photography simply because I'd like them to preserve as much of the original footage as they can.)

Basically the only good thing about them trying to go CGI would have been that they're going to need the CGI production pipeline for a DS9 remastering due to all the CGI stuff done for DS9 they can't scan negatives of. But in the end I'd rather not have them train on TNG ...

 

[RAMA]

I think the TNG model work is of the highest quality, particularly the ILM shots. TNG got 6 or 7 nominations/wins in the emmys for special visual effects. They will look even better now they are recomposited in HD and far superior than any cheap CGI we could have got.

Model work of 1987 compared to CGI work of 2011?

If only we'd got the chance to see how wrong your "cheap" comment is, but ironically CBS were the ones too "cheap" to prove that point ARF ARF!

Still, the whole model work vs CGI debate you get on here paints this forum in such an old fashioned light.
I've seen better CGI on youtube done by one guy in his bedroom in his spare time after his day job that looks better than most of the model work on TNG.
Imagine what a full team of artists doing it as their day job could create?

Certainly more than 12 stock shots and battle scenes where no ships involved have any movement potential whatsoever!

When will people learn that its not Models VS CGI when there's good and bad special effects created with both disciplines!

This effort is hardly cheap, it's a huge investment. Using most of the original FX is a time saver for a very complex project.

We agree that there is good CGI and good model work out there. I would have liked more CGI but so far I am happy with the actual representations of what we are likely to see. The show had some great model work for a television budget. The small fixes have been awesome.

 

[ATimson]

I've seen better CGI on youtube done by one guy in his bedroom in his spare time after his day job that looks better than most of the model work on TNG.

And how long did he take to work on that shot? Achieving a shot that looks better than a model after weeks or months of work isn't impressive, because that's an unrealistic investment of time & resources for a commercial project.

Being able to turn over an entire episode's worth of effects in a week or two (the typical post-production time on a new episode - you can bet it's going to be towards the low end for a project like TOS-R/TNG-R) would be, though.

 

[NewHorizon]

People tend to gloss over the fact that CBS-D had very few choices when it came to TOS-R. They had all of the completely finished episodes on film, but they didn't have any of the original separately filmed models. The shots of the ship degraded from episode to episode as they were continuously reused. They really had no choice but to redo the ships in CGI.

Skip ahead to TNG-R. Here they do have all of the original filmed model work...but they have to re-edit all of the episodes from scratch.

To be honest, I would not want to wish having to do 7 years worth of CGI on top of re-editing 7 years of episodes.

The model work is being re-composited on computers, and enhnaced with new techniques. It's going to look better than it could have 25 years ago. The planets, stars, phasers, explosions...and whatever else needs to be recreated...will be done with CGI.

It's a perfect marriage of technologies in my opinion.

 

[Sho]

And it's going to be exciting to watch because it's so unusual. That's really what I was getting at up there: Nobody's doing motion control anymore because it's no longer cost-effective because the infrastructure and talent is gone, so it will be a unique experience to see the combination of model photography and modern digital post-production technology and done at HD resolution. TNG-R will look and feel fresh and unique. All-CGI would be relatively boring: Aside from the budget and time not being there to do good CGI work, we also already know what that looks like, we've had it on Enterprise and other shows. But we don't know this yet.

 

[mswood]

While I do like what we have seen, remember that ILM is the only post production work that was given much time (pilots having a longer then typical episode post production time frame), in fact the day to fay tv episodes couldn't keep up, they kept expanding the personnel and changed production models to help speed up the time process.

As for winning awards for visual FX please remember this is 1987 and up, there wasn't what you would call much in the way of competition.

Not to say some of the later ship work wasn't handled well (Some absolutely was), but a lot was also rushed to complete.

And even I admit that I am sick to death of reused ship shots, after seeing some literally over a hundred times....

Now on to the comparison between ENT CGI NCC-1701D, you actually shouldn't be comparing it to any of the remastered footage so far, because that wasn't the material that ENT was working from. Its the 4ft model that they duplicated many shots, and so far, we don't have a single frame yet to make any rational comparisons with.

Even using the same model shots, I wouldn't mind seeing them actually attempt to better capture they correct scale as TNG could be absolutely awful about this (see Defector a some glaring examples). That I would think they could work on with the footage they do have.

 

[milo bloom]

Well, I just mailed off my TNG complete DVD set. I'm not an upgrade junkie or anything and if the TNG DVDs had looked even halfway decent I would have kept them. But they were very poorly compressed and often looked worse than older material (like classic Doctor Who) on our LCD widescreen.

I would have upgraded even if these were standard def transfers on a Bluray disc with better compression, the HD is just gravy at this point.

 

[NewHorizon]

And it's going to be exciting to watch because it's so unusual. That's really what I was getting at up there: Nobody's doing motion control anymore because it's no longer cost-effective because the infrastructure and talent is gone, so it will be a unique experience to see the combination of model photography and modern digital post-production technology and done at HD resolution. TNG-R will look and feel fresh and unique. All-CGI would be relatively boring: Aside from the budget and time not being there to do good CGI work, we also already know what that looks like, we've had it on Enterprise and other shows. But we don't know this yet.

Agreed, this is a really unique situation and I'm really enjoying the results of what I have seen so far. It looks stunning.

 

[mswood]

And it's going to be exciting to watch because it's so unusual. That's really what I was getting at up there: Nobody's doing motion control anymore because it's no longer cost-effective because the infrastructure and talent is gone, so it will be a unique experience to see the combination of model photography and modern digital post-production technology and done at HD resolution. TNG-R will look and feel fresh and unique. All-CGI would be relatively boring: Aside from the budget and time not being there to do good CGI work, we also already know what that looks like, we've had it on Enterprise and other shows. But we don't know this yet.

Motion Control isn't dead it's just not widely used. One of the worlds largest and most successful FX houses still uses a ton, a ton of motion control. Weta.

 

[mswood]

And I really, really hope they don't reuse the Matte paintings ( unless of course it's the same place), for all the fault I found with CBS digitals space bound CGI, I loved to really liked their CGI recreations of TOS matte paintings.

 

[cbspock]

The whole TOS-Remaster project with new CGI effects was not to make them look modern but replicate the look and feel of the original. I think they did a great job.


-Chris

 

[Sho]

TOS-R was a mixed bag. Nearly everything done to the live action footage was great, and I loved the matte paintings. But while there were occassional flashes of brilliance in the space CG, most of it was really bad - and not recreating the look and feel of the original at all, either. Just cheap, phony-looking CG, bereft of texture and with shoddy lighting.

 

[22 Stars]

People tend to gloss over the fact that CBS-D had very few choices when it came to TOS-R. They had all of the completely finished episodes on film, but they didn't have any of the original separately filmed models. The shots of the ship degraded from episode to episode as they were continuously reused. They really had no choice but to redo the ships in CGI.

Skip ahead to TNG-R. Here they do have all of the original filmed model work...but they have to re-edit all of the episodes from scratch.

To be honest, I would not want to wish having to do 7 years worth of CGI on top of re-editing 7 years of episodes.

The model work is being re-composited on computers, and enhnaced with new techniques. It's going to look better than it could have 25 years ago. The planets, stars, phasers, explosions...and whatever else needs to be recreated...will be done with CGI.

It's a perfect marriage of technologies in my opinion.

This. Can we sticky this post at the top of every page of this thread!

 

[22 Stars]

TOS-R was a mixed bag. Nearly everything done to the live action footage was great, and I loved the matte paintings. But while there were occassional flashes of brilliance in the space CG, most of it was really bad - and not recreating the look and feel of the original at all, either. Just cheap, phony-looking CG, bereft of texture and with shoddy lighting.

I think you are being unfair in your criticism of the space CGI. They started out weak and that left a bad first impression, but soon had a superior mesh to work with and once that was adopted they did extraordinary work consistently. I just wish they had time and budget to go back and redo the first batch and the credits.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think Sho is being more than fair.

Anyhoo, back on topic - I am really excited with the approach to the VFX being taken for TNG-HD.

 

[Sho]

Let's be clear that I don't chalk this up to their abilities, but mostly because they had to knock 'em episodes out the park at record time.

 

[JJohnson]

And I really, really hope they don't reuse the Matte paintings ( unless of course it's the same place), for all the fault I found with CBS digitals space bound CGI, I loved to really liked their CGI recreations of TOS matte paintings.

As did I. The matte from the Menagerie with moving elevators, and people walking in the background, the Scalosian city, those were excellent work. I just wish they could've extended more of the studio shots to make them look like they were really exteriors - add background clouds, trees, etc. I'm looking forward to how they work with the mattes on TNG.

 

[JJohnson]

TOS-R was a mixed bag. Nearly everything done to the live action footage was great, and I loved the matte paintings. But while there were occassional flashes of brilliance in the space CG, most of it was really bad - and not recreating the look and feel of the original at all, either. Just cheap, phony-looking CG, bereft of texture and with shoddy lighting.

I think you are being unfair in your criticism of the space CGI. They started out weak and that left a bad first impression, but soon had a superior mesh to work with and once that was adopted they did extraordinary work consistently. I just wish they had time and budget to go back and redo the first batch and the credits.

The credits were such a glaring difference with the rest of the episode. I don't understand why those still shots couldn't be taken from the remastered versions of the episodes once they finished them, at least once the blu-rays arrived.

 

[mswood]

"The Perfect Marriage" in techniques this is not. The Perfect one would be using whatever technique delivered the best individual shots. By all accounts that isn't what is occurring.

Now it's certainly going to be an improvement that does not mean its going to be perfect.

22Stars

Actually the original mesh was the superior one. The reason they stopped using it was that they lacked either the time or resources (or both) to fully render out that original mesh.

And no look at several later episodes you will see a set of rather standard shots at aree done fairly well, ship orbit that sort of thing, but a host of others that looked terrible. Both early and later in the series. The one area that they CGI looked great from start to finish was the digital mattes and to a lesser degree the planetary bodies.

When I say the effects looked poor, I am not judging the style of the effects but the renderering of them. Though effects like the ship in motion against doomsday machine, sling shot around the sun were really poorly laid out as well as rendered poorly.

The more sedate slow moving orbiting shots looked vastly superior.

 

[mswood]

One. Ore thing please. Please refine the flash that show the ships entry into warp space. It's was weak in TNG, I doubt it was a film effect and could easily be updated with modern effects as easily as the planets, phasers and shields should be. I can express how much I hate it each and every time I have ever seen it, which has to be tens of thousands of times.