TrekCore: "Important News about DS9 in HD Coming May 10"

[Beta-Z]

So which series would sell better, DS9 or VOY? Which will CBS release first?

As long as they consider to release both, i don't really care.
My favourite TREK will always be TNG. Never been sure about 2nd place, DS9 has such marvellous plots and developments over its years, but VOY is a show based on a ship and discovers unexplored ground, none can win here for me, as I love them both to pieces!
I want them all sooo much, no question about that!
Don't give a damn about ENT though... don't know why, but that show never got me. Sorry so much, but I'm just beeing honest here. ENT is the only one of the bunch I won't buy on BD, as much as I tried to care for it's chars as much as I LOVE Picard, Sisko and Janeway, i just don't feel this for Bakula and Co.

 

[Lee Enfield]

Hm, not sure, it's still quite CG looking, unlike the original DVD version.

It might be due to the texturing on the ship. The escape pods look like decals to me and there's some stuff on the pod that looks plasticky.

It still looks cartoonish because of 2 areas:

- Lighting
- Materials

The Production Rendering for the SD-Shot, back in those days, was prabably lighted in a traditional manner by the Lighting Artist(s). Thereby, an object gets sorrounded by at least 3 lights. The main light is the strongest. One weaker light fills the viewablle surfaces of the object with light and the third makes a contour, in most cases.

Well, back in those days, when there were no Raytracing Algos for Global Illumination, Lighting Artists emulated scattered and reflected light by covering the object in something that is called a "light dome".

The SD-Shots, most likely, have a couple of lights, to care for a more subtle and realistic light approach. But this traditional technique would'nt hold up with HD.

The Original HD-Shot, as it seems, just makes use of ONE light source (counting out the light sources attached to the ship, because they dont add much to the overall secondary light bleeding). This is (the) one reason.


The other reason is the usage of materials. The most important factor are the specular properties. They often get defined through two specular maps (actually, one is for glossiness). Standard Rendering/Shading-Models lack the ability to compute Raytraced Reflections(/Specular/Glossiness), therefore they look cartoonish. This is especialy apparent in HD-Shots.
Though, this is another reason the HD-Shot looks a little weak, the SD-Shot-Resolution is too low to identify those properties in this particular footage.

And here is the reason the HD-Shot doesn't have those features: Because it DOES take time and work to re-do the materials and the lighting to accomplish a current gen quality(HD)! And I somehow doubt that he can "just load his scenes with modern software", without having problems. - But then, I'm not familiar with Lightwave.

 

[davejames]

Perfect.
Well... guess that deal is done then, huh?
Oh, how i'd love to be a little fly now in the offices of those decision heads over at CBS.

Well we probably shouldn't get TOO far ahead of ourselves. Note that the article states there were two teams that worked on the CG effects (Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse), and it's only Foundation that this guy has all the effects files for.

And from what he says, it was the other group that did most of the effects work, so until we hear from one of those guys I'd say this is all still very much up in the air.

Although I'd be really surprised if someone didn't have those files. It's hard to believe a company would do all that immense amount of work-- for such a huge, iconic franchise-- and not keep the computer files stored away somewhere.

 

[Oso Blanco]

In the case of the CGI files for DS9, however, those are the original elements. Rendering them anew is analogous to putting the original 35 mm film elements in a projector and scan them for a more detailed picture. That's exactly how they should remaster those effects elements.

As far as I understand, they have only the effect elements from one of the two fx houses, and only for the later seasons. What about the other episodes?

EDIT: Schon lustig, wie das Board immer mehr von deutschen Usern bevölkert wird. Das hat man nun davon, dass es kein ordentliches, deutsches Star Trek-Forum gibt, richtig? Vielleicht sollten wir uns bei Gelegenheit mal in einem Thread sammeln.

In der Tat ... aber da ich Star Trek immer im Original sehe, war ich auch noch nie in einem deutschen Star Trek Forum. Mir fehlen immer die passenden deutschen Wörter ... wie offensichtlich auch den Dialogschreibern der Synchros ...

Aber ein deutsches Sub-Forum hier wäre eine witzige Sache!

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Perfect.
Well... guess that deal is done then, huh?
Oh, how i'd love to be a little fly now in the offices of those decision heads over at CBS.

Well we probably shouldn't get TOO far ahead of ourselves. Note that the article states there were two teams that worked on the CG effects (Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse), and it's only Foundation that this guy has all the effects files for.

And from what he says, it was the other group that did most of the effects work, so until we hear from one of those guys I'd say this is all still very much up in the air.

Although I'd be really surprised if someone didn't have those files. It's hard to believe a company would do all that immense amount of work-- for such a huge, iconic franchise-- and not keep the computer files stored away somewhere.

Well, Eden FX is still around. Eden FX is what became of both Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse. Rob Bonchune worked for both Foundation and Eden FX, and Eden FX have all of Digital Muse's Star Trek assets. Here's the pertinent quote from Memory Alpha:

Digital Muse closed down in February 2000 after a decision to sell a portion of the company to an internet company in order to raise capital backfired, resulting in a hostile take-over of the company. Gross opted to start over, leaving the company to found Eden FX with Digital Magic's Mark Miller. Digital Muse shut down the following week. [1] [2] The company was working on the seventh season of Star Trek: Voyager at the time; fortunately, however, Paramount Pictures owned the computer models which Digital Muse created, so Gross and his staff were able to simply copy the models onto their server at Eden FX, allowing the studio to continue their work with the franchise. [3] Many of the employees at Digital Muse also quit Muse to join Eden FX.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Foundation_Imaging
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Digital_Muse
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Eden_FX

 

[MacLeod]

Hm, not sure, it's still quite CG looking, unlike the original DVD version.

Doesn't the article say the picture was a quick test of what it could look like. So the fully finished article might look slightly different.

 

[LtChange]

And how many times did we have in the TNG HD screens the reaction, that, well that looks OK but not spectacular, and when in motion we remained astonished? I always said a single frame is not enough, in motion it looks different single frames do not do justice.

 

[MacLeod]

True, it's hard to judge from a single frame.

 

[Scotty]

That still looks CGI, because it is. CGI will never look as filmic as model work. It looked like CGI on the DVD as well. To say otherwise is a bit silly. With digital techniques, they could make the CGI look more like film, but I will always see the difference.

The most important thing is that the improvement in quality is staggering. And we should all be thankful that these companies saved their files.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Nice news.

 

[timtonruben359]

This is fantastic news! I've always felt that once Paramount green lit TNG in HD they would eventually get around to DS9 and VOY. Star Trek is still a big cash cow and with the new Star Trek movie out (or just about out for some), it will only generate new interest in the franchise.

The fact the the majority of CGI is saved is amazing!!!!! I feel as though the technical staff on Star Trek had a foresight that the Producers and the studio lacked!!!

The good thing about DS9 is that the show actually didn't start heavily into CGI until the 6th season. The first 5 seasons were largely model work (even the big Klingon battle in way of the warrior). And the station itself was always a model they only CGI shot of deep space nine is in the final second of the show where Kira and Jake look out the window and the station fades away.

 

[NewHorizon]

This is fantastic news! I've always felt that once Paramount green lit TNG in HD they would eventually get around to DS9 and VOY.

CBS greenlit TNG in HD. Paramount only holds rights to the movies.

 

[trevanian]

Hm, not sure, it's still quite CG looking, unlike the original DVD version.

I dunno, the original DVD version just looks like CG rendered at D1 res to me. There's nothing particularly magical about it, other than the fact that it has an incredibly low amount of visible detail (as you would expect). It certainly doesn't look any more like a physical model than the new 1080p render.

Here's what the miniature looked like in Generations:

An observation about how it looked in GEN:

ILM did a really bad paint job biased heavily into blue, which was still on it when I saw the model during the making of FIRST CONTACT. It actually looked from a distance like one of those cardboard Enterprises you'd see in a Tower Records movie department back then. Since this particular model was not painted that way during the series that I can recall, it might not be the best example.

I do agree that the original series image you posted is nothing great ... however, I think it could easily be spruced up by playing with the contrast levels (which is what they really needed to do on TRIALS & TRIBB, because those excellent models read like mediocre CG to my eye, due to the lack of contrast and snap to the image.)

If DS9 were remastered with an eye toward making most of the exterior ship VFX -- i.e., resemble the Wolf 359 battle in terms of really black shadow sides and contrast -- the series would probably emerge as having its own distinctive look, one that would match its equally distinctive creative voice in the writing department - that'd make for the best of both blah-blah-blahs.

 

[Destructor]

Q: Would people who do not like things 'changing' in remastered versions object if the repeated 'battle scene' in the final episode (pulled from a couple of previous episodes) was replaced with a new battle sequence? It bugs me tremendously that there basically isn't a new battle scene in the final episode, and that the 'epic confrontation' we had spent four years building up to was basically... a clips show. Given that this was PURELY the result of budgetary problems- that the original creators, given their druthers, would have included a new VFX sequence- would anyone object to these sequences being replaced?

 

[MacLeod]

^Short answer. No

It would also allow hem to fix the Defiant's registry.

 

[Dream]

As for blu-ray sales, remember some people might be waiting for the complete series collection before buying.

That kind of thinking kills blu-ray sales...

 

[DS9Continuing]

It would also allow hem to fix the Defiant's registry.

I don't really want them to fix the nu-Defiant's registry, though, because I like the explanation given for it in the books, and I don't want that negated.

But new battle scene, yes absolutely.

.

 

[SSOASS]

A blu ray release would be fantastic .. ideally with some new extras on it.

 

[Candlelight]

Shut up and take my money!

 

[NKemp3]

A blu ray release would be fantastic .. ideally with some new extras on it.

Even with that it wouldn't be worth buying if commentaries aren't included.