Visual Effects in Discovery
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I think they're overexposing them to get the traditional white-window look from a distance. Like, in the fly-in at the beginning of "The Wolf Inside," it looks to me like there are interiors in nearly all the windows, but I can only see because of the parallax between the bright walls and the darker floors while the camera is moving. If I just posted a screen cap it isn't apparent. If the window is blooming, you probably shouldn't be able to discern any detail inside it, logically, so it's coming out about as I would expect if you wanted window boxes but also a traditional "bright window" look.
It may also be a LOD issue, and they only use the window boxes when Discovery is really filling the frame.
Sure. I only learned about this a couple years ago, from discussion about the fake depth-of-field effects Apple was adding to the iPhone. There's a detailed explanation on this page, with examples, in the "Okay Wanna Nerd Out for a Bit?" section. The short version is that when things are out of focus, the grow into hard-edge shapes defined by the shape of the lens (so a perfect circle, or a hexagon or octagon or something, depending on the design of the camera's iris). A gaussian blur makes all things fuzzier.
Discovery normally gets this right, because it's made in 2018 and we know better. At this point, I think it may almost be harder to screw it up than it is to do it properly with modern tools. Plus, you know, they get the physically correct effect for free in shots without VFX, and there was a lot of shallow focus in "Forest."
So here's one where they got it right, in the same scene. Notice the "bokeh" discs in the upper right:
It's possible that's an in-camera effect, I don't know how they do their matte-pulling and dirty glass effects for the Sarcophagus ship, so they might have black-screened that shot since it was a mix of hard edges and semitransparent surfaces and that's actually a real physical glint (does anyone know if there's a real scratched-up window on the Sarcophagus bridge?). Even so, they do do correct depth-of-field CG effects on stuff like the holograms as a matter of course.
And here's the one I was thinking of. See how much fuzzier Discovery is, while what you'd expect is for the windows, running lights, and nacelle caps to form prominent bright discs rather than being smeared into the rest of the ship:
And here's one that's much, much worse, where in addition to using a gaussian blur to fake focus, they gave the planet, stars, and Discovery different levels of focus:
Optical infinity varies depending on the lens, but even for a longish lens like that shot, it can't be more than, say, a couple hundred feet at most, meaning that as far as the camera's focus is concerned, everything past that distance is equally close. The Discovery, miles away, and the stars, hundreds of lightyears away, cannot have a different level of focus. It's physically impossible. For the effect we see, where the stars are very out of focus and the ship is moderately out of focus, gives a depth cue that says to me they hung a flat cut-out of Discovery maybe four feet wide outside the bridge set, and put up a giant Pahvo backdrop further down the soundstage, which I don't think is what people mean when they say they want stuff to look more like practical effects. I think the camera tracking is also set with the Discovery and the stars at different distances, adding to the effect that the ship is very small and very close since it's moving separately from the stars as the camera bobs a few inches vertically.
There's also a shot looking at Kol from outside the window, where the focus shifts from him to the reflection of the Discovery being in focus, which is close to being physically correct, except for some reason the scratches on the glass and the frame of the window also come into focus with Discovery, when they're much close to Kol than they are to the other ship. What should happen is that they're a bit out of focus when the shot is on Kol, and they get even more out of focus because the camera is racking up to focus to infinity. It doesn't know it's looking at a reflection, as far as the camera is concerned, there's a "virtual" Discovery miles past Kol, not a real one behind the camera.
(This is way more fun to noodle over than when people ask me to eyeball the horizon line and field of view on our greenscreen footage at work. "Just take notes when you film it," I tell them. "It'll look funny because we put the camera too high up and zoom in too much, but at least you'll know it's right.")
I think they're overexposing them to get the traditional white-window look from a distance. Like, in the fly-in at the beginning of "The Wolf Inside," it looks to me like there are interiors in nearly all the windows, but I can only see because of the parallax between the bright walls and the darker floors while the camera is moving. If I just posted a screen cap it isn't apparent. If the window is blooming, you probably shouldn't be able to discern any detail inside it, logically, so it's coming out about as I would expect if you wanted window boxes but also a traditional "bright window" look.
It may also be a LOD issue, and they only use the window boxes when Discovery is really filling the frame.
Sure. I only learned about this a couple years ago, from discussion about the fake depth-of-field effects Apple was adding to the iPhone. There's a detailed explanation on this page, with examples, in the "Okay Wanna Nerd Out for a Bit?" section. The short version is that when things are out of focus, the grow into hard-edge shapes defined by the shape of the lens (so a perfect circle, or a hexagon or octagon or something, depending on the design of the camera's iris). A gaussian blur makes all things fuzzier.
Discovery normally gets this right, because it's made in 2018 and we know better. At this point, I think it may almost be harder to screw it up than it is to do it properly with modern tools. Plus, you know, they get the physically correct effect for free in shots without VFX, and there was a lot of shallow focus in "Forest."
So here's one where they got it right, in the same scene. Notice the "bokeh" discs in the upper right:
It's possible that's an in-camera effect, I don't know how they do their matte-pulling and dirty glass effects for the Sarcophagus ship, so they might have black-screened that shot since it was a mix of hard edges and semitransparent surfaces and that's actually a real physical glint (does anyone know if there's a real scratched-up window on the Sarcophagus bridge?). Even so, they do do correct depth-of-field CG effects on stuff like the holograms as a matter of course.
And here's the one I was thinking of. See how much fuzzier Discovery is, while what you'd expect is for the windows, running lights, and nacelle caps to form prominent bright discs rather than being smeared into the rest of the ship:
And here's one that's much, much worse, where in addition to using a gaussian blur to fake focus, they gave the planet, stars, and Discovery different levels of focus:
Optical infinity varies depending on the lens, but even for a longish lens like that shot, it can't be more than, say, a couple hundred feet at most, meaning that as far as the camera's focus is concerned, everything past that distance is equally close. The Discovery, miles away, and the stars, hundreds of lightyears away, cannot have a different level of focus. It's physically impossible. For the effect we see, where the stars are very out of focus and the ship is moderately out of focus, gives a depth cue that says to me they hung a flat cut-out of Discovery maybe four feet wide outside the bridge set, and put up a giant Pahvo backdrop further down the soundstage, which I don't think is what people mean when they say they want stuff to look more like practical effects. I think the camera tracking is also set with the Discovery and the stars at different distances, adding to the effect that the ship is very small and very close since it's moving separately from the stars as the camera bobs a few inches vertically.
There's also a shot looking at Kol from outside the window, where the focus shifts from him to the reflection of the Discovery being in focus, which is close to being physically correct, except for some reason the scratches on the glass and the frame of the window also come into focus with Discovery, when they're much close to Kol than they are to the other ship. What should happen is that they're a bit out of focus when the shot is on Kol, and they get even more out of focus because the camera is racking up to focus to infinity. It doesn't know it's looking at a reflection, as far as the camera is concerned, there's a "virtual" Discovery miles past Kol, not a real one behind the camera.
(This is way more fun to noodle over than when people ask me to eyeball the horizon line and field of view on our greenscreen footage at work. "Just take notes when you film it," I tell them. "It'll look funny because we put the camera too high up and zoom in too much, but at least you'll know it's right.")
Damn yo, that's a lot of awesome shop talk droppin is what that is.
Ha. I never go into detail with my critiques of Discovery's VFX because I thought the "shop talk" would be boring as hell to anyone not familiar with effects processes.
I have to agree that the external shots aren’t quite right. Not entirely sure what I’m looking at most of the time.
Haven’t worked out what it is that I don’t like though. I like the naturalistic environmental lighting, but when compared to B5 which is on TV every night at the moment, the externals are much less clear despite being in a much higher resolution.
The Palace Ship just looked cartoony. I think I’d welcome a return to the old TNG style beauty shots, even though I’d long dreamed of the long zoom in shots that take us right inside the ship.
Haven’t worked out what it is that I don’t like though. I like the naturalistic environmental lighting, but when compared to B5 which is on TV every night at the moment, the externals are much less clear despite being in a much higher resolution.
The Palace Ship just looked cartoony. I think I’d welcome a return to the old TNG style beauty shots, even though I’d long dreamed of the long zoom in shots that take us right inside the ship.
those zoom-in shots sorta lose their magic when they're used multiple times in every single episode.
I'm not familiar with it but I love the shop talk. My personal taste I supposr
But. it's the 'hot thing' these days (Much like the shaky/handled space shot was what was in vogue and IMO overused for BSG2003 back in the day.)
But, yeah, they do go overboard with it.
I actually like BSG style action. Yes, it does use shaky cam, and lots of zoom and focus, but it just works:
Graphics are not washed out and they focus on each subject for long enough for me to actually understand what's going on.
Started with Firefly and Attack of the Clones.
And beat to death in most action, superhero and sci-fi movies for the last 10 years.
Welcome to Hollywood.
The shop talk i appreciate. It helps me to understand what is going on. Likely help any future CG working i do...
I felt that the season 1 finale was a step in the right direction, we got to see a Discovery flyby, the zoom ins were nice, especially with the Spacedock under construction, and of course the Enterprise head to head with Discovery.
Wish they would get rid of the soft filter though. Oh, and it would be nice if the Klingon ships would get the same respect the Enterprise did.
Wish they would get rid of the soft filter though. Oh, and it would be nice if the Klingon ships would get the same respect the Enterprise did.
After the war, the now unified Klingon Empire will need a fleet of new ships. Or maybe they won't. I'm not a prophet.
I was watching an episode of Star Trek : Enterprise tonight, and it legit had flybys of the NX-01 that looked more photoreal than Discovery. I don't know what's going on.
Good God, man. Why would you subject yourself to an episode of Enterprise?
Purchase them from the Romulans?
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