Starship Excelsior - Film grading test

[Planeguy]

Testing a few new lighting techniques (to me at least). Scene uses two lights. An environment light with a sky background where I changed the colors of the sky and the direction of the sun which was below the horizon. This created some cool shading on the hull.

There's a bit of stuttering caused by slowing the footage down in post to match the lenght of the theme (I should have added another 100 frames but got impatient).

There's a distant light too, and GI was enabled.

 

[prometheus]

GI & Environment lighting looks good, though I think it shouldn´t be necessary to use both.

Two suggestions...

1. Don´t have the camera totally static, move it ever so slightly either by pitch, rotation or translation or all those at once to avoid the sense of a photo and something just moving in front of it.

2. The blue color on the ship, while artistcly a matter of taste, I think this should be toned down a lot, generally we mostly see that kind of saturation incolors when there is planets around the ship, below or over a ship and reflecting such light, or some other space nebula phenomena that impacts it.
If it´s supposed to be filmgrading, then another kind of filter grading would be better I think.

 

[Markc]

Testing a few new lighting techniques (to me at least). Scene uses two lights. An environment light with a sky background where I changed the colors of the sky and the direction of the sun which was below the horizon. This created some cool shading on the hull.

There's a bit of stuttering caused by slowing the footage down in post to match the lenght of the theme (I should have added another 100 frames but got impatient).

There's a distant light too, and GI was enabled.

What you need next, is to fire up those engines and jump to warp.....

 

[Planeguy]

GI & Environment lighting looks good, though I think it shouldn´t be necessary to use both.

Two suggestions...

1. Don´t have the camera totally static, move it ever so slightly either by pitch, rotation or translation or all those at once to avoid the sense of a photo and something just moving in front of it.

2. The blue color on the ship, while artistcly a matter of taste, I think this should be toned down a lot, generally we mostly see that kind of saturation incolors when there is planets around the ship, below or over a ship and reflecting such light, or some other space nebula phenomena that impacts it.
If it´s supposed to be filmgrading, then another kind of filter grading would be better I think.

Thanks. Yeah, I notice no big difference, other than light bouncing on the hull parts that reflect light. The blue hue is something I tried to tone down, still needs further tuning for future animations. I'm trying to replicate the same hue/tonality of the Excelsior in the old trek movies, but I'm still not quite satisfied. It's getting closer, but not like the movies.

 

[Planeguy]

What you need next, is to fire up those engines and jump to warp.....

Maybe on a future version!

 

[Shabazzy]

Ok, so I really love this piece, however, because I know how wrong ILM got the correct lighting for things in space (but understand why they lit the space scenes the way they did), it's a little hard for me to look back at those shots with the same awe and wonder that I did when I was a kid.

I look at them now and cringe at how bad they are when compared with today's efforts. That being said the replication of your work as homage to those early days is super impressive, if I'd have one critique it would be that the lighting is a little too dynamic when compared to the flat lighting used in the original movies. Your's has more hues being reflected of the surfaces that the originals just didn't.

I prefer your approach but at the same time it kind of starts to really push that "where is this all enveloping light in outer space coming from?" question.

I'm just totally loving that grading though. It's just sublime and wow, that is some kind of wide angle lens you've got there mate. Very trippy.

Keep up the excellent work. I'm totally enjoying them.

 

[Planeguy]

Ok, so I really love this piece, however, because I know how wrong ILM got the correct lighting for things in space (but understand why they lit the space scenes the way they did), it's a little hard for me to look back at those shots with the same awe and wonder that I did when I was a kid.

I look at them now and cringe at how bad they are when compared with today's efforts. That being said the replication of your work as homage to those early days is super impressive, if I'd have one critique it would be that the lighting is a little too dynamic when compared to the flat lighting used in the original movies. Your's has more hues being reflected of the surfaces that the originals just didn't.

I prefer your approach but at the same time it kind of starts to really push that "where is this all enveloping light in outer space coming from?" question.

I'm just totally loving that grading though. It's just sublime and wow, that is some kind of wide angle lens you've got there mate. Very trippy.

Keep up the excellent work. I'm totally enjoying them.

Thanks man, glad you like it.

I totally get it lol. One part of me looks at the lighting and I'm asking myself the same questions, "where's this light bounce coming from?" Or why am I putting sounds and orhcestral music in space? lol!

I'll check the hue tones on the next animation. If I can get them to look more like in the movie. The miniature models used in the film do have some specular reflections though, but it's hard to match them identically.

 

[prometheus]

Thanks man, glad you like it.

I totally get it lol. One part of me looks at the lighting and I'm asking myself the same questions, "where's this light bounce coming from?" Or why am I putting sounds and orhcestral music in space? lol!

I'll check the hue tones on the next animation. If I can get them to look more like in the movie. The miniature models used in the film do have some specular reflections though, but it's hard to match them identically.

the big question is why you didn´t take full artistic freedom and made a pink unicorn in space instead, or colored it really pink?

 

[Shabazzy]

...Or why am I putting sounds and orhcestral music in space? lol!

 

[prometheus]

Don´t forget ..Pigs In spaaaace.

Guess it´alright bending the imagination of what space is, looks and what may be possible, In space there is no limitation unless the aim is realism, so if the aim is to make pig´s in space, there are only some reference rules to abey to, such as not letting the pigs look like monkeys

I have a thread for the reality check over here, where Former Astronaut Chris Hadfield reviews some spacemovies like, Armageddon, gravity, interstellar, first man, 2001.
Surprisingly One may think at a first glance, he had his reviews on 2001 as showcasing a lot of realism.

Space...The reality check, in movies with Chris Hadfield

I´ll bet Armaggedon was the most realistic right?

forums.newtek.com

 

[Planeguy]

Don´t forget ..Pigs In spaaaace.

Guess it´alright bending the imagination of what space is, looks and what may be possible, In space there is no limitation unless the aim is realism, so if the aim is to make pig´s in space, there are only some reference rules to abey to, such as not letting the pigs look like monkeys

I have a thread for the reality check over here, where Former Astronaut Chris Hadfield reviews some spacemovies like, Armageddon, gravity, interstellar, first man, 2001.
Surprisingly One may think at a first glance, he had his reviews on 2001 as showcasing a lot of realism.

Space...The reality check, in movies with Chris Hadfield

I´ll bet Armaggedon was the most realistic right?

forums.newtek.com

lol, this reminded me of a studio who once used kitchen utensils for spaceship movie props. They used the same lighting and blue screen techniques as used in SW filmed with 35mm panavision camereas, and those things looked amazing! With good lighting and film, you can make pigs look movie like. Don't give me ideas now lol

 

[prometheus]

Yeah..always be careful with what you dream

As for space, not sure which movie got the most realistic space so to speak, that blackness is probably hard to capture right, though real cameras up there must have been able to capture it decently though.
I think it was Chris Hadfield actually mentioning how it really looks, a sort of deep transparency that may not be what we really can see in space movies.
It varies in realism for sure, from a rather messy highly unrealistic flight with spaceships from the latest Battlestar Galactica inside a lot of nebula clouds, which is highly unrealisticly consider the true scale of such things and distance to objects et, but it may give a colorful display to have it´s effect.


I still love the first Alien movie and it´s space scenes, especially that vast picture of the refinery ship when it changed course to lv 426, and that huge ship is just a small little object in that space picture.
And of course, the accompanying sound and music from Jerry Goldsmith was something extraordinary, even though I think he himself wasn´t so fond of what finally was used since he had other ideas originally.
But it captured space as deep, vast, terrifying, mystical.

The color grading in Alien was actually quite a bit chromatic for sure and bluish, grey, green sort of, but you really have to be careful to choose the right tones I think, it´s actually the same there..unless the hull itself would have a color tint, it shouldn´t be there either, but in that case it worked galantly I think, it bonds with a theme in general with the alien look as blue, dark grey sort of.

We will soon have the first feature movie filmed to some degree up there in Real space, with Tom Cruise actually going up there to the ISS, and it may be the first movie, but there´s a russian movie I think who may get there first , they still compete and now it´s about who´s gonna make the first feature movie.

 

[Planeguy]

Yeah..always be careful with what you dream

As for space, not sure which movie got the most realistic space so to speak, that blackness is probably hard to capture right, though real cameras up there must have been able to capture it decently though.
I think it was Chris Hadfield actually mentioning how it really looks, a sort of deep transparency that may not be what we really can see in space movies.
It varies in realism for sure, from a rather messy highly unrealistic flight with spaceships from the latest Battlestar Galactica inside a lot of nebula clouds, which is highly unrealisticly consider the true scale of such things and distance to objects et, but it may give a colorful display to have it´s effect.


I still love the first Alien movie and it´s space scenes, especially that vast picture of the refinery ship when it changed course to lv 426, and that huge ship is just a small little object in that space picture.
And of course, the accompanying sound and music from Jerry Goldsmith was something extraordinary, even though I think he himself wasn´t so fond of what finally was used since he had other ideas originally.
But it captured space as deep, vast, terrifying, mystical.

The color grading in Alien was actually quite a bit chromatic for sure and bluish, grey, green sort of, but you really have to be careful to choose the right tones I think, it´s actually the same there..unless the hull itself would have a color tint, it shouldn´t be there either, but in that case it worked galantly I think, it bonds with a theme in general with the alien look as blue, dark grey sort of.

We will soon have the first feature movie filmed to some degree up there in Real space, with Tom Cruise actually going up there to the ISS, and it may be the first movie, but there´s a russian movie I think who may get there first , they still compete and now it´s about who´s gonna make the first feature movie.

Interesting, that must be the new mission impossible? What's the other russian movie?

Yeah, Aliens ships kinda looked realistic.

 

[prometheus]

Interesting, that must be the new mission impossible? What's the other russian movie?

Yeah, Aliens ships kinda looked realistic.

No..don´t think it has anything to do with mission impossible, a new space movie of somekind, same guy behind edge of tomorrow joining with Tom.
The other russian movie will be called "challenge"

Russia races to beat Tom Cruise, NASA to first movie shot in space

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, announced Thursday that it had selected its crew to headline the film, which will be called "Challenge."

www.nbcnews.com

Tom´s dare attitude and physical condition, as well as having been flying around in f14´s, will probably sort of qualify him to handle the journey, though there´s more to that I reckon to become a "Real astronaut" who actually performs tasks up there, he just have to survive the journey up and down..and then do what he do best in acting, but daredevil stunts up there is probably ill adviced.

Chris Hadfield was the program leader for that BBC series...Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?
And there´s a lot of testing mentally, physicly where they pick the best suited for such jobs.

Over here at the north of Sweden, there are some plans for space tourism travels, probably from Esrange, but that´s probably only a matter of sending rich people up to just touch the beginning of space for a few weightless moments.
there´s a company(spaceport) that has come far with the plans, and it´s collaborating with Virgin Galactic as the first launch place outside of the United states for business travels, so it is planned to launch in Kiruna Sweden, at the Esrange site.

But there are some huge obstacles, the runways are too short, and they can not currently extend it..for unknown reasons, but in the future they say, and then
there is the legislation that needs a rewrite, which our space minister has said was a priority..but I don´t know how far the process has come there.

 

[Planeguy]

No..don´t think it has anything to do with mission impossible, a new space movie of somekind, same guy behind edge of tomorrow joining with Tom.
The other russian movie will be called "challenge"

Russia races to beat Tom Cruise, NASA to first movie shot in space

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, announced Thursday that it had selected its crew to headline the film, which will be called "Challenge."

www.nbcnews.com

Tom´s dare attitude and physical condition, as well as having been flying around in f14´s, will probably sort of qualify him to handle the journey, though there´s more to that I reckon to become a "Real astronaut" who actually performs tasks up there, he just have to survive the journey up and down..and then do what he do best in acting, but daredevil stunts up there is probably ill adviced.

Chris Hadfield was the program leader for that BBC series...Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?
And there´s a lot of testing mentally, physicly where they pick the best suited for such jobs.

Over here at the north of Sweden, there are some plans for space tourism travels, probably from Esrange, but that´s probably only a matter of sending rich people up to just touch the beginning of space for a few weightless moments.
there´s a company(spaceport) that has come far with the plans, and it´s collaborating with Virgin Galactic as the first launch place outside of the United states for business travels, so it is planned to launch in Kiruna Sweden, at the Esrange site.

But there are some huge obstacles, the runways are too short, and they can not currently extend it..for unknown reasons, but in the future they say, and then
there is the legislation that needs a rewrite, which our space minister has said was a priority..but I don´t know how far the process has come there.

Well, there's two real space movies coming out then! I hope hollyweird doesn't mess it up, but usually Cruise's films have been interesting. I'm curious about the russian flick. Hope they translate it to english or something.

If this is a new thing, probably a lot of future movie productions will start filming in space. This is bad news for animators