Speaking of Hollywood messes, this is what a STUDENT can do with classic SF...

[Manedwolf]

This is a student film made in 2003, a short teaser. It has nothing to do with the Morgan Freeman project. The camera angles, the design of the Endeavour, the cinematography of the first steps within the airlock, and finally the revelation, in a sort of starburst flare, of the scope of the interior are nothing short of staggeringly gorgeous to me. The spacesuits are very good, too.

It is Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.

High quality version: http://www.vimeo.com/1989082

Low quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY2Yt1ATm4c

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388369/

That makes Hollywood look...awful.

[PTK]

That quality of production reminds me of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a Star Treck parody made by a group of Finns.

[Manedwolf]

That quality of production reminds me of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a Star Treck parody made by a group of Finns.

I've seen that. You can download it for iPod. The battle scenes outdid anything Paramount ever did, because until this new film coming out, which finally has ILM, they went with horrible, cheap local CG houses.

This, though, I LOVE the Endeavour design. Total classic hard-SF, massive with rotating rings for centrifugal gravity replacement, fuel tanks, and the cluster of engines at the stern. You just don't see that sort of practical, "yeah, I could see that" much anymore.

[PTK]

Agreed - Star Wreck actually had the feeling of an intense battle taking place in space, not just..." yay naval engagement but in the void..."

Plus, come on, the humor was fantastic. 

[Manedwolf]

Plus, come on, the humor was fantastic. 

It was. It also had a few Peter Sellers moments, like when the Russian guy is beamed up while pouring vodka. It gets him, the pouring vodka bottle, but not the glass.

[Lbys]

That is pretty amazing, especially for a student film.

Some questions, for people with more knowledge about this than I:  when I watch something like this (a piece or sequence that's heavily CGIed), it always reduces my suspension of disbelief.  In a movie like one of the Star Wars prequels, where a lot of the vehicles, action setpieces, and backgrounds were exclusively CGI, it's really bad--takes me out of the story.  A movie like "300" or "Sin City," on the other hand, looks more artistic--the CGI is not intended to be realistic.  To me, it is a part of the story, helping to color the vision of director and DP.

If I look at the original Star Wars films, the ones with motion control flight sequences, matte paintings for sweeping backgrounds, etc., the universe looks more realistic to me.  I'm wondering 1) if the current CGI state-of-the-art doesn't have the ability to get across the "uncanny valley" of looking just unrealistic enough to be distracting, 2) if the technology will get to a place where #1 isn't a concern for a viewer like me, and 3) if some of the older techniques, while, in my understanding are now more expensive than CGI, might still have a place to maintain the illusion of a more believable reality.

Thoughts?

[Manedwolf]

CGI is still not reality because it's still a vastly simplified version of reality. Completely duplicating reality, from the almost-infinite imperfections in all materials to complex movements like Brownian motion would take exponentially more computing power, likely quantum processing to get done in anywhere near the time needed for media production.

CG is also, ironically, too perfect. When things that are too far away to be in focus are still in focus, it looks wrong. When light doesn't fall exactly like light should, it looks wrong, the ever-noticeable "glossies" seen in games and in poorly done CG. It's also much harder to do a proper matte surface with irregularities than it is a smooth one.

They are getting better, though.

This woman is completely CG.

[Lbys]

Maned,

That makes sense.  I had seen that particular CGI before--was it animated as well?  I might be remembering incorrectly, but I thought it was, and seemed different enough to be noticeable (and unsettling).

Given that the real world, or a manufactured special-effects world composed of real objects, lighting, etc., has a myriad of ideoscynracies that are difficult to artificially duplicate, do you think that computing power will get to a place where it's possible to assume the appearance of reality?  If not, does that somehow cheapen the choices and directors and DPs make when they use this technology instead of something that looks more realistic or believable on film?

[just Warren]

In Star Wars it would have been way cooler if the Stormtroopers blasters were full auto. [/threadjack]

[MicroBalrog]

In Star Wars it would have been way cooler if the Stormtroopers blasters were full auto. [/threadjack]

Or if they could actually shoot. But then, how long would it be?

[Cromlech]

CG is also, ironically, too perfect. When things that are too far away to be in focus are still in focus, it looks wrong. When light doesn't fall exactly like light should, it looks wrong, the ever-noticeable "glossies" seen in games and in poorly done CG. It's also much harder to do a proper matte surface with irregularities than it is a smooth one. They are getting better, though.

Definitely. Certain recent games have made use of motion blur and depth of field in an effort to trick the eyes.

^That's the out of focus effect you get when looking down the sights in Crysis.^


^That's one of my screenshots taken right in the middle of moving quickly in Crysis, which produces a motion blur effect (you can turn it off or set it to the level you want).^

[zahc]

IMO it's not textures, polygons or specular reflection. Realism of human beings, to me, is dominated by animation. I don't care how real a model looks if the animation isn't perfect, and it never is. If the animation isn't perfect, the more real it looks, the less real it looks when it starts moving.

[AZRedhawk44]

How would I love a script to be produced for the RAMA series.... wow.  I truly enjoyed those books.

Ringworld would also be a good candidate for classic sci-fi to make a resurgence to the big screen.

Thanks for sharing that short, Maned.

[Manedwolf]

How would I love a script to be produced for the RAMA series.... wow.  I truly enjoyed those books.

Ringworld would also be a good candidate for classic sci-fi to make a resurgence to the big screen.

Thanks for sharing that short, Maned.

No prob! And actually, there was an older game called Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch that gave a good sense of scale to the Ringworld. It also had a wonderful premise. What if the Kzin found out about the Puppeteers' meddling with their genes, and had made their own copy of the Hyperdrive II, so they could reach the fleet of worlds? Ouch.

You get to use flycycles, you get to steal a Hyperdrive II ship from the UN with the ARM after you, and you go to the Ringworld. It's a lot of fun.

Halo, of course, just stole the concept outright, but seeing the Ring in the sky on that game was neat, too.

[MillCreek]

Thanks for the Star Wreck info.  I had never heard of it before.  I just watched the movie and it was hilarious.   The special effects were spectacular.

[Manedwolf]

Thanks for the Star Wreck info.  I had never heard of it before.  I just watched the movie and it was hilarious.   The special effects were spectacular.

I wonder if anyone at Paramount was at all embarrassed that that battle kicked the ass of everything they'd done to this point. It was chaotic, there were far more ships than anything ever done. They were taking massive hull breaches and even losing nacelles and were still returning fire in volleys that looked like they seriously HURT. In other words...what you'd expect, of, oh, battleships, instead of things that explode when someone causes an antimatter imbalance in the port neutronic flow stasis coupling matrix inducer or whatever.

Also, that was the second-best ship collision I'd seen, as the best is the destruction of Pegasus.

[freakazoid]

I had downloaded Star Wreck a long time ago and still have yet to watch it. I really need to, :(

Full-automatic E-11s? That would only make since seeing how they don't aim to begin with, especially  since they are just cannon fodder and issued armor that kills them if they are hit anywhere, watch Injured Storm Trooper for hilarity, http://www.theforce.net/fanfilms/shortfilms/injured/ Also check out the other stuff there for some pretty good stuff. Like the epicness that is Ryan Vs Dorkman 1 & 2 and also Art of the Saber.

And what in the world is Brownian motion?

[Manedwolf]

And what in the world is Brownian motion?

Take a glass cup of tea. Add some milk. Watch it.

[S. Williamson]

Anyone seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiX5d3rC6o