Zarban's lightsaber battle project (Page 17 of 22)

Cool. My video workstation is back online after a hiatus for room painting. I'm looking at some slight speed ramps during the saber combat. Once we see if we like those it'll be roto time. Probably about a week away.

Faldor, I anticipated your need but procrastinated on the execution. I think I can get you some grabs in the next 24-48 hours.

Fireproof, you are most welcome to the part! A high bitrate mp3 should be right in the sweet spot, but I'm sure we can work with any format you can encode and upload somewhere.

I've downloaded them Fireproof. I won't be able to listen to it until tonight, so I hope you caught the change...and didn't speak her name as "Butterfly"...   (Although, if that's his pet name for her how cute would that be? Way better than "Grasshopper.")

I want to open this up for discussion: as currently cut, our main establishing scene is 3 or 4 shots: A. Straya Enters, B. cut to Probe Droid, C. Straya Exits & D. Probe Droid backtracks. Zarban's intent was to have that as a single long take, and in my mind we can make that work in the comp. We are already doing so much with these shots (matte painting, rotoscope around Straya & the stone wall as needed, CGI Droid & camera tracking of two Straya takes) that to combine these shots is not much more effort and would make this the excellent one-er (Oner? Wonner? 1er?) that was planned.

So tell me: am I mad, or just insane?

We are unanimous, I also vote Teague. He was the soop on set who said the shot could be done, and I'm pretty sure the assertion was that he was going to run with it.

Not sure what you mean about your method though. I'd think the fact that the pano I built all comes from one shot would be a mark in it's favor? The 3D movement in said shot is fairly minimal, but it's there so a 3D track should be fairly possible. Splicing 2 tracked shots together and hiding the cut might take some trickery, but it feels like a few things I've done successfully in the past and the matte painting should help to hide the join.

[strike]Still need: has anyone got a model of the Probe Droid from Hoth?
(or, you know, want to take a stab at a little custom jobber?)[/strike]

Imperial Probe Droids anyone?

http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=19829
or
http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=6155

http://www.sharecg.com/v/77483/browse/1 … played=Yes

Nothing on SciFi3D though, too bad.

Another option just popped up:
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Torpedo … B00078ZDCK

Would anyone be up for shooting a little stop motion activity with the action figure? Might look a bit hinky without moco cameras, but it might be fun to go old-school on some stuff...?

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-12-06 04:36:04)

Slightly smaller: you'd eliminate the splicing task and tracking of a second shot.
Trouble is it's a long slow pan that was cut-up partially for pacing and partially to chose from the best speaking take and the best slinking away take.

adding in edit...

That's why I'm bringing it up: the easy path seems to be to leave it alone as cut into separate shots with inserts to tie it together, but the added effort in the comp is really pretty slight (since as-cut we're tracking 2 different takes anyway), unless I'm missing something. I don't want to make this thing less "possible to finish" by adding unforeseen complexity, but if you ask me to make the call: I'm for constructing the one-er.

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-11-18 22:34:53)

"Return to the ship:"
I like take 3 the best for intonation and the emotional content: you're giving an order with the right firmness to help settle her down and focus. I'd say go louder though, your waveform looks okay (~minus-six dB) so be sure not to overpower your mic, but your breath is almost as loud as your voice. Back off a few inches and project more...like a concerned father or uncle. And of course, "Straya," in place of "Butterfly."

"MTFBWY":
Take 2. Same thing, it sounds like a caring superior. No need to do the accent like in #3, just be you.

Very clean audio all around though, did you process it for noise? What are you using equipment wise?

Back on the Compositing front:

Here's a better mock-up of the spliced Panorama comp as I imagine it. It's about 10 sec longer than in Owen's cut, but there's plenty of fat in there. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29628015/Main.mp4

Last edited by drewjmore (2014-11-19 05:41:01)

My initial method was to take the images you provided, stich them to a pano like you did, and then move the camera around that space. At the time I didn't know the grabs were all from one shot. I thought they were stills from the angles we had available, all perfectly shot.

Cause that I can do.

This is thrilling to see progress. I'm really busy lately and haven't been reading this forum, but I assure you the stars of this little production will be thrilled to know it's coming together!

Yeah, we need a WAYDM woman to represent.
Good call.

That last take reminded me a lot of FLUDD from Super Mario Sunshine, I approve!

I think we've got ourselves a droid!

Phi, draft 3 it is, and I must concur with the boys: perfect delivery. You nailed it.

What have you got for the probe droid?
Can you give it an ominous quality like the ESB one?
How many forms of communication are you fluent in?

Just heard this. That's awesome Phi, perfect cadence!

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful