to illustrate how many compositing elements might be needed for a particular shot.
Of course, I'm 99% this is CG, though he's equally oppositely sure it's models (though he also thinks this shot is older than it is).
So, back me up, DS9 was all CGI by this point right? I'm not crazy and none of those ships are models, right? It's the new CGI Galaxy, the redone CGI Excelsiors and Mirandas with glows and of course the First Contact ships, etc. etc., right?
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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posted
It's got to be CGI. Even if the First Contact ships weren't in there, it would be extremely difficult to get all the ships in the right perspective, not to mention get far enough away from some of the models to do so.
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OnToMars
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posted
Well this is certain information somewhere, I'm sure we've already discussed it at some point.
But yeah, it can't be models. His whole point was that each individual model would need at least three passes, which for that shot would be absolutely ludicrous. But I just wanted to be dead certain before I told a professor he was wrong.
Also, as an aside, this guy is really cool, and has worked on special effects for Buck Rogers, the original Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and even a little picture called Star Wars. In the slide show he's going through right now he's got some great behind the scene photos of models being shot from Star Wars and Star Trek.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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posted
It is CG, according to the DS9 Companion and various notes we got from the producers at the time the episode aired (ahh, the days of rec.arts.startrek.tech...). The Galaxy class ships are certainly CG (they had no labelling - we ended up calling them "Sternbach Galaxies" when the DS9:TM came out shortly thereafter), and we've had debates on the inaccuracies of the Miranda and Excelsior models (Mojo published both in the Starship Spotter).
By that point in DS9, models were still prevalent, but on their way out. All the new VFX shots from this episode were CG, but those from episodes in the season previous to this featured heavy model work simply because the CG guys were busy with this one. In fact, they had to enlist the CG guys from Voyager (including Mojo, who was proud of working on "Sisko's Run" which had the Defiant weaving between all those Galors) to get everything done on time! Notable model work from earlier that season included the retreating fleet at the top of "A Time to Stand", and the captured Jem'Haddar bug fighting with the USS Centaur later that episode. The Ketracel White faclity, the battle of the Rotarran versus the bugs, and so on were all physical models.
There WAS also some composite work, such as the exterior shots of Starbase 375 which had increasing numbers of starship models (physical and CG) amassing around the base (which itself was a Loreena Bobbit variant of the old Orbital Office model from 1979) as the mini-arc went on. This is where we coined the term "Cobra Neck" for a CG lighting error in the "Sternbach Galaxies". It's great to see that the limitations of CG at that time spurned the innovation of several new starship designs!
However, by the end of the season physical models had been basically phased out in favour of CG. The battle of Chin'toka at the season finale was completely without physical models, and by the time the allied fleet swarmed Cardassia, there was nary a piece of plastic to be seen.
Now, your instructor may have been showing you the insanely cool final shot from "Call to Arms", the previous season finale. THAT one was a massive composite shot, which mixed CG and physical models (mostly the latter) in the foreground with a wave of purely CG models in the background.
posted
In any case, considering what this guy has worked on before and has access to now, it might not be a good idea to ruffle his feathers on this one minor point.
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OnToMars
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No worries, I just told him I double checked (that's you guys!) and was indeed sure it was CGI. He said then that the source he got it from (I should've asked what the source was, but I didn't) was wrong, but was appreciative to have the error pointed out so he could remove it.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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Did he at least reference the Battle of Endor from Return of the Jedi?
--Jonah
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OnToMars
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No, he only worked on the original, apparently. Though a shot from Jedi would've been a better example than the Sacrifice of Angels shot in question
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
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quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: However, by the end of the season physical models had been basically phased out in favour of CG. The battle of Chin'toka at the season finale was completely without physical models, and by the time the allied fleet swarmed Cardassia, there was nary a piece of plastic to be seen.
Mark
Is that why that shot seemed so... dark or darkly lit. It just seemed very flat like you couldn't see a LOT of detail of all the ships. OK it felt more 'flat' and grey not very vibrant. Did they turn down the saturation or something to mask any CGI'ness? At that point I still felt models were better.
I've always been annoyed that they just reused footage for the final battle too. Ohhh maybe "What You Leave Behind" needs to be... "enhanced"
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I liked playing "guess the episode" with that battle. Most of the shots were from the last couple of seasons, but some were from The Die is Cast, iirc.
posted
Actually, almost all the re-used footage was squished into one segment of that fight. I'm fairly sure that they came up short in editting, and to make up the time they just dumped in a bunch of older footage that no one but us geeks would pick out.
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