Ryan VS Brandon Lightsaber Clip

do i really need to repeat myself? a friend of mine who has the program doesn't know how it would be possible to make a blur within the core. i figured people with more experience with the program might know a way. it was 2 months or so ago i asked if somebody could try it to see how it looks

 

I was referring to your reply to the "prequel standards" statement. If you or your friend have some sort of example of what you think the sabers should look like it would be very helpful.

If your friend has AE, blurring the core is simple - just duplicate the core layer and give it a gaussian blur of 1 - 5 pixels. Layer it underneath the original core layer, set all the blending modes to screen, and there you go! Wider and more diffused cores can of course be achieved by blurring the duplicate layer more/less and even creating multiple core (white) layers to vary the effect. In the end it comes down to personal taste.


Hope that answers your question.

 

i'm referring to fading within the core, not outside of it. to make it round, not blurry. like this, but not quite so much:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/neomp5/bce032f4.jpg

 

And now it's bed time.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/ktulu216/Testsaber.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/ktulu216/testsaber2.jpg

 

Just about everyone here maintains that, neo, your method 1) Looks terrible and 2) isn't how light works. You can continue to think that it looks better, but at least understand you're in the vast minority, and you're not winning any converts.

 

Ok I understand what you mean now Neo. However, I have to agree with Funk in that this doesn't really represent how light/energy works. Blurring the INSIDE of the core makes it look like one of the EL saber blades IMO. It's an interesting concept, but I personally prefer the opposite - by this I mean blurring the core layers slightly to make it look more like it's glowing. Personal preference though. Thanks for explaining what you meant.

 

I should point out that my last post was meant as a joke, and I realise that all you were doing, DVeditor, was pointing out what had been said elsewhere. Although I do still think it a little silly...

 

^ ^

Thanks for the clarification Azer, I wasn't trying to be harsh with my replies and I hope it didn't come across that way. I just didn't want to argue about something I couldn't change lol. There will always be rules I don't agree with but all I can do is abide by them and ask my peers to do the same. Have a good one.

 

As a note, I hereby proclaim that any instances of the acronym 'wtf' that come from my fingers will be referring to either the phrase 'Where's the Ferret', because damnit, where the hell is he, or 'What the ferret', because ferret is an inherently funny word.

 

"http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/ktulu216/testsaber2.jpg"

yes, that's sort of what i was going for. a little much though.



and yes, that absolutely is how light behaves when it's not extremely bright, and a lightsabre isn't extremely bright, as it never casts much of a glow around it.


a point i made that was completely ignored before was that every jedi's sabre blade should look as unique as the hilt. the colour, length, width, brightness, and solidity of the blade should reflect the personality of the user. i want mine to look efficient, so the haze shouldn't be too thick or dense, and the core should be solid, with no wasted energy dissipating off of it.

 

They should make legal swear words like 'Grudd' and 'Drokk', just like in 2000AD lmao.

 

Neo - changes in the blurs depending on the wielder makes sense in theory, but a lot of the effect is for visual purposes. If it doesn't show up on screen it's not really worth filming. IMHO, the blurred core would be harder to spot in most environments. I would be interested in seeing a test to see how this would look on a fanned saber blade though...

Just my two cents.

 

a lightsabre isn't extremely bright, as it never casts much of a glow around it.


First off.. it's lightsabER.
Secondly.. we don't know how much they glow, because they don't exist.

If you watch TESB, and the darker scenes in AotC, they glow quite a bit. If you even watch the RotS trailer, you'll see Yoda's saber glowing on his face, in what appears to be a well-lit room.

I would think since they are a light source.. being a laser beam and all.. they would cast quite a bit of light.


From howstuffworks.com:
Before it is developed, however, the actual footage from the movie is double-exposed onto this same film. The effect is amazing -- the lightsabers look incredibly bright and real!


Just face it dude.

 

"IMHO, the blurred core would be harder to spot in most environments"

well, the blur i made was to thick, that's the problem. i made it a quarter of the blade width on each side, it should be an eighth or less.


"First off.. it's lightsabER."

the word sabre is a french word, and is spelled r e, like centre and metre.

"If you watch TESB, and the darker scenes in AotC, they glow quite a bit"

actually, in the original trilogy, they cast no light whatsoever. in episode 2, they cast too much light in that dark scene, because they were using practical light sources. as for yoda, the light cast on his face is like if you covered a flashlight with a green cloth. not very bright. especially when you compare it to the light cast from the force lightning.

 

i'm referring to fading within the core, not outside of it. to make it round, not blurry. like this, but not quite so much:

As far as I remember, we actually came up with Funk-E's answer that this fading would be a result of shadow casted on the blade - which is not possible for it is a lightsource...
Another possibility would be that this fading comes from a synthetic case around the light itself, which is actually not the true point of a lightsaber. Their blades don't have cases...

By the way, I guess I'm also gonna use "What the ferret" from now on... it's truly quite a funny word at all. Also in German.

 

you're not thinking third dimensionally. the lightsabre it'self is thicker in the middle than at the sides. the sides could be somewhat translucent, o just not as bright, making the haze slihtly visible over the edges of the core

 

you're not thinking third dimensionally.

Thanks, Doc. They have a real problem with that.
The 3D EFFECTS ARTISTS have a problem thinking in three dimensions.

the word sabre is a french word, and is spelled r e, like centre and metre
Yes, but the word lightsaber is an english word, created by George Lucas.


actually, in the original trilogy, they cast no light whatsoever.
You're right, but I didn't say they cast light. I said they were bright. They didn't cast light, cause except for a few scenes, they just used plain rods.


in episode 2, they cast too much light in that dark scene, because they were using practical light sources.
Dude.
They are practical light sources.
They would be, if they were real. Ever see a laser light show? Yeah. They're bright. They glow. They're narrow and focused, but they're bright. Lightsabers are a bit thicker, closer to 3/4-1" at the core, but they would be bright because they are essentially "laser swords".

as for yoda, the light cast on his face is like if you covered a flashlight with a green cloth. not very bright. especially when you compare it to the light cast from the force lightning.

Ugh. Man, now I have to go get more screen captures just to prove you're wrong AGAIN.
I do have other things to do, you know.


EDIT: Alright, here we go.
[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v511/Vaportrail1519/saberproof.jpg]
This should be fun.
Now, you'll notice in the OT DVD documentaries, they show us how for some of the scenes, they tried using a rotating rod covered in reflective material with lights shining on it in order to create the glow portion of the saber. It didn't work, and they switched to rods of some kind which the effects people just rotoscoped in postproduction.
Now, in my image there, I'm making several points, which I will describe in detail for you.
Top Left: Yoda holding a lightsaber in what appears to be a well-lit room. Definitely a glow on his face, though it may in fact be a little diffused. Right under it, we see Force lightning. Now, in the real world, lightning is bright enough to cast light on everything around it within miles of the strike (usually only at night though), and the bolt itself reaches a temperature five times greater than that of the sun (according to http://www.g6csy.net/lightning/). These are HUGE strikes, some of which can be 10 miles long, yet the bolt is only an inch thick. The Force lightning, while smaller in scale, is still based off this concept. The lightning in the movies still appears to be an inch thick though, if not more, so it'd be pretty bright.
Now, I just went to www.howstuffworks.com, and upon reading it, they told me this about real laser beams: The light is very directional. A laser light has a very tight beam and is very strong and concentrated. A flashlight, on the other hand, releases light in many directions, and the light is very weak and diffuse.
This REALLY reminds me of the ELsaber theory you tried to show us a while ago. Just thought you should know. See this picture?
[image=http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/laser-intro.jpg]
Granted, that's a metal table, and probably a bit reflective, but it doesn't appear to be mirror-like, so the ambient glow probably isn't too far off from what it would be against a wall or something.
Look at the top/middle pics of Ani/Obi, and the part in the red box. A wall with ambient glow. Weird.
Now, this is NOT caused by aftermath of the sparks they're creating from hitting the walls. I checked.
Okay, top right pic of R2: Not a lightsaber, but the blaster technology of creating laser bolts probably isn't all that different for the lightsaber blades. Look at all the glowy goodness. The bolt itself looks like ILM's current standard of glow which we all dislike, but the ambience is the thing I want you to look at.
Yoda on the bottom left: Lightning flickers on his face, just going to show the amount of glow depends on the amount of lightning.
The bottom sequence, if you look closely (it's more

 

Ah, Vapor beat me to the notes on spelling and cores. So I second what he said.

I tell ya, I go to one afternoon class...

 

so a laser beam is focused and directional. explain to me what that has to do with lightsabres

 

If you don't know, then I can't help you.

 

1, a lihtsabre is not a laser beam. 2, even if it was, what you just posted proves that the blurry blade style popular on this site is not accurate. 3, it doesn't change the fact that the light yoda's sabre cast on him is not very strong. i have an led flashlight that casts more light than that.

 

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/Usaf-laser.jpg]
I didn't prove that the "blurry" sabers are wrong, because you have to keep in mind lasers and lightsabers still are not the same thing. Lasers don't just stop in mid-air, yet lightsabers do somehow. It's the same BASIC principle, but there's still a factor in there which our current technology doesn't have the capacity to achieve yet, if this sort of thing is even possible within the laws of physics.

Now, even in the OT, the lightsabers flicker. This may be because of the method they used back then to rotoscope them not being completely accurate to the footage, but they still carry the flicker today with all the advanced computer imaging, which makes me believe the saber beam in the movies slightly unstable, or contains a massive amount of energy. This flicker IS evident in current lasers if I remember correctly, but not on the same scale, which, in theory, could account for the blur.

For the lighting on Yoda, we still have to bear in mind the ambient lighting from the rest of the room. The ILM guys did whatever they feel was appropriate for the shot. Watching the AotC duel, which was filmed live action with light props, based on the nit-picking style GL has had in the behind the scenes footage, I have a feeling that if the glow was too bright, he'd have had them change it.

From what exact passage are you drawing the conclusion that lightsabers aren't lasers? Provide a phrase you read or a source of some kind. If this is just your own belief, then I don't buy it.

Your style of trying to prove your theories would drive my philosophy professor insane.




All in all, the common fanfilmer way just looks better.
Deal with it.

When it comes down to it, this is still a movie effect.
Sometimes movies will cheat certain scientific laws in order to make a shot looks or sounds better.
An example that comes to mind is Yoda's hood during his fight with Dooku. I think it was Rob Coleman who mentioned in the BTS that they "pinned it down" because normally, if a someone Yoda's size wearing what Yoda wears were to do those moves, his hood would have been flying all over the place.
Then, look at some big sci-fi movie, Star Trek, Riddick.. whatever. First off, sound in space. But everyone knows this and it's just better for action movies for there to be sound. Then, the thrust technologies, which we don't have, are still evident and in good practice. There's a whole load of stuff like this, and lightsabers will be on this list. Now, originall in the OT there was a blurry core, and the fanfilmers liked it. Someone didn't in the prequels, and they changed it, but for the traditionalists, this is how the effect was and this is how it will remain.
Don't think you will be able to change their minds either, especially if you keep doing it without reasonable proof, because some people (like me) will turn out to be quite set in their ways.


EDIT: Want more proof?
[image=http://www.cswu.cz/music/cover/aotc-cover1.jpg]
This image looks a little brighter than the version of the poster I have hanging in my room, but look at Obi-wan.
This is the OFFICIAL poster for the theatrical release, and you can bet good money that George Lucas gave it final approval before it was accepted, printed and distributed within their expensive marketing campaign.
Lots and lots of glow, and if you find a higher res version, you'll see blur around the core, too.

 

Vaportrail you are my new favorite person.

 

::just started watching TESB.. glowy blurry lightsabers.. gurgle::

More fuel for the fire:
This is taken from George Lucas, the INVENTOR of the lightsaber, during the interview which you can see in the OFFICIAL bonus features on the Star Wars DVD release:

"The original concept was the the Jedi would fight with swords, and then I wanted to make it a futuristic kind of sword, so I made it a lightsaber which is sort of a laser sword.. to give that technology edge to it."

"[The lightsabers] were very powerful; they had a lot of energy.."

"Originally, it was that you needed two hands to hang onto this sword, because of the amount of energy.."

When talking about the original way they tried to achieve the effect, he says:
"..rotated with reflective tape so it would flash and create reflective light on the actors and all that."

"..the sound for the laser sword, because we wanted something with a lot of energy.."



Muaha.

 

Vapor: I have more respect for you now!!