The Truth About Beginnings

Back, foul beast of the night, back!!! I hate homework!! I have a page report for zoology, research stuff for an English research paper, trig work, algebra II work . . . Ick. Plus, I had an Academic Super Bowl meet today, and I have to work the middle school ISSMA contest (a friend and I are joint-Lords-of-the-Walkie-Talkie) tomorrow and Saturday! No time to write! AUGH!!!!!

 

C-3PO: "Do try to relax Mistress Musical Jedi!"

 

---Great thanks to Dagan Conner for finding this for me!! I hope I still have readers left . . .---

Avien opened the large chest that lay at the end of her bed. The scent of musty air and lack of use wafted through the air. Gently, she took out the things that lay inside, folding them and putting them on the comforter onto her bed. Each one made her smile to herself. Mostly, the chest was filled with clothes, ones she was forced to lay aside in favor of the cadin?sor or other required Jedi garments. Coming across a long, thin skirt, Avien laid it aside, also with a tighter-fitting tunic that the ones she usually wore, and a simple cloak. Quickly, she finished cleaning out the chest, laying a few more clothes aside.

Carefully, she slipped into the skirt and tunic, looking more feminine that usual. She folded the cadin?sor she had been wearing and laid it aside, with the other various clothes that no longer fit. Then, she put all of the other clothes away on shelves in the closet of the tiny bedroom, laying out more non-Jedi garments onto the bed. Making sure that everything was packed carefully, she put the other clothes back into the chest.

Looking around her rooms, Avien began to pick up things she would want to take with her, usually adding a sigh of remembrance to each object. On her small shelves of books, she grabbed two volumes, one entitled The Enhanced Effect, a study on the effect that Force-users have had in history, and an untitled tome, which had been a gift when she had been risen to Knight, filled with letters from her friends and mementos from her past. Laying on top of the shelves was a collage of pictures of Qui-Gon in a frame, one triumphantly holding up his completely lightsaber, another of him in full cadin?sor, a newly raised Knight. There was also a dried flower, a gift to her from him when she became a padawan to her Master. A signet ring on a leather thong was also present, the last thing her father ever gave to her before his death, as well as a ring from her Master, which was intricately woven with what appeared to be one length of silver. She grabbed the picture frame and the signet ring, adding both to the chest in her room, along with her books.

Walking back out to the living area, Avien flopped herself onto the couch beneath the window overlooking Coruscant. ?It?ll be hard to leave this place, not knowing when I?ll come back,? she said to no one in particular. ?I have my whole history here, in the shelves and the room itself. Every inch of this place screams it?s mine. Very hard to leave,? she trailed off, sitting up. Slowly she walked over to the small kitchen area, where a few pots were boiling. There was not much there, only enough for two people. Avien sighed at this thought, for she was preparing a last dinner of sorts for Qui-Gon Jinn. She carefully checked them to make sure nothing was burning then sat cross-legged on the nearby counter. Not really concentrating, she began to brush her hair. Almost to the end, the door buzzed.

?It?s open!? she called, making a face as she tugged out the last few obstinate tangles. The door flipped open and in walked Qui-Gon, carrying a small brown box tied with a blue bow.

He grinned at his friend, who got down from the counter and checked the pots again. ?You?re looking awfully un-Jedi-like,? he said, his eyes twinkling in mirth. Avien rolled her eyes and turned on him, brandishing a spoon like it was her saber.

?Since that?s obviously the most of a compliment I?m going to get from you, I suppose I should say thank you,? she replied flippantly, thrusting the spoon under his nose menacingly, ?but I won?t. It makes more sense just not to feed you.?

Raising his hands in a gesture of submission, the cheeky grin didn?t move from his face. ?Force, Ian was right when he told me Hell hath not fury like a woman scorned,? he chuckled. From a jar on the counter, he grabbed his own wooden spoon and set the box down. ?How?s this for a compliment? You look downright feminine.? Avien rolled her eyes and made for to smack him

 

---You know, they say the first sign of insanity is talking to yourself. Hmmm. . . At least I'm not answering myself yet ---

The ride back to Bespin was a cold one, something that Avien never enjoyed about space travel. She always enjoyed the company of both planets and people. Space was too empty, too lonely for her to truly enjoy. Departing from Coruscant had not been easy either. As Avien had been walking out to the platform to enter her transport and leave her home, she had turned to see Qui-Gon, looking out the window to the platform, one hand pressed against the glass. His eyes were sad, although he contained the emotion well. Even now, Avien shifted her personal things at the memory, as it brought up unsettling reminders of her dream.

A small reminder beeped, informing her that she was nearing Bespin. Avien trouped into the cockpit and settled herself into the pilot?s seat, taking a small comfort in being allowed to fly herself to Bespin. The descent was uneventful, even though she had to land in Cloud City and from there could get a transport to her house. It was nearly evening when Avien?s transport finally settled onto the landing pad of her parents? home.

Hefting her pack onto her shoulder, Avien made sure she had everything and picked up the box with the ribbon last. Stepping out into the dying sun, the wind whipped her hair around, and Avien smiled faintly. The sun warmed her arms as she walked over the grass to the house. Adele appeared, a wide grin on his face. Jogging across the short span of grass left between them, he threw his arms around her in a warm embrace. It was good to be home.

A short, blonde woman peered from the doorway, watching the embrace with joy and curiosity shining on her face. Avien pulled back from her brother and made a small gesture to the pretty woman. ?Is she your wife?? she asked quietly, smiling at the beaming pride on her brother?s face.

?Aye, she is. Bria Kenobi. And I, I?m Adele Kenobi and have been for a full six months,? he replied, his joy and pride radiated off of him in waves. Avien?s head swam at the number. Had it really been that long since he visited her in Coruscant?

Adele?s smile expanded until Avien wondered if his face would crack. Avien received a nudge in her side that seemed to punctuate his grin. ?And she is almost as many months along with a babe. I?m going to be a father, Aviendha!? A smile crossed Avien?s face at the news.

?I?m glad to hear of it, Adele,? she chuckled, feeling the darkness that seemed to have followed her from the Temple begin to strip away. ?And a fine father you will make, I?m sure of it.?

He lead her to the door and introduced the two women, all the time beaming with happiness. Avien was given a tour of the grounds, seeing the things that had been changed since the years she had spent there as a child. And for the first time in many, many years, Avien watched the sunset.

 

It's so god to see this thread back and with new posts. Thank you Musical believe it or not I'm a constant reader though I may not always reply.

 

Yay! It's back! Sorry I didn't notice before now. Great posts as always. I love your work. Keep it up. (And we all talk to ourselves at times... okay, so I talk to myself all the time, and I'm just fine.)

 

I have been working on a fan film about a young man named John Dekka who is on the verge of turning to the dark side. The name of the film I haven't thought of yet but i have 2 programs which I do not know what to use on my film. Axogon and Adobe PhotoShop 5.0 LE. Which is the best and please give me a tutorial on how to use them if you can. Plus if anybody thinks they have a deep cold voice I would like to hear it and it will be entered in the movie, most likley. Email me at DarthSidrn@aol.com or DarthDeimos@hotmail.com. I will send you a basic line.

 

Just get a warez copy of Photoshop 5.5 and use that, you tool.

 

Legal,

Do not discuss warez subjects please. These movies are on a touchy legal basis as it is.

Thank you.

Azeem
TFN FanFilms

 

But do you have a tutorial for both ? Or just one of them please reply back.

 

We will have the tutorials for Photoshop and Axogon next week. I'm still waiting for the Axogon stuff from some people but I would recommend first hitting the website for it to get the basics down. The photoshop LE may be a problem. I do not know if it can do filmstrip format. Check on that first. If not, then it will be useless for rotoscoping.

Azeem
TFN FanFilms

 

Personally I like Axogon over photoshop. When I started experimenting with a lightsaber effect I captured the fight out of Princess Bride between Inigo and Wesley. I exported it from Priemere into Photoshop in a filmstrip and almost stopped right there when I saw all those frames laid out individually in front of my face. But over the psychological impact was the fact that I'm not as patient as a rotoscoper needs to be (using photoshop) and so my blade lengths danced around and looked REALLY bad. With Axogon, you tell the program what effects to apply all at once and draw a bounding box around your balde. Then you just step through the frame using the cursor keys. Read through the user forum at http://www.axogon.comwww.axogon.com on how to get started until the the theater section here has a tutorial up.

 

I found an axogon tutorial. Go to:
http://www.geocities.com/Trace_Kyshad/Axotut.htmlwww.geocities.com/Trace_Kyshad/Axotut.html

 

I already did one lightsaber on Axogon and it was good. But no tutorial out there tells me about adding 2 lightsabers. I tried my owns ways and it did not work. If you know how to add 2 lightsabers on the screen tell me.

 

This is the weakness in Axogon. You need to go through your footage and completely add in the effect for a single blade. Render the film. Then import the rendered film as your new footage file and add the second blade. Render. When all the blade are rendered you need to import the film again and reapply the effect for blade cross-overs (whichever blade was rendered last will always appear to be on top when they hit in a duel). In After Effects you can do both (or several or all) blades at the same time but obviously your production cost goes through the roof.

 

Actually, you can do both at once in Axogon (and in cases where the blade is behind something i.e. an opponents arm and sticking out the other side - it's necessary). What you do is animate 2 geometries, apply the two effects, and then paste one on top of the other (actually, if it's an intense fight, you'll need a few different paster tools, as the same blade is not always on top). Which pasting effect you use depends upon lighting conditions. For indors or low light I've gotten good results with "Screen," for outdoors both "Normal" and "Lighten" work well. Just play around - but always set the opacity to max, otherwise it can look kind of funky. If you'd like to see some of my FX tests (I've gotten MUCH better with it since I posted them) check out http://artisticwhispers.homestead.com/files/bftz.html http://artisticwhispers.homestead.com/files/bftz.html all the FX in the tests are done in Axogon. I'm currently working on the actual footage of my fan film and have as many as four blades in one frame, working single pass on the effects, and it looks D*mn good. It can be a headache managing all the tracks, but once you get used to it (and be sure to save your work often) it's very managable.

If you do decide to do multipass fx in Axogon, do yourself a favor: When you do your final render (i.e. you're done with one pass and need to get everything together for the next one) do NOT use any compression at all. Multiple processing with compression degrades the quality of any video, and after two or three passes it becomes very noticable.

If you have any other questions about making this work, just ask, or email me at lokmer@bigfoot.com

 

In your SFX test, which are good, how do you make your lightsaber blades smaller like its far away. All the ones I make is big like its close to the screen.

 

I just traced the saber arcs. When you capture footage and work through it frame by frame moving the vertices, the prop blade goes through its natural forshortening from the camera's perspective, and you can see it on the film as long as you look carefully and have a blade that shows up well against the background you're using. In both of the posted FX tests, We used copper pipe for the saber blades. The reason was simple: My friend and I work out with copper pipes when we practice our sword forms, so that when we use the bamboo swords for sparring we move much quicker (the steel-hilt copper-blade combination weighs easily 5-7 lbs where the bamboo swords weigh around 1), since our muscles are used to the heavier weapons.

Shortly after FX test #2 we started working on the choreography, and we continued working with the heavy weapons (and we both got some pretty nice injuries. I was bashed in the leg several times and still have the bruises to prove it. My partner caught my copper blade on the bottom of his eye socket once when I went into a spin too early and he ducked too late - only take this path if you are A) an adult with medical insurance, and B)have some martial arts training. Without our previous training we could well have killed eachother).

Anyway, back to animating the blades. When it came time for the shoot I had to figure out what to use for blades. Copper pipes do NOT show up well at all against any background. They blur out quite easily, and in those FX tests I did a lot of guesswork as to where the blade SHOULD be based on the frames immediately before and after. I wanted something that would show up well on the screen. We wound up settling on schedule 40 PVC, which we then striped with electrical tape. The plastic blades screwed into the steel handles provided a nice, light ballance - much like a lightsaber's - and the electrical tape sripes made the blades easier to track even when they would otherwise have blurred out. One problem with PVC: it likes to shatter. We will have a blooper reel when we're done of nothing but shattering saber blades. So bring plenty of extra blades and joiner pieces to keep your sabers in good repair.

So, in a roundabout way, to answer your original question: just watch the blade, and follow it with your geometry in every frame. You will find that the blade gets small and large, long and short, quite naturally. Follow it closely enough, and it won't look artificial.
Does this answer your question?
-Lokmer

 

It was really nice to read your story, Musical, thank you! Please post more! You?ll knock down both algebra and zoology, I?m sure, and then? We?ll see the next couple of pages. It seems to me that you are a VERY brave person, you were brave enough to have a look through Master Jinn?s youth ? his ?Jedi mask?? Frankly speaking it?s exhausting for me sometimes to look through it realizing that I can also ?pinpoint the exact second I knew of his death?! And I?m just reading while you are live inside? You are in fact writing a tragedy, dear Musical Jedi, a story where you have to see your best friend dying ? a whole-life-long nightmare - and can not change anything. The thing I like the best in your writing is the order of the first three snapshots: Jedi training, the dialog ? and the speech on behalf of Avien. It?s great finding it sounds like? a confession? The memoirs that were never expected to be read? But she kept writing because of the pain, the open wound ? the broken bond of the lives. You know, this manuscript could be found somewhere at the ruins of a Jedi Temple in the days of The New Republic?

[This message has been edited by LadyJedith (edited 04-11-2000).]

 

Thank you, Lady Jedith! I really thank you for your compliments. I must confess that this story didn't start out as a tragedy, but it sort of evolved that way, and you have given me a wonderful way to end it. I also would like to thank everyone for posted and keeping my spirits up! I hope to post later tonight, after my choir rehearsal.

 

I have the name for it. Star Wars "Born Into Darkness". Yes but i'm still not getting you on Axogon. I have alot of film strips which I can do sfx on but its not working. If you could send me a step by step(with pictures) tutorial i'll be thankful. Send it to DarthSidrn@aol.com or DarthDeimos@hotmail.com.

Sidron

 

Uug! Why does my name keep disappearing?!

I'm so glad you're back, Musical!! I haven't been able to find this thread for the longest time...I've been meaning to go look for it but didn't get a chance to, I guess. Sorry I've been neglective.

Wow, this story has taken a definite turn for the awesome! Great job while I've been gone; I especially like the first post on this page, the one where you thought you were talking to yourself.

 

---*grins* I guess talking to myself is a sign of genius! I'm sorry I didn't post last night, sithy internet provider, but here is the promised post! Thanks for all the replies!! ---

More than two years passed, and they were filled with joy for Avien. Bria had a boy, who was named Obianiad Wanlew Kenobi. Avien still laughed at the name, for the boy who had been produced was a mere babe, extremely small at birth. In her own right, she dubbed him Obi-Wan, claiming that was a much more fitting name that the grand one he received. The pair became great friends, often at the pain of Bria, and Obi-Wan could never be found too far from his aunt. Avien could sense in him a great capability for the Force.

Still, the times were not entirely happy for her. As the time past, she began to feel a yearning to return to the Temple, something she knew that she would have to act upon soon. She could tell that she was not meant for the idyllic existence of her brother?s life, a diplomat and his wife. Avien communicated with Qui-Gon through a mass of shipped data pads, as well as the occasional use of a holo-vid. He had been raised to the status of Master, and with that honor, he had also received the charge of a padawan. Avien could feel something stirring her. It was time to move on.

Early one morning, Avien rose before the sunrise. She slipped into a loose pair of leggings and a tunic and walked out into the gray morning. Dew clung to everything and the gray sky hung over the area, pressing down with its damp weight. Running a hand through her hair, Avien allowed herself a slight smile and produced the ribboned box that Qui-Gon had given her. ?Today is the day,? she said quietly to herself, and then she strode out into the dewy grass.

A long distance away, Avien watched the sun rise as the slight breeze played with her hair. She settled in the grass and gently untied the ribbon to the box, curious as to what lay inside.

As she pulled the lid off, the sun reflected from the metal pieces inside. A knowing grin appeared on Avien?s face as she picked up a crystal and held it to the light, making rainbows appear in the grass nearby. This is the stuff of which Jedi are made of, she thought to herself. She took everything out of the box and laid it out. It was time for her to rebuilt both her lightsaber and herself.

Avien worked, tuning out the world as she assembled the pieces for the second time in her life. It was not hard work, but it did take great concentration to make sure every component would function correctly. By midday, the barrel of the saber was complete and all Avien had left was to insert and adjust the crystals which would produce the blade.

?Whatcha doin??? a soft voice inquired from behind her. Avien turned and smiled to the two-year-old behind her. Vaguely she wondered how long he had been there. Reaching out to Obi-Wan, she pulled him into her lap and showed him the handle of her saber.

?It?s something I?m making,? she replied, allowing the young boy look at it. ?How did you get all the way out here without your mother or father?? she asked him, smiling as the precocious, dark-haired boy inspected the handle.

?A man?s here,? he said shortly. ?What does it do?? Avien?s brow furrowed. A man? She didn?t know her brother and sister-in-law were expecting visitors. Shoving the thought aside, Avien decided that keeping Obi-Wan occupied would be useful, and if they need her, they could find her.

?Well, nothing yet,? she replied and showed him the crystals. ?These go inside and then it makes a light-blade.?

Obi-Wan studied the crystals and then turned back to the handle. ?What does the light blade do??

Avien smiled at the question. ?It helps me defend myself from bad people.? How does one explain the point of a weapon to a two-year-old? As the words came out of her mouth, Avien realized something didn?t feel right. Something was out of place. She sighed. Maybe it was just the realization that she would be leaving soon. ?I?m not going to be able to stay much longer, Obi-Wan.?

 

Oh, wow, the story goes on! Looks like you built your light saber just in time, Avien, and what better boy to protect than little Obi-Wan? Speaking of which, how could they burden him with such a long name? Obianiad Wanlew? Ugh! I'm looking forward to more story, anyway, and a mushy reunion scene with Qui-Gon. Well, maybe not mushy. Just make sure there's a reunion!

 

*chuckles* Yes, that is how Obi-Wan recieved his fond title now. Makes you glad you were named what you were, doesn't it?