[WIP] BSG encounters The Empire CGI/3d Short

Lt's
D.A. Dajo aka Snowman
W.M. Sisko aka Wilo
Liz E. Borden aka Hatchet
and of course

Capt. R. Randal aka Thunderstruck





well, knew it would not last- am on a new idea for a short fan film.

Have a opening script wip and opening Shots "filmed".

Colonials on patrol encounter a Star Wars Empire squad .Will have to do voices myself,
prolly ruin it Lol.

SS's

[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumbnail1.png]


[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumbnail2.png]




Got a new Viper MKII Model, that I spent appx 15 hours fixing up. ( thats knowing what I was doing too) was a mess for textures. Re did A lot of those and had to redo the Cockpit and add some more made stuff into it just to get it to look decent.

Model - mesh is pretty good. But needed a lot of help to get it to this.
Plus the Emitters for Lasers, laser lights, and exhust had to be made and added.
Also A pilot and name plates etc etc.

Already got the Tie FIghter and it is a Beauty of a model. A-1 grade. with a detailed separate cockpit - needs some more textures though.

Have got a few more resources for making fan films, so am trying them out and reading tons of pages.

THIS IS A WIP thread and wil be updated throughout the making of this Short film.

Regards,

Capt. R. Randal "Thunderstruck"




UPDATE 1


More work on the cockpit and lasers. ( no post work done-C4d)
textures in Cockpit are animated.


[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumbnail3testr0249.png]





[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumbnail4_0027.png]





Only problem is I cant yet do any facial animations or have a Rigged character to use.

 

Update #2


Okay UPDATE 2


Spent a whole day trying to get what I was after-- Exhaust streaks ( animatable) and tweaking the (muzzle) Flash
of lasers.

Helluva time trying to get it all to work together and independantly, finally realized I had to Group ( Think particles settings) all the geometry-emitters-Pass-Pstorm all of it in Expresso. ended up with 5 groupings.

Here is couple of looks on the exhausts and flash.


[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumbnail6Thrustrs0036.png]





[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumbnail5.png]





And this is what I started with- Orig. mesh model.

[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumborigmesh-model2.png]



[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Thumborigmesh-model.png]

Still working on this one ship- but cant change too much - already rendered out some flick

Debating on flash on viper or not, will have to do a test rendering to see how it looks.

 

Looking good man! Nice to see you start out showing some WIP pictures. Can't wait to see a rough edit or something!

 

Here is a short clip - Demo increased thrust and spurt n turn.

( You can right Click and view image in orig upload - open link in new tab)

[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/CGI-Animations-C4d-AE-Clips/Viper-MKII-gif.gif]


The Tie Fighter


Also, got the Particle system for the Tie Fighter .

Tie Fighter SE model by James Basset

I tried several things on the Lasers from pointers on how to, but came up with my own in C4d. ( none of them looked quite right)
will require grouping Think Particles for each ship. NOTE: is no dynamics/collision on TP system- have not enough knowledge-exp with doing collision/dynamics yet. Let alone in a particle system



[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/ThunbnailTie2_0015.png]

 

A test Demo Video.


test for color correction, went ahead and uploaded if you like a sneek peek


Link to Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXV_hoDhQ48

 

SHOTS FIRED- SHOTS FIRED They Drew first Blood

Update- some more SS's of WIP

This I used a stormtrooper model by Karl Stocker.


[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Tie1_0018.png]

I rigged it to the best I can to be able to sit him down in Tie cockpit. Though it is not good enuff for animating and unable to twist bones.
It also had a mesh under meshes and so had to connect and normally completely re texture with poly selection,so I opted for mostly black- but man there were SO freeking many Poly's it would take a week to poly select the mesh.

Also debated adding some animated textures for the cockpit. but did not.


A look at the opening shots ( First Blood) from the Tie Fighters.

[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/Shooting2_0045.png]






[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/Cinema4d%20Images/shotsfired0042.png]

 

So far so good. Keep up the good work. The only thing i could say on that youtube clip is when the camera is not moving the ships look still because the stars in the background are not moving either. You could make those move even slightly then i'll give the impression of movement. Its a test so i'm sure that will be fixed when all is set and done.

 

Yes you are correct, but also.....


most times you cannot move fast enough in space to make the stars seem to move,
most scenes do not apply this aspect or only to demonstrate camera movement.
In the past it was used a lot.


I am still a beginner in 3d CGI and making shorts. ( 1st year self taught)

But your point is noted, I too often debate this whether to use camera movement, or to animate all aspects to convey a sense of movement. More often than not I do not animate
or do this.

Justifying it by space is so large, that stars will not appear to move.After watching season 3 and 4 of BSG re-imagined many things do not or are not shown as true.

Will try and do better. Thanks for your input. If I can animate the objects and camera better this may not even be noticed

UPDATE:

Short clip of engagement between Viper and Tie Fighter.


[image=http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa474/Thunderstruck2012/CGI-Animations-C4d-AE-Clips/Explosion-split.gif]

 

Well, here it is. 3 weeks of effort and work all balled up into a video.

Episode I


Link To Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uyHKov6DHM



I know there is a typo in crawl text and the animation is a bit cheesy and unfluid like, but am just getting my feet wet on it. takes some knowledge and experience to get good results and that takes time, especially with no course material on it.
IOW's no tuts-manuals


Would you like to see an next episode?