Could Use some Feedback on this

Thunderstruck · March 7th, 2012, 08:00 PM

Hey all

Been doing a lil experimenting.

Would Like your overall thoughts.

Also, about the laser fire, should that be changed to maybe actual
shells and tracers or something, smaller or different looking lasers,

is it too many?

Am trying to get a realistic look but not authentic. ( aint got no ideas on film style- cuz I dont know how lol)

Does it work?

Just need some feedback so as to know if I should change some things.
If it is good to use in another video.

Thanks,

OH !! Here is the VIDEO Clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL8RC1s82L4

gmd3d · March 8th, 2012, 02:44 AM

its has good action ..... I personally dislike the use of the newBSG cannons ... and the effect does not fit with the classic version .....

lots of action .....

I would also suggest changing the color of the Cylon engine from red to blue....

thats it from mpov.

great work

borjis · March 8th, 2012, 12:27 PM

I like the tracer fire. very fast & chaotic.

I echo Taranis in that the Cylon engine should be blue or perhaps even white.

A big improvement can be made in your animations if you add velocity curves or whatever the cinema4d animation equivalent is. The motion of the ship paths are whipping around a bit harshly/jerky. curves would smooth them out and make them more natural.

Maybe add some more environment lighting, it's really dark. I know space is dark, but you should be able to see whats going on.

Punisher454 · March 8th, 2012, 10:50 PM

My personal preference is for the TOS style guns and laser bolts, these can be enhanced with modern CGI lighting techniques. Things like flak barrage's and heavy projectile firing cannons looked ok in nubsg but dont quite fit with TOS.
I do really like your video's, hope you keep it up.

Punisher454 · March 8th, 2012, 10:50 PM

oops sorry double post.

Thunderstruck · March 9th, 2012, 11:52 AM

Thanks e1 so far.

From borjis

"A big improvement can be made in your animations if you add velocity curves or whatever the cinema4d animation equivalent is. The motion of the ship paths are whipping around a bit harshly/jerky. curves would smooth them out and make them more natural."

yeah that is something I am trying to figure out how to use.

The f-Curves. Very few tuts on it. I understand how to use them, but
am having difficulty getting the layout ( in app). I will get it one day lol.

to date I only actually successfully curved a camera 1 time ,,, you are correct, this is a definite need to learn/use also.

yeah- I will make more. Since this is pretty much all I do anymore.
Eat, Sleep and make videos lol

As for lasers, I could use some other ways of doing them.

I have tried lights, shaped lights, Mesh,objects, even dbl-trpl plane strips and combination's thereof.
Most of what I have is stuff I made on my own. Am sure a lot of them
are done in AE or post effects. I do not like trying to use AE.
-- the only way I know of is using lines and strokes and glows, but are hard
to match footage ( direction-angle etc) for me.

well on to more trial tests.

Thnx

borjis · March 9th, 2012, 11:58 AM

I render out lasers as well. Doing it in AE is way more complicated and unnecessary.

I don't think there is anything really wrong with the ones you have,
they could use some glow to make them thicker/hotter.

What I do is render them as a separate stand alone element.

composite them in AE and add some glow to enhance them.

for the canons, I would remove the yellow fire as they shoot and instead,
add a light to each canon tip. When the canon fires, animate the light
to be really bright then go dark over 2 or 3 frames. The laser blasting
out of the canon would light up the area around the canon.

This can be seen in BSG TOS as well as Star Wars. (vipers and Tie Fighters firing)
I'd never really noticed it before until it was pointed out to me
by Peter Kuran. That was one of his jobs on Star Wars and Saga of a Star World.
Talking with him in person was one of my highlights of 2009.

Thunderstruck · March 9th, 2012, 04:40 PM

oh man, this is turning out to be a good thread LOL

I have been doing that( compositing) in AE with separate rendered layers
for the past few videos.

I have an exchange plug in for c4d that will create an AE scene file,
it really looks to be a easier better way than rendering 3-5 sequences each.
Only render once and get all.

Have not put it in on new comp yet, still need to try and experiment with it.

Problem was I had to do it that way, because of the DOF. Each sequence
had a diff DOF Camera used.

I did have lights as you say, but the Flames kinda hide it.I was using am image I had of Cannons firing from NuBSG. was trying to mimic sort of.

I appreciate the feedback very much from E`1. So many aspects I am trying to learn everything all at once.

I have to say though , look at recent videos I did and ones I did a year ago,
Definite Improvement.

( back then I jumped in feet first and green as grass.)

Thunderstruck · March 10th, 2012, 01:04 AM

Okay Doh kay,,

Do you like this?

may take a few moments to load

Punisher454 · March 11th, 2012, 12:32 PM

Your video's are improving at a very nice pace.

My one suggestion for this one is the lasers. It may look a bit better with longer laser bolts with a higher velocity and have them sweep an arc while firing a burst of like 5-8 shots.
In the show we always seen the laser turrets tracking ships while firing.