And the verdict is... ? (Instrument of Destruction review)

[shaqui]

Actually I have a question for Andrew, or the CGI team, and that is: How did you get the exterior scenes to look as they were outdoors?

As a graphic designer, I'm aware you can get daylight simulation bulbs, which eliminiate the 'yellowness' you get from artificial lighting, and wondered if you were rendering with more 'blue/white light'. I've never noticed a CGI production before which had a subtle but noticeable lighting quality difference for exteriors and interiors in this way. Colour me impressed!

[Richard-Darmok]

Hello everyone!

I've just seen the first episode a few minutes ago and I'm quite happy of the new look of the series. It seems promising.

The only thing that I don't enjoy is the way it is rendered on CGI. I've seen better CGI in the series Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.

The skin of the characters are pretty weird, I mean the texture. Captain Blue seems older than before.

Anyway, I gave it 7/10.

Take care!

Richard

[Aegis]

Hi Shaqui!

The lighting in most of the outdoor scenes in ep 1. was done using a LightWave-specific trick known as a "spinning light rig" - this uses a number of light sources - typically spotlights - connected together so that when we rotate one light they all rotate - the upshot of this is that the frames are rendered as if they had many more lights than are actually present - 3 lights give the effect of 21 (or possibly more) lights. This helps create the effect of "global" lighting (radiosity to the initiated) without the associated rendering times. As far as I'm aware, LightWave is the only 3D package on the market capable of this trick as it's closely tied to the way LightWave creates motion-blur.

Obviously, the computer doesn't do all the work the quality of the lighting in the show can be directly attributed to the care, patience and attention to detail paid to each and every shot by our very talented TD's.

We do spend a lot of time getting the lighting right for the environment - we'll use a slightly blue tint for "atmospheric" lights and in a lot of cases, a "bounce" light that contributes some of the terrain colour (be it dirt, sand, grass, rock etc.) to the sets, characters and props. Reflections are a combination of real, calculated reflections and "reflection maps" (images that are reflected in shiny surfaces) according to the requirements of the shot (real reflections eat up render time and are avoided if possible). In addition we'll often use a number of additional lights of fairly low intensities to stop shadows looking too dark, add specular "hotspots" to eyes and to subtly change the mood of the scene/shot.

[shaqui]

Thanks for the reply Andrew - my knowledge of 3D and rendering is somewhat archaic now, going back to my exhibition days almost ten years back. But I understand what you mean - spotlights were just that in our trade. You'd put them where actual spotlights would illuminate the graphics.

It's actually the funeral scene that was most immediately impressive. You got the look of a grey overcast day down pat. I imagine from a CGI lighting viewpoint that must have been a challenge - light everywhere!

Keep up all the good work.

[C21]

Good to hear that the series has already shown signs of improvement. And that the broadcasters have had a re-think over the best way to put the show in the MOM format.

Don't know when it'll be shown o/s of the UK but it sounds as if it could be worth the wait.

By the way, the Marketing Dept for the new show have agreed to forward the questions in my 'Questions to Gerry Anderson' thread to the man himself and he'll answer a sampling of them.

So start writing



C21

[shaqui]

Another question for Aegis!

Kim Stevens, my co-producer at GACCH, was wondering how you do the CGI characteristion and the like? In the puppet days, the puppeteers would be responsible for the small gestures and movements that keep each character unique and believeable. In CGI terms, you use a combination of motion capture and (presumably) manual 'tweaks' to facial expression, movement. etc. So...

1/ Is there a database of the wireframe bodies and faces, and associated textures/surfaces that all the CGI animators use?

2/ Are any of the animators assigned specific characters, to keep things consistent?

3/ Is there a database of the motion capture? Generic things like walking, running, climbing stairs, as well as more specific scene by scene stuff?

(Sorry if it's a bit long winded but I'm trying to put Kim's rather lengthy query into a coherent question or two here... )

[Aegis]

1. Because we animate in Maya and then light and render in LightWave 3D we have several complete versions of each character - in Maya we have untextured low-detail (proxy) characters for animating with and high-detail untextured versions for translating the animation data to LightWave (using a tool called "The Beaver Project").

In LightWave 3D we have (generally) two versions of each character (different outfits are treated as separate characters) - they both have the same amount of physical geometry but we have two different sets of image mapped textures - high-detail and optimized. The optimized textures are used for the majority of shots and we use the high-detail ones for close-ups and publicity stills.

The objects and textures are kept in a fixed directory structure on our network which breaks down something like this:

Objects/Characters/C_SCA_GEN/HD/C_SCA_GEN_Head.LWO

Where C_SCA_GEN means "Character" "Scarlet" "General Use" - the .LWO indicates that it's a LightWave Object.

Images are kept in their own folders in a similar fashion:

Images/Characters/C_BLU_GEN/OPT/C_BLU_GEN_Face_RGB.PNG

We do have database software that was written specifically for the production but it was implemented before LightWave was introduced to the graphics pipeline so it's of limited use to the TD's

2. The studio is split into four teams - Scarlet, Green, White and Blue - each team has their own animators, TD/Lighters, compositors, CG Director and Production Co-ordinator. Consequently, we have no one animator who specifically animates Scarlet or Blue but we do use the same actors for the motion capture and try to make the performances (both mo-capped and animated) as consistent as possible.

3. Whilst a database of mo-cap would indeed be a useful resource, I'm pretty sure that most of the data we use in the show is bespoke and created for each episode - I'm not really the guy to ask though - the animators and mo-cap people would know more about this

[James. C]

the broadcasters have had a re-think over the best way to put the show in the MOM format.

What's MOM format?

[Marion]

James C - MOM - is Ministry of Mayhem - a children's 'programme' with silly games, guest stars and 'fun' - very slapstick. The very first episode of CS was shown in 2 ten minute chunks with a gap of about 20 minutes in between - whilst they played a 'game' of trying to identify somebody's mother.
The second part of the series - the following week - was shown towards the end of the show - with only a break for adverts. But it did have a scroll message running across it twice - with a quiz question and the phone number...
It seems that the howls of protest after the frist episode, must've done some good! Part 2 came over much better - there was a chance for the tension to build. Mind you - it'd be even better with NO adverts and no scrolling messages... we can but hope.

[James. C]

Do you work on the series, Aegis? So do you get to see Gerry every day?

Whoot! 50 posts!

[shaqui]

Mind you - it'd be even better with NO adverts and no scrolling messages...

Well... no MOM actually...

[hazel]

Shaqui - You beat me to it!
I'm a veteran of Saturday morning children's programmes like Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, and its successor Saturday Superstore, and we had our anarchic moments (honest we did!) but we were never 'lowest common denominator television' like MOM. The producer would've had a new one ripped by H.Children's Progs if graphics had been overlaid onto a world-premier, multi-million pound new series. And what would've happened if it'd been split by some bloody stupid competition - I think we would be talking about the dole queue.

[C21]

Ah Swap Shop ... how about Saturday Scene with Sally James? For some reason eating Freddo the Chocolate Frog (Cadburys) and sitting through Saturday Scene after watching one of Gerry's shows feels more like three minutes ago rather than three decades


C21

[hazel]

I remember Freddo the Chocolate Frog, but as for the glory days of Sally James - nope.
I was at work on Saturday mornings. Never saw Saturday Scene, and only ever saw one episode of the mighty Tiswas. That was when BBC techies went on strike and the Swappie couldn't broadcast.
(to be read in a very small voice... I liked Tiswas. I thought it was fun...)

[Captain Indigo]

You can still get the Freddo frogs, I think. If not, their disappearence has only been a recent thing. Maybe they've gone the same way as the Wispas (grrrr..... ).

I have to admit, I'm of the 'Going Live' generation, sliding slightly into 'Live and Kicking'. Even they wouldn't have sunk as low as to bradcast things over the programmes. I know that L&K does not, but back then, they wouldn't...

Sorry, felt I had to defend my generation of shows. .