'Swarm'

by **Marion** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:35 pm

Thanks Kambei - that was worrying me!
I quite agree about leaping off Cloudbase - sorry SKYbase - it does seem rather a daft thing to do and Scarlet seems to like doing it - twice in 3 episodes, so far!
Yes, I was wondering where the other Captains were - although it is nice to know that they are not the only people on the base! I always knew there must be an army of underlings manning the place. :wink:

I thought the faces had changed in this episode too, they seemed less angular somehow. The hair wasn't very natural though, unless the fashion in 'the day after tomorrow' is for hair sleeked down with so much Brylcreme it's stiff.
What exactly were the nano--bugs doing to Scarlet in the reactor room? It looked as if they were trying to tickle him to death - after all he emerged with not a hair out of place, or a bruise to be seen. Destiny's flying suit was 'ripped' after her encounter with the bugs - but Scarlet's looked remarkably pristine after his. Maybe his retrometabolism healed him as he was being attacked - but his clothes are not retrometabolic - so something should've given....
One last point - I don't know how anyone else feels about it - but to me the dialogue - which creaked noticably in places - was performed very unemotionally. Okay - these are trained military people (I imagine - no one's actually explained what Spectrum is) but surely, Destiny might've been slightly apprehensive as her plane was being eaten around her? Colonel White remained remarkably impassive throughout the entire episode - but maybe he's feeling poorly from the effects of the skin complaint he seems to be suffering from?
Get well soon, Colonel

by **Kambei** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 5:48 pm

I was very surprised that it was a water sprinkler system, though. I would have expected a CO2 or inert gas extinguishing system. They would have to have a massive water reserve tank for something as big as Skybase.

by **Carrie** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 6:14 pm

Nice valid point Kambei - I would think it would be tricky with lots of water all over the place if all the systems are running off electrical power - unless they use some new fangled source: Plasma? Nuclear fusion? Not to mention as you say...the need for storage for that amount of liquid.
But hey..we see the personnel have private showers in their quarters...and as Captain Ochre (the male one that is...) liked to say..'Save water - shower with a friend... :wink:

by **Captain Indigo** » Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:47 pm

chrisbishop wrote:I

can't

WAIT

TO ACTUALLY SEE THAT SERIES!

Nothing I've read so far had DISCOURAGED me enough not to want to see it!

I'm dying here!!!!!!

Feeling seconded!

by **Kambei** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:47 pm

Heard an interting article on television this morning that might shed some light on the HALO suit that Scarlet wears to jumo off Skybase. There is a company called Outlast who are using a fabric technology developed by NASA. It is a thermally insulating material that uses a wax polymer which softens when the outside temperature warms up to allow the skin to breathe, but solidifies in extreme cold to insulate and retain body heat inside the garment. Apparently it was developed for space suits. The web site is at:
http://www.outlast.com/

by **Lieutenant Green** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:30 pm

Shaqui said on 26 Feb

Looks like Scarlet has been revamped slightly to make him a tad more like the original - or is it just me? Colonel White also looks a bit different...

Marion said on 27 Feb

I thought the faces had changed in this episode too, they seemed less angular somehow. The hair wasn't very natural though, unless the fashion in 'the day after tomorrow' is for hair sleeked down with so much Brylcreme it's stiff.

I agree with you both, the faces of all the characters have changed. Colonel White's hair has got even whiter, and even Destiny's hair which at first looked very realistic has changed and doesn't look as good.

I knew that this was going to happen as I had read in a recent FAB magazine where Gerry said that changes were made to the characters after the first 2 episodes. I was hoping each character would look more realistic. HOWEVER, having watched 'Swarm' twice now, I think the faces now look more like those used in computer games, and are not as good as those we saw in the opening 2 episodes.

This cannot be good for a series spending £25 million or so on it, and claiming to be 'groundbreaking'. Does anyone else agree?

Aegis - if you're reading this, can you give any explanation for this 'backward step'?

by **Aegis** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 11:39 am

Well, firstly I wouldn't say that Swarm's characters were a "backward step"

The faces are different but I have to say that I think the "Swarm" Scarlet is a huge improvement on how he looks in Instrument of Destruction - as far as Destiny goes, personally I've always been in two minds on this - the "new" Destiny has a much more "tomboyish" look to her whereas in the pilot eps, Destiny seemed more feminine - personally, my favourite Angel is Melody - I think she looks great (there are other reasons too which I won't go into here

)

As far as the hair goes, that was more a production than a design issue - realistic CG hair is still incredibly time-consuming and costly to get right - we tried it with the pilot and in some shots it looks fantastic and in others it looks... well, less than fantastic

In the end, we settled on a slightly less sophisticated technique which whilst (in my opinion) doesn't look quite as good as the best hair stuff we did, does give us a greater degree of consistency which means less time worrying about the hair and more time working on the animation, visual FX, lighting etc. Of course, we're continually refining our techniques and the show's visual style continues to get little improvements here and there as each episode is made.

by **Lieutenant Green** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:02 pm

Aegis

I really want this series to be the best CGI series of its kind to date. What I would not want to happen is that in about 10 years time New Captain Scarlet looking the same as computer games then. As the computer games industry continually improves, the chances are that facial animation will get better and better and look more realistic than today. By that time New Captain Scarlet may begin to look dated.

I guess I have to take the point that it is time consuming producing realistic characters, as well as being extremely difficult. I was hoping that they would look as good as the human characters in the Shrek films or even 'The Polar Express', but I guess that our American cousins have the lead with CGI animation, and the UK is just playing catch up.

Can you confirm one thing. In the 'Swarm' episode, there seems to be more keyframing and less motion capture. It is noticeable that some of the movement of the characters was not 100% natural. Is less mo-cap being used for each episode now? There was quite a lot of it in the opening 2 episodes.

by **Marion** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:42 pm

Would this problem with naturalistic hair be the reason for so many crew-cut or bald personnel aboard Cloudbase? :-D

I like the new personnel - even Lt Green - although I still don't see why she couldn't have been Lt someone-one else and Green at least be as conspicuous by his absence as the other colour-captains.
Still, I think they need to improve the characters and the 'acting' - some of the voice-overs are awfully dull. That can't be too expensive, surely?

by **Captain Indigo** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:21 am

Marion wrote: Still, I think they need to improve the characters and the 'acting' - some of the voice-overs are awfully dull. That can't be too expensive, surely?

It could be if they need to employ better voice artistes! How much is Francis Matthews wanting an hour now?

by **yorkie** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:52 am

Shrek2 cost $200 milion and Polar Express $170 million to make,. Scarlet is about £1 million per episode (approx $1.9 million). I think the British animators are just as good, they're probably even using the same tools, but working on a much lower budget.

I agree that in 10 years time new technologies will allow even more realistic animation, perhaps photo-realistic characters. As for the moment I'm really enjoying and appreciating their hard work.

by **Carrie** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:06 pm

Oh..I could be available for voice overs ---- no problem...I can do good angst... :wink:

and I'd do it for free as well...

by **Elentari** » Fri May 13, 2005 4:49 am

A swarm of insect-like critters - where have I seen that idea before… Oh yes, same place that has the glowing eyes. So Destiny ‘will be killed for sure’. Good! No, wait. Scarlet’s rescued her. Damn.

The Colonel seemed rather matter-of-fact that Green’s quarters were on one of the levels overrun by the swarm.

Bad luck Green.

by **Marcus** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 12:11 am

Just watched Swarm for the first time on DVD.

Noticeable how the CGI was nowhere near as consistent as on some of the later episodes - ranging from very good to very ropey - the scene where Lft Green is stuck in the green slime and tells the others that her mind is being read was very Scooby Doo.

As other have said, hard to believe that those robots wouldn't be waterproof too....

Nice to see a lot of skybase and its crew, however and the combination of action and a bit of romance was good.

by **shadokp** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 3:33 am

After watching this episode for the first time I really thought that the series was on the right track. I was still worried after the two parter but this one settled me down a bit. Liked the continuity of the robot bugs that Black had known about in "Instrument of Destruction" come to play in this one.

Animation high point - Angels intercepting plane
Story high point - Destiny undressing - is it going to be one of those type of shows??

6/10