And so, despite the sheer difference in terms of "polygons" and "green walls" and everything you seem to fancy so much, the end product was an amazing series that showed exactly what it wanted to show and how it wanted to show. This show has nothing of the sort. This is the kind of thing you *should* avoid to end up doing if you want to get on this type of work.
Right. Avoid feathering live-action mattes in my 3D work and don't view JJ Abrams as a trendsetter. To think, I wasted all that time in those photography classes, and agonizing over polyflow and UV maps, when I could've substituted knowledge of composition, lighting, and modeling with the three noes: No matte feathering, no bloom, and no compositing tricks from after 1998. I can feel my work in the parts of the pipeline I'm not involved with becoming better already.
I love, absolutely
love that your detailed complaints about the CGI have absolutely nothing to do with the CGI. Look development and compositing, but not CGI. And then you mock me for foolishly thinking you were judging quality of the CGI
by the quality of the CGI.Jeeze. This is like if you were complaining about the acting, and when I finally pinned you down, you said it was bad because the costumes weren't well tailored and the loose fit distracted you from concentrating on the lines. It's disappointing, honestly.
Comparing modern CGI with something as old as B5 is problematic at best, and confusing the issue at worst. Technology has come a long way since, to a point where nowadays a single talented fan with one mid range system can do stuff that would have been nearly impossible, or extremely expensive back then.
The Lost Tales was 2007. That's only four years older than B&C (remember, it was completed a year ago). And I wasn't arguing the quality of B&C's VFX was better than TLT (In fact, I'd say TLT was better in some ways, in part because they chose to sacrifice scope to concentrate on fewer set pieces). As for the comparison, well, TLT also had a massively redesigned docking bay (though it was originally going to be lit in the dark grays of the series docking bay so it would've superficially matched, JMS was so thrilled with it he had them crank up the lighting to show it off).
Alec McCylmont has some HD screen caps in his portfolio if you'd like to compare.
Luis Dias will be impressed by the sharp matte work and lack of bloom in the wide shot of the docking bay where Lochley and the Centauri Prince don't have feet.
What I find most perplexing, however, is the amount of energy you invested in defending something so poor. I'd have like to have seen that energy invested into something a bit more deserving. This flying around in circles, finding new and creative ways of saying the same things over and over is starting to feel like it's own purpose.
I enjoy fiction. Reading, watching it, making it in my own small ways, and discussing it with others. The creative act thrills me, and being in the audience is a form of that act. So is the discussing, speculating on, fanwanking, and debating that comes afterward. Even a bad installment can give something of worth to riff off of. For instance, it could establish the existence a civilian colonial ship with a large, conspicuous docking bay.
So it's just a little irritating when the most lively discussion about B&C is a half-dozen people running around in circles finding ever more inane reasons to say it's the suckiest piece of suck that ever sucked. Each treated equally, as unforgivable sins against drama. And it's the people you'd think would be the first ones to see a lackluster story as an opportunity, not a burden.
This isn't a defense. This is a (vain, apparently) attempt to discuss
anything other than how much fun it is to bully the movie, deserving target though it may be. So, yeah, it is kind of it's own end, in that if talking about talking about B&C actually promotes a genuine discussion on any subject, it's a win for me. It's not the fun I wanted, but it's the tiniest bit of the ancillary amusement that should come with any new story. And maybe I'm taking it a little hard that the thread seems to have developed a life of it's own dedicated to raining on my parade.
Also, I've been doing a lot of troubleshooting on lengthy renders, which is giving me long stretches of downtime to read, share my thoughts on what counts as CGI, and not do much else.
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Whoops, didn't hit post. Well, here's a selection of my favorite BSG bad CG.
The infamous miniseries jump shot with the open flight pods. Also, with no shadows, which is a bit more of an issue for me. A corrected version
appeared in a later episode.
A
shadowless version of
my favorite stock shot of the Galactica. It must've been someone else's, too, since it's the only one they rerendered precisely with the battle damage from season 3, and then against in season 4.
The crowd-pleasing entrance of the Pegaus in Exodus Part II,
which is missing the smoke effects. Those shells look a lot less cool when they're just glowing cones. Also, it's got that extra turret, but the Pegasus was always a ship-of-the-week at heart. It grew all sorts of extra parts on a week-to-week basis that hadn't been anticipated when it was modeled. The smoke's the big problem with the shot. It was probably a render time thing, since it was an effects-heavy episode. The other two are the ones that have no apparent excuse.
And, a special bonus, an
actual case of bad compositing from B&C (as opposed to "compositing I disagree with creatively"). Fie and shame on whoever let that slip through.