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Star Wars Prequels 35mm 4K Filmized Editions by Emanswfan (a WIP) — Page 32

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The single pass color grade of ROTS is in the final tweaks. So I’ll render out one 4K hevc mkv at a bitrate similar to that of 4K Blu-rays.

I’m pretty busy these days and my desktop setup is no longer functional so I just have my laptop to work off of so I need to be able to just set aside the time where I can let it take however many days it needs to render.

Before I do the final render, I’ll try and post some comparisons or another preview clip with the new refinements.

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Hi,
Can you post the link of the first preview of rots?

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M_H_Frank said:

Hi,
Can you post the link of the first preview of rots?

It’s on the previous page as a MEGA download.

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Your preview of ROTS is gorgeous. 😍 I can’t believe how good it looks! I’m suspecting a full film with that look will make the outdated CGI far more charming

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As usual I’m refining my color grade more and more. I’m just still not achieving the look I want. Originally I wanted to put my own spin on the colors and change things such as lightsabers or time of day. I will eventually be doing a version with changes like that, but as I’ve said before for now I feel satisfied coming out with a version that does a faithful film emulation but at the same time keeps much of the original color timing.

In terms of film emulation, early on I’ve always wanted to emulate older film stocks such as the ones used to shoot the original trilogy or maybe even older film stocks to make it appear as if the films were produced before the original trilogy. I did have some good tests with that that I’d posted years ago but often my methods only worked for very specific shots and it was hard to figure out a technique that works more broadly across the film. With that in mind, I decided to focus on making the prequel films look more like the sequel trilogy which are shot on modern film stocks. That clip that I’d posted was my latest results at doing that. And while it is a more appealing look to the film, it still isn’t something that I originally envisioned for the project.

One of the looks of films that I really like is films shot on film stock with little to no digital color grading changes. Rian Johnson’s Brick comes to mind (shot on Kodak Vision 500T 5279 and Vision 800T 5289, and finished on film aka no digital intermediate), or even this music video: https://vimeo.com/299219173 (it was shot on 16mm variants of the film stocks used to shoot TFA and TLJ). That look that just screams film is exactly what I’d like for this project.

I’d like to recreate the look of older film stocks but if that’s too hard I’ll satisfy for a better film emulation of the modern stocks.

And even if I get the colors right, there’s a certain motion, texture, and artifacts for something truly shot or finished on film. So I wanna work on that.

Anyhow, that’s my latest thoughts on the project, I’m glad people liked the clip I posted, and I apologize for how poor the compression is on it, a final render will be not only at a higher bitrate and HEVC but not using the built-in Adobe encoder which honestly sucks. I should really post some PNG’s or TIFF’s of shots from my work so you can see all the detail I’ve been working to recover in the 4K upscale.

I also think I really need to save up for a new PC. My old PC broke and while I’m working to get it fixed, it never really had the power to handle 4K. Currently I’m doing everything on my mid-2015 15 inch Macbook Pro, which isn’t ideal, although it definitely packs a punch in terms of rendering power for the size. Plus, I’m so busy in school and work these days that I can’t sacrifice my macbook to do days long renders. I don’t even wanna think about how long the final render is going to be.

This project is close to my heart, and I’m always thinking about it and trying new things with it. It’s been a long journey, but I promise that the results will be worth it. When I started this project, I was only 4 years into video editing, and I’ve gained so much experience since then.

I’m so happy the OT is getting the treatment it deserves with all the preservations coming out. Even though the PT is vastly inferior, I feel it’s important to help make the best versions possible and I know there are people that still appreciate what George tried to do.

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I grew up with the prequel trilogy so they have a special place in my heart despite their flaws and odd CG. It’s been a year or two since I’ve seen the films in full; I did a marathon of Hal’s edits. I’ve always thought the films looked a bit too clean and video game-y, so when I first saw your previews of the “filmized” version of the movies, I was beyond excited.

Not only does it dampen the effect of the low quality CG, but it gives the film a more natural look in my opinion. You’re doing an amazing job! Even if you don’t consider the project a perfect realization of what you want to achieve, I think it’s a great step forward in that direction.

Also, if you need help choosing parts for a new PC, I may be able to help. I’m a bit of a computer geek so maybe I have some useful tips?

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I’m honestly gonna wait and see if we get 4K versions of these next year in a 1-9 boxset.

Working with Solo from the 4K blu-ray has been a much more enjoyable experience due to the 10 bit, wider color spectrum video source.

There are some ways of upsampling the footage to 10, 12, or 14 bit video and removing compression artifacts, but it’s very tedious, and I’ve only done it for small previews.

If they don’t make 4K releases, I’m going to try and decompress the footage as I have been but try using the photo mode on waifu2x to upscale instead of Instant4K which I’d used in all the past examples.

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emanswfan said:

I’m honestly gonna wait and see if we get 4K versions of these next year in a 1-9 boxset.

Don’t remember the exact article I read (probably found it on the star wars leaks reddit) but it do remember it saying 4K was coming for all saga films. Specifically I recall the writer/source noting how easy TPM was/would be compared to the digital Eps 2&3 which are going to just end up as upscales.

Complete Star Wars Poster Collection

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SkyderHouseMafia said:

emanswfan said:

I’m honestly gonna wait and see if we get 4K versions of these next year in a 1-9 boxset.

Don’t remember the exact article I read (probably found it on the star wars leaks reddit) but it do remember it saying 4K was coming for all saga films. Specifically I recall the writer/source noting how easy TPM was/would be compared to the digital Eps 2&3 which are going to just end up as upscales.

Found the article: https://www.thedigitalfix.com/film/content/105409/exclusive-skywalker-saga-4k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

It’s based on info from an “anonymous Disney employee”, so take that as you will.

Complete Star Wars Poster Collection

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And interestingly they make it sounds as if AOTC and ROTS are going to be native 4k masters instead of an upscale of the existing 2k DI’s. Of course the footage was shot at only 2k, but re-rendering the cgi and redoing the compositing would bring about a lot of improvement.

Also I would love if they would fix the color timing on AOTC. Trying to work with the god-awful blu-ray colors is not fun. ROTS has been the most enjoyable since the colors aren’t botched.

Also for the love of god, I hope they bring back the grain or redo the denoising for TPM. I’ve seen some extremely impressive denoising over at the 4K77 forum on SW and ROTJ, so I know you can denoise without making everything look waxy.

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I’m just excited that Harmy, you, Piota, Adywan and the rest are making these awesome projects!! You’re one heck of a guy.

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emanswfan said:

And interestingly they make it sounds as if AOTC and ROTS are going to be native 4k masters instead of an upscale of the existing 2k DI’s. Of course the footage was shot at only 2k, but re-rendering the cgi and redoing the compositing would bring about a lot of improvement.

this is exactly what i hope they’re doing. even for the CGI effects in phantom menace.

emanswfan said:

Also for the love of god, I hope they bring back the grain or redo the denoising for TPM. I’ve seen some extremely impressive denoising over at the 4K77 forum on SW and ROTJ, so I know you can denoise without making everything look waxy.

if they use the same 2k master they used for the blu-ray without applying any DVNR at the end, that’d be great, too.

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That news excites me. One of the things I noticed with AOTC, I can remove a lot of the bad colour choices, but it just exposes how low quality the film is, in terms of how little detail there is. It becomes more jarring when you remove the orange filter from Geonosis, which if you squint looks pretty great. I’ve done several colour passes to that section alone, and the most discouraging thing about it is how much I think the orange helps hide the lower quality elements. The actors are sharp in comparison with the muddy CGI effects.

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

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Emanswfan, did you create any LUTs of your Technicolor emulation? And if so, would you be willing to share them?

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hbenthow said:

Emanswfan, did you create any LUTs of your Technicolor emulation? And if so, would you be willing to share them?

Not sure how I would create LUT’s for my color grades now with how I do them. Theoretically I could tho, as my intentions with Version 1 releases is to create a grade to apply consistently across the whole films in order to keep most of the original color timing decisions. I’ll look into it tho, as that may be a good way to get my work into some faneditors hands sooner.

Eventually I’ll have to do a shot for shot color grade, but I don’t think it’d be worth it till the official 4K releases.

But really, with my desktop broken and money being tight right now, it’s gonna be a while till a release comes out. My macbook pro which is my everyday computer is just too busy with other stuff, that I don’t have time to be doing long renders.

I’m expecting to save up for a massive upgrade in power for my next PC, which I’ll be building myself, and which can be used solely for my video editing and gaming purposes.

I’m also gonna transfer my hard drive from my old PC to recover any older work I did on this project.

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 (Edited)

Here’s some AOTC shots testing out the new upscaling process along with an itteration of my whole movie grade.

https://ibb.co/2qg4VXQ
https://ibb.co/VLQG24G
https://ibb.co/HhFHpLw
https://ibb.co/0Zxr6qk
https://ibb.co/fxgbkyH
https://ibb.co/xfRQ79N

I don’t like the color of every shot, but that is only something I can fix in my later in my shot by shot grade. I’m trying to come up with a consistent grade to maintain the original color timing with a filmic twist.

And also this is without film grain as to show off better the upscaling improvements.

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Overall love the added kick the film look gives vs the more neutral muted video, it’s more exciting to look at as a whole. Does seem to be a little high in the reds for me, to the point where I feel it soaking in places it shouldn’t; knocking down the green so heavy does a lot to eliminate the video feel but even there I think there’s maybe a bit of over correction (potential detail loss?) that could be reeled back for the final balance.

Still big improvements, great work on this, can’t wait to see the finished version.

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV

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 (Edited)

Personally, I don’t like the color shift you chose to use for the Kamino scenes. I feel like it kills the moody overcast atmosphere.

Hope this is constructive criticism. You can do the project as you see fit of course! 😃

I like what you did with the Corusant shots btw.

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The color balance was shifted warmer and more pink to compensate for the teal shift introduced on the Blu-ray. I could grab probably grab an HDTV rip or my DVD for reference to make it just right. I think I still need to figure out more adjustments to match the visual quality of ROTS, let alone the new films.

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Instead of the other stuff, try and fix it by lowering the orange highlights. I think it’ll be good after that.

Preferred Saga:
1/2: Hal9000
3: L8wrtr
4/5: Adywan
6-9: Hal9000

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 (Edited)

Have you tried out AI Gigapixel? does great upscaling.

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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paja said:

Have you tried out AI Gigapixel? does great upscaling.

Just looked at it as well as the other products they offer, and it looks promising. I haven’t used one of their products in a really long time, but if it’s AI driven, it might be pretty good.