adywan said:i've done a bit of tweaking to the latest preview shot, so here is the final version
I'm guessing the clouds move within the sequence (not a request for a clip... just asking)?
If the Cloud Car moving towards us doesn't work due to lack of material to work with, couldn't a previous clip of a Cloud Car moving away from us and towards the city still work? It could act as a lead-in to the city fly-by to Leia's apartment.
Also, a few extra suggestions:
(1) to help with the scale and depth, would it be possible to make the clouds behind Cloud City darker (even just a little bit) so the foreground clouds stand out from the background ones? Maybe not a solid darkening, but even make the bottoms of the clouds darker whereas the main body is a little darker to help show they are farther in the distance.
this is what I am referring to as far as the "bottoms" of the clouds being darker to give them dimensionality
this could be a cool one to use when Luke is approaching Cloud City (place the city on the left so the light source is almost behind it as Luke approaches from the right)
Here is a great source for cloudy sky shots that could be used for either Bespin or Hoth:
http://www.mostphotos.com/300440
And just something for everyone to think about, regardless of EMPIRE:R: has anyone thought of recoloring the clouds and sky to more reflect Bespin as a non-oxygen gas giant? How would the sky and clouds look if they had a more yellowish tint as opposed to the Earth-like "white clouds, blue sky"? I'm imagining something from the perspective of being in the outer atmosphere of Saturn or Jupiter.
an idea for either when the Falcon escapes Bespin and the sun rises on the left, or when the rebel fleet first approaches Endor, if the Endor and its forest moon idea are to be used. When the planets pop up (as they exit hyperspace -which the spinning blue tunnel would need to be added) the Endor moon could move towards us faster than the planet behind it to help create scale as well as speed.
maybe doing something with the clouds to make Bespin more alien looking...
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/apod/ap971030.html
(2) also, what about the possibility of showing traffic over Cloud City and some city activity? It would amount to spots with tiny running lights, as well as some lights on Cloud City itself. Also, would it create more dimensionality to darken Cloud City to some degree, so the lighter area reflects the roundness so to speak? Regardless of whether a model is used for Cloud City, to at least have a basic 3-dimensional object to play with in regards to lighting effects could be useful.
Some other sources to check out:
http://www.casabatllo.es/
http://www.onegoodthing.net/files/category-architecture.html
http://englishrussia.com/?p=395#more-395
the focus is mainly on how light would reflect and look off of the metallic skin of Cloud City and what could possibly be done to give it more dimensionality.