Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released) — Page 75

Harmy said:

And that is the main difference between Laserschwert's original files and my adjustments - Laserschwert's letters were very thin and sharp - much thinner and sharper than in that 35mm scan, so I used a matte choker effect to make them fatter and blurred them out a little bit - this is unfortunately what also caused the fuzziness in some of the logos but over-all, I think it brought the credits much closer to the way they look in the 35mm scan. The amount of the glow is also is also inspired by the 35mm.

I guess the gate-weave may be a bit too much, I'll have to look into that.

Remember that a 35mm release print is 3 generations removed from the original cut negative and therefore about a 1/3 softer and more blurry. Same with the gate weave. So you have to decide what you are matching, the cut negative (what most of the film is a scan of) or a degraded print.

What bothers me about the credits is the color during their fade out. As you can see in the project file I had the letters not just fade out by getting darker, but instead they get darker and more saturated before going to black. This is pretty much how optical composites appear, but somehow this seems to be gone in your version.

And I agree that now the letters seem both too fat and too blurry.

Oh, definitely. You've got to blur them somewhat, just maybe not quite as much as you have. Same with the gate weave. That way it will look a little closer to what the credits would look like on the negative. Every generation makes them look blurrier and blurrier, so you might want to be a bit conservative how much you degrade them. :)

Regardless, they look great! They're even better with music!

Harmy said:

Well, judging from the 35mm scan, they are still not fat enough and I don't think that this has much to do with it being a print - making them a bit less blurry may be a good idea though - it's just that when they are too sharp, they start looking digital, so I'm convinced, that some amount of blurring is necessary.

But yeah, that fading effect got all screwed up by the matte choker effect, so I had to let it go - I might still try a different approach.

Are you, by any chance, using the wrong composition from my project? "TESB Credits Comp" would be the right one, and it already has a "Roughen Edges" filter on the text for the blurring.

If you're using that comp, you could just insert a slight "Fast Blur" after the "Roughen Edges", then a "Levels" correction after that, affecting the alpha channel to adjust the blur. This would keep the color change during fades intact.

Sounds good.

I think that looks pretty great, Harmy. Soft, but not too soft. The gate weave looks better too -- you lessened it on the background stars it looks like. And the fades look right. Also, you're enlarging the text based on Negative-1's 35mm frame, is that right? What, 110% or so? Are you doing that for all the credits now?

Ah, I see. The size difference just threw me, for a second. Never mind then. Carry on -- looks great!

About half way through checking the WP - here are the things I've noticed so far. Apologies if they have already been addressed or if they are correct the way they are.

Someone mentioned Hoth looking a bit purple and I agree, although it seems to be purple sky more than purple snow:

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45761 to 46122 - Magenta flashes similar to ones fixed in Star Wars?

Falcon interior from 52992 - Everything seems way more saturated in closer shots, especially the lights and Han's lip.

@ Harmy

Looks better, especially the reduced gate weave.

Could it be possible that the ":" in "TM: (C) Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 1980" at the end of the credits looks weird?

@ CatBus

I checked the Hyperspace Collection and the apostrophes seem to look more angled. However, I can't tell if they look curly or even like commas.

n00b said:

Could it be possible that the ":" in "TM: (C) Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 1980" at the end of the credits looks weird?

Oops! I assumed that that was supposed to be an ampersand (&) just looking at the GOUT credits. It's an ampersand on the Blu-ray and on the theatrical Jedi, but looking at team negative1's credits here for the first time ( http://www.dailymotion.com/video/kux5ufvmEiuocG8fqiu ) you're absolutely right that its a colon. A colon didn't make sense to me, so I interpreted it as an ampersand.

Looks like you'll have to change that, Harmy. Sorry about that!

Harmy said:

@michaeldc: I got a bit sidetracked with the BD release - I'm now thinking about waiting until all three v2.5s are done and then do the whole trilogy and make the intended bonus disc for the whole trilogy as well and release the whole thing as one awesome trilogy package.

 I think that's an excellent idea, will be a hell of a day downloading when all that comes to pass!

I'm gonna keep on the look out for BD authoring software that will do what we want, there must be something out there!

Harmy said:

OK, will do :-)

Thanks!

Could the space between "Conceptual Artist" and "RALPH McQUARRIE" be downsized too (the space between "RALPH" and "McQUARRIE" has to be exactly above the space between "LESLIE" and "DILLEY")?

Harmy said:

Actually, I pretty much have that problem solved - I found someone with access to some pro software, who can put this together for me - it's just that preparing all the assets isn't easy and will take some time.

 Great news :)

doubleKO said:

About half way through checking the WP - here are the things I've noticed so far. Apologies if they have already been addressed or if they are correct the way they are.

Someone mentioned Hoth looking a bit purple and I agree, although it seems to be purple sky more than purple snow:

5780
12943
13646
14217
14547
14649
18427
38329

45761 to 46122 - Magenta flashes similar to ones fixed in Star Wars?

Falcon interior from 52992 - Everything seems way more saturated in closer shots, especially the lights and Han's lip.

 Did you see this post, Harmy?  Could it possibly be a Purple Hoth? (okay a little hyperbole there)  At least three people think so.

n00b said:

Harmy said:

OK, will do :-)

Thanks!

Could the space between "Conceptual Artist" and "RALPH McQUARRIE" be downsized too (the space between "RALPH" and "McQUARRIE" has to be exactly above the space between "LESLIE" and "DILLEY")?

This might be a little defensive but I think it's close enough. There are 1,331 words and 10,898 characters in these credits (just checked my initial .rtf file) and not every single job title and name is perfectly adjusted to fit exactly over the ESB GOUT credits -- it would just be too time consuming to custom adjust the kerning like that.

When I was working in Photoshop, I just made sure that everything lined up on the left, middle and right sides and that the vertical alignment was correct. Sometimes a job title or name wouldn't fit exactly over the GOUT. But most of the time it did. Here's what that portion of the credits looks like superimposed over the GOUT credits from my PSD:

The new credits look awesome!

SirJonah said:

This might be a little defensive but I think it's close enough. There are 1,331 words and 10,898 characters in these credits (just checked my initial .rtf file) and not every single job title and name is perfectly adjusted to fit exactly over the ESB GOUT credits -- it would just be too time consuming to custom adjust the kerning like that.

When I was working in Photoshop, I just made sure that everything lined up on the left, middle and right sides and that the vertical alignment was correct. Sometimes a job title or name wouldn't fit exactly over the GOUT. But most of the time it did. Here's what that portion of the credits looks like superimposed over the GOUT credits from my PSD:

Don't worry, I know that any further adjustment would be far too time consuming. I didn't want to criticize your work nor did you make any mistake at this point. It's just because "RALPH McQUARRIE" had always been positioned anomalously and therefore is much more eye-catching than anything else. And that's the only reason why I pointed this out.