Return of the Pug (ROTP) - webpage and screenshots (Released) — Page 7

Sorry everyone for being incommunicado for so long.  Brief story/excuse:

This semester I took on the task of teaching a new computer science course here at the college - Advanced 3D Graphics.  Basically it's a course in shader programming in OpenGL 4.3 and JOGL.  The hitch - I had never done any shader programming before.  Heck, I'd never really even studied the fundamentals of 3D graphics programming, let alone shaders.  And there are virtually no decent textbooks on shader programming (and absolutely none in Java/JOGL) -- well, there's one, the OpenGL SuperBible - but the latest edition which contains non-deprecated programming only came out in August and is full of typos and missing chunks.

Plus, as I learned firsthand, if you've never done any shader programming before, it is pretty much the hardest code in the world to debug.  So I have been spending most nights, hours on end getting code to run, and in sufficiently presentable form for course material.  I have had little time for anything else since classes started in early September.

I had other classes to teach too, and other normal university obligations.

Instruction just ended this past thursday.  I'm very proud of how the class ended up and students said they enjoyed it a lot.  They also said it was the hardest class they ever had, which is saying something for CSc seniors.  We got through most of the fundamentals - buffers, textures, tessellation, shadow mapping, etc.  The NEXT go around will be much, much easier and a lot more fun at least for me, now that I actually semi-understand it and have course materials laid out.

I should have some time between Xmas and New Years to finally have a look at the project files Harmy put together for reels 2 and 3.  And I still have to send him two segments of reel 1 that will help him finish that portion.  Of course, some other video projects have piled up too, in the meantime, but ROTP remains solidly etched in my mind and my near plans.

So everyone, rest assured the project is moving forward.  And, with any luck, I'll survive finals week and return to the land of the living soon.  At least presuming I get all these shadow-mapping projects graded.

And hey, it's a shame that coltonlolz and I were never formally introduced...

Also taught the follow-on course this spring semester, so my work obligations were similar as last fall.  My "year from hell" ends in 2 weeks, and that is when I'll be able to start resuming other aspects of my life, including this one.

Abandon ship?  In our moment of triumph?

ROTP has its own unique set of challenges, most notably the huge variation in brightness.  That doesn't play nicely with the Workprinter.  But it still is going to be a lot of fun.  Nice colors, too.

That print has been re-listed.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Return-of-the-Jedi-16mm-Feature-Film-Print-1983-LPP-Signed-Original-Star-Wars/121340937365

Ah, I see. I can grab a couple of images from the 16mm print here to compare.

I can't wait to see the final result. Jedi looks great on 16mm, this is a short segment from a 16mm print that was loaned to me, and this is straight out of the scanner, no colour correction or anything.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tcwpf9iapn4z09n/dstar.mov

I can only imagine how good the fully colour corrected version from Puggo is going to look.

Whoa, there is a color depth there that is unbelievable. Love the darker look inside the DSII.

I can't wait for the revenge...wait no..return of the pug!

Thanks for the kind words.

I just got back yesterday from China, and expect to restart work on ROTP this week.

I didn't see any interesting SW bootlegs there - but then, I didn't make it to any of the bookstores or to the Silk market this time.

I've pretty much finished the color correction of this for Puggo but I'm having some trouble with the interlacing of Puggo's files.

Here's the media nfo of one of the AVIs I got from Puggo:

Format                                   : AVI
Format/Info                              : Audio Video Interleave
Commercial name                          : DVCPRO
Format profile                           : OpenDML
File size                                : 4.15 GiB
Duration                                 : 20mn 36s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 28.9 Mbps

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : DV
Commercial name                          : DVCPRO
Codec ID                                 : dvsd
Codec ID/Hint                            : Sony
Duration                                 : 20mn 36s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 24.4 Mbps
Encoded bit rate                         : 28.8 Mbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:1:1
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Bottom Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 2.357
Stream size                              : 4.14 GiB (100%)
Encoding settings                        : ae mode=manual / wb mode=one push / white balance= / fcm=manual focus

The only interlacing settings I found in AE were in the Interpret Footage menu for each input file. The default settings were "Lower Field First" but as you can see in picture A) bellow (open link in new panel to see full resolution) this created horrible aliasing, so I tried checking the "Preserve Edges" box, which helped a tiny bit but as you can see in picture C, when setting "Separate Fields" to "Off" the jaggies disappeared completely - I thought then, that I had figured it out, only to find, that the "Off" setting took care of the aliasing, only to introduce typical interlacing artifacts (as seen in picture C2) which in turn disappear, when you set it to "Lower Field First" (B2).

Trying to play with the pulldown settings only introduced even worse interlacing artifacts and I'm quite sure that there is no pulldown in Puggo's files anyway, because when you play them, they do run at 29.97fps (way too fast).

Can anyone please help?

EDIT: I created a new topic about this in the Technical Help section, so if you can help, please, respond there!!! THANKS!

Why DVD? :<

Huh?