Star Wars Custom Blu Ray Saga Set (a WIP) — Page 10

The starfield looks good, but I don’t know enough about the 81 field to judge it.

Are you rotoscoping each element then?

Yes, each element: the tantive iv, the star destroyer, tatooine, the moons, the blue lens flare from the engine - they each were individually rotoscoped out and added onto the new star field. The engine flare, being semi-transparent, had to have the stars behind it individually painted out and then the blending mode changed to make the new stars have the same level of visibility behind it.

It’s nice to see Luke not looking like an Oompa Loompa

Darth Lucas said:

Wasn’t that matte line only in the '77 version?

That’s a very good question that I don’t know the answer to. Anybody know for sure? It’s hard to tell on my laserdisc transfer. I’m pretty sure the elements were reconposited in 81, but I’m not sure if the matte line was there or not. If not I can paint it out for the final version.

Darth Lucas said:

That’s a very good question that I don’t know the answer to. Anybody know for sure? It’s hard to tell on my laserdisc transfer. I’m pretty sure the elements were reconposited in 81, but I’m not sure if the matte line was there or not. If not I can paint it out for the final version.

Looks that way: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+DrewStewart/albums/5514974191245813441/5537299919619902914?pid=5537299919619902914&oid=102542760950977079734

The matte line in front of the moon in 81? If it’s there, I don’t see it in that image.

towne32 said:

The matte line in front of the moon in 81? If it’s there, I don’t see it in that image.

That’s what I’m getting at.

I upgraded my regrade of the stormtrooper shot. I used a slightly different frame as a reference before, and it didn’t come out right. This is what I believe it should look like.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Here’s the LUT for this regrade:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajVGNtaV93TjM5Nm8/view?usp=sharing

Ah. Well ok then the matte line will be painted out in the final version.

I’ve got the '81 crawl/flyover to a place where I’m pretty happy with it. I’ll continue tweaking little things pretty much up to the point of release, but it’s at a point where, for general viewing purposes, it works well.

It’s not going to be 100% accurate, but I think it’s about 80-90%. Not meant to be a perfect restoration of the crawl/flyover, I’ll leave that to far more capable hands, just meant to be a pretty darn close approximation for general viewing purposes, and in that endeavor, I’m really happy with how it’s turned out.

So with that more or less done, I just need to do one final pass of the color throughout the film, then it’s on to authoring the disc itself. Discs 2 and 3 I don’t think will take nearly as long, since I don’t need to do anything to the films themselves for those discs. Disc 4 might take some time as it’s alot of material I need to make sure is all gathered and authored correctly.

Then come Empire and Jedi.

Nice. Any chance for a preview of the crawl+pan in motion?

Is the color of the crawl text matched to the 2.5 color?

Yeah I’ll render a video preview when I get the chance. Not sure I’ll be able to at any point today but I’ll see.

The crawl is completely unchanged from when Harmy sent it to me. The colors looked good to me so I didn’t mess with it. I’m not sure if it’s matched to 2.5 colors or not but looking at both, it seems pretty close to my eyes.

Here is the video preview of '81 crawl/pandown/flyover. Internet compression was hell on this, but it should still give you an idea of the final product.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2bJjDvnfW0YM3FxdmRhcnBFUHM/view?usp=sharing

Looks pretty good. I was thinking the crawl would be a rebuilt one like Harmy’s 1977 one. But this was 35mm sourced? There’s a little bit of dirt here and there over the crawl and starfield, but nothing bad.

But what’s a little more distracting is the motion of the crawl. Is that jitteriness of the text, but not the starfield present in the 1981 version? It might be hard to tell in TN1’s example since the stars aren’t easily visible. It just seems a little more vigorous than normal gate weave, but I could be wrong. Just wondering if it needs more stabilization. Anyway, it looks very nice for something sourced from film!

I did not create the crawl. That was created by Harmy apparently some time ago. I suspect the crawl itself was sourced from film just due to the occasional damage that shows through, but like you said, nothing bad, but then I think the starfield was something else, probably sourced from Empire.

I took the crawl he sent me, recreated the rest of the starfield for the pandown, and did all the rotoscoping and everything for the flyover. You can’t see it but there’s a blend after the crawl disappears from Harmy’s video to my starfield for the pandown. Everything before the pandown is Harmy, everything after the crawl is me.

Darth Lucas said:

I did not create the crawl. That was created by Harmy apparently some time ago. I suspect the crawl itself was sourced from film just due to the occasional damage that shows through, but like you said, nothing bad, but then I think the starfield was something else, probably sourced from Empire.

I took the crawl he sent me, recreated the rest of the starfield for the pandown, and did all the rotoscoping and everything for the flyover. You can’t see it but there’s a blend after the crawl disappears from Harmy’s video to my starfield for the pandown. Everything before the pandown is Harmy, everything after the crawl is me.

Gotcha. The fade and rotoscoping all looked pretty good at first glance in this preview. And if everything before that is 35mm sourced then that’s great! Sometimes the damage is over the stars, though, which makes me wonder how it was assembled. Maybe the starfield was enhanced by layering the registered ESB one onto it, keyed in a way that it doesn’t overlay the text. However it was done, the result is cool.

This isn’t something I’d have noticed unless I was staring directly at these few pixels, but it looks like the Tantive’s engines are in front of the Star Destroyer for the first few frames of their overlap.

Yeah, the occasional damage on the stars bugs me just a little, but not enough for me to spend a ton of time fixing it. I really want to finish the CC and then get to authoring.

In between my finishing this project and waiting for Harmy’s 3.0, I’ll work on recreating it again completely from scratch in 1080p to pair with Harmy’s v3.0 in what I guess you could call v2 of this set.

towne32 said:

This isn’t something I’d have noticed unless I was staring directly at these few pixels, but it looks like the Tantive’s engines are in front of the Star Destroyer for the first few frames of their overlap.

I’m not sure I see it, but the Tantive layer is most definitely below the Star Destroyer’s, so if that’s the case then it’s a problem with the original composite of the film and there’s not much I can do about it without doing some serious Frankenstein work, which I think is overkill for something that is probably in the '81 version anyways.

Darth Lucas said:

Yeah, the occasional damage on the stars bugs me just a little, but not enough for me to spend a ton of time fixing it. I really want to finish the CC and then get to authoring.

In between my finishing this project and waiting for Harmy’s 3.0, I’ll work on recreating it again completely from scratch in 1080p to pair with Harmy’s v3.0 in what I guess you could call v2 of this set.

Sounds good. Yep, might as well get things moving so that this is done and out long before 3.0 comes along. All the other discs should be quick for you, though, in comparison. Maybe you can work on Jedi while waiting for ESB 2.5?

Yeah, I’ll probably work on ROTJ next for that reason, but ROTJ and Empire will be worked on somewhat simultaneously because I’ll have to essentially do my own recreation of the 97 version of ROTJ in order to have it be comparable quality to every other version in the set, and hopefully by the time I’m done with that, ESB 2.5 will be out.

So, disc three only includes the 2011 “Saga Edition” unlike the other two discs which both have two versions of the film. As such, there will be quite a bit of extra space on the disc and I have decided there will be a special surprise addition to that disc.

I won’t reveal what that is until disc 3’s release, unless someone manages to guess it. 😉

HINT: It is something that has never been officially released in any capacity, neither theatrically, or on home video.

I’m guessing the Holiday Special?

Are you transcoding the 2004/2011 versions at all, or leaving them at full bitrate?

Also, I suspect the 2011 editions are going to need to be blu-torrents releases?

The holiday special will be included with the special features on disc four.

I will transcode them to match the bitrate of despecialized. Unsure if I’ll leave them at 1080p or bring them down to 720p for consistency with the other versions. I’m currently thinking 720p and then when Harmy’s v3.0 comes I’ll do v2 of this set in 1080.

I’m hoping myspleen will be ok with it since it’s a custom disc and there will be something unreleased on the disc, but we’ll see. If not I’ll find another avenue to release.