Discussing about scales of ships in star wars — Page 3

Z6PO said:

EyeShotFirst said:

Sluggo said:

Maybe if one reads TF.n.  And I don't always trust them over there.  I think we have enough fans who can think for themselves here to come up with a good analysis or two.

Hear Hear!!!!!

The Star Wars fans here are the only ones I like. Too many GL worshipers and PT lovers elsewhere.

Even though Star Wars Technical Commentaries are hosted on TF.n, they are not part of the GL worshipping occurring on the main TF.n site. *sigh*

Oh, by the way, these technical commentaries are written by Dr Curtis Saxton, PhD who contributed to some of the best Star Wars reference books, in the Incredible Cross Sections and Inside the Worlds of series.

tell me about it ;)

That's why I sometimes make use of Mr Saxton analysis, they make so much sense to me, or the incredible cross sections cutaway, very consistent IMHO.

Anyway, no thoughts on the tread guys? I've also change the 1st post to be more an intro…

What do you think?

I'll put the capital ships mater on hold for a little while. This time I'll talk about the At-AT vs Snowspeeder as Vaderios pointed out to me that Ady wishes to fix this issue. I hope it will help visualize the matter.

Let's start with the snowspeeder size:
The 1/1 scale set:

The destruction model insert with live actor:

The scaled model used for SFX:

Those three images are pretty consistent with the rest of the snowspeeder shots and are portraying a snowspeeder of approx 5.3m length.

Now the AT-AT.
Below the most obvious scale establishing shot of the At At is portraying a length of about 30 m length (height varying between 24 - 26 m, depending of the stance):

it's consistent with all these shots (red lines are for the 30m ATAT):
(considering the perspective)

(assuming Luke is standing next the furthest foot)

It's working a little less well below but it's not far (red lines are still for the 30m ATAT):

-in this one the windscreen is a little too large:

-in this one the snowspeeder seems a little small to me (actually it's hard to tell given the speed & the moving nature of the shot):



The crushing scene however shows an AT-AT foot that would make a 18.5 m AT-AT, not very convincing and inconsistent with all the above said. I'd say it has to be fixed (as said on Ady's tread). (the red lines are the 30m ATAT & the green ones the 18.5m ATAT):

I've made a mockup with a foot scaled up to 140% (to make a 30m length AT-AT).
The original shot:

My mockup:

And here's my conclusion chart:

Give me your thoughts.

Also this shot is odd (thx to Vaderios who pointed this out to me):

The armor plate section is a little too big, the rounded shape Luke is pushing with his foot to is too small and the one for the front leg is missing…

Absolutely incredible post ! Great analysis pictures. How did you draw the vehicles outlines ?

The Tech. Coms. on that gushers site has somewhat similar estimates on the AT-AT dimensions.

As always, the databank on the official site is completely off, and wookieepedia cites two contradicting sources (it's so obvious that the AT-AT length cannot be smaller than its height that they don't see it ?!)

Z6PO said:

Absolutely incredible post ! Great analysis pictures. How did you draw the vehicles outlines ?

 

THX :)

Well being the perfectionist I am, I'm not satisfied with the available blueprints on SW books as sometimes they are wrong, or simply they doesn't exist, so most of the time I draw them myself. To do so I have to recreate a side view with photos of the model or screencaps from the movies, consider perspective effects and other problems such as different existing models for the same ship, and then trace over it like this:

savmagoett said:

Monroville said:

I would love to see the model they used for this shot, much less to see someone do a drawing or mock-up of how the Executor would look from a front "dead-on" angle.

Something like that:

I made this for my fan project about scales, patchworking these pictures.

Other than the Executor I've done it for the regular ISDs, the moon cal ships, the y-wing, the Tydirium shuttle, the Medical Frigate (what a beauty ;) ), the Rebel Transport, etc… And also some background ship such as the ANH(SE) Imperial Landing Craft "Sentinel", the Mos Eisley  Mobquet A-1 Deluxe Floater, Mos Eisley TX-3 Airspeeder, the Dornean Gunship (background ship in battle of Endor).

Here are some examples of what I do (sorry for the low def, photobucket auto resizes them grrr):

Tell me what you think…

Z6PO said:

…

The Tech. Coms. on that gushers site has somewhat similar estimates on the AT-AT dimensions.

I've just checked that , and I must admit I haven't read that one, shame shame.

So they say "Long-range views of Luke Skywalker ascending a cable beneath an AT-AT indicate a height of 22.6m", which is not what I calculated, hummm.

As I don't have the movie in HD, could someone post HD version of this shot please?

that would help me verify my statement.

<-- HD

Right click and view image

:)

-Angel

savmagoett said:

So they say "Long-range views of Luke Skywalker ascending a cable beneath an AT-AT indicate a height of 22.6m", which is not what I calculated, hummm.

 

It is Luke Skywalker ascending the cable, but is it Mark Hammil ?  It seems to me that it may be a puppet... So, are we sure the puppet is correctly scaled ?!!

Z6PO said:

…

The Tech. Coms. on that gushers site has somewhat similar estimates on the AT-AT dimensions.

savmagoett said:

So they say "Long-range views of Luke Skywalker ascending a cable beneath an AT-AT indicate a height of 22.6m", which is not what I calculated, hummm.

My screenshot being taken from the DVD, Luke was about 24px! So I could have been wrong.

To verify my calculation I've replaced it with Angel's HD screenshot (Thx pal!), without changing the scaling I've made, and it turns out I was scaling Luke correctly, what do you think?

I don't know how Curtis Saxton did his calculation, but it seems to me he must have screwed up somehow :p

Z6PO said:

It is Luke Skywalker ascending the cable, but is it Mark Hammil ?  It seems to me that it may be a puppet... So, are we sure the puppet is correctly scaled ?!!

For me that doesn't matter, as I wrote in the intro of the tread:

I don't seek to find out what's wrong or what's right, instead I think each "scale establishing shot" is creating its own reality.

That's my position (BTW guys I'd like to know what do you think of that course of action?)

In this case the movie tells this is Luke ascending an ATAT, so in this picture we can say the shape is 172cm (which is Mark Hamill's height) + the helmet. That's what I've been doing since the beginning. I added the Luke I draw for another SWScale wallpaper and a stormtrooper above, so you can see how "short" Luke is in my drawing.

Something, something, something, Dark Side said:

Savmagoett, what dimensions did you calculate for the Tydirium? Did you use the ILM version…

…Or the stumpy set version?

<span>Well I didn’t wanted to get onto that in my Tydirium analysis in the first place because the tread is more about the ISD size actually</span> <span>(a least for the moment)</span><span>, but</span> there is indeed shape discrepancy between the set and the model.

Actually I used the shape of the ILM model because I find it more beautiful, I simply rotated the cockpit for the landed version to make it look like the set version (I played around the idea of a droop-nose Concorde like cockpit but in the wrong direction! :p , that could be another fixing matter to add to the ESB/ROTJ whishlist)

Plus i don’t find it really relevant in the size matter. It’s a bit like the differences between ANH ISD and ESB/ROTJ ISDs, there are contradictions between the FXs but it is still the same ship, and because the two shapes aren’t <span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>that</span> different, I think we can still size up the Tydirium being <span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>roughly</span> 20m long, can’t we?

Something, something, something, Dark Side said:

 In the close-up of Luke, the outline looks a bit larger than him.

Actually this outline was made a lond time ago, to portray Luke ascending the ATAT in my fan project, not for this demo, so the stance is a little different.
But anyway you can see the "pixel Luke" is the same height as the 172cm Lukes I draw, and don't forget you have to consider the blur zone too, I even discarded the Dangling Feet.

I've decided to put my signature finally. I didn't wanted to start a controversy at first, as there are one mile ISDs in it, but whatever. :p

I dont know if would help but the two Star Wars Chronicles books have these gatefold pics of every vehicle in Star wars (movies) showing scale to one another.

savmagoett said:

Also this shot is odd (thx to Vaderios who pointed this out to me):

The armor plate section is a little too big, the rounded shape Luke is pushing to is two small and the one for the front leg is missing…

A fix by Vaderios (thx Angel)

vaderios said:

…

-Angel

Bingowings said:

I hate to be a git (I hope I'm not) but it's clear all the scales of almost all the vehicles and ships are pretty much mucked up not just between movies but sometimes (as proved) within shots.

So it presents fans, artists and editors with an eye for consistency with either an unshakable headache or an entertaining free canvas to stretch or shrink to the best of their abilities.

The only way to square circles of this kind is to play it by eye.

If it feels right it probably right for you and whatever you do someone will complain because lets face it, we are all nerds (nothing to be ashamed about nerds are often the best people in the universe).

I completely agree with you, but as I stated in my intro:

savmagoett said:
…My goal here is to propose a possible scale chart, giving an average dimension to each ship seen in the saga, that would work with most of the major "scale establishing shots" (as I call them) such as scenes with actors around ships, the blockade runner inside the ISD, the Falcon behind the ISD, the Falcon docked to the medical frigate, etc…
And therefore isolate as less shots as possible that needs fixing (and also given the possibilities of fixing we have)…

…I don't claim there actually is scale consistency in the star wars saga, I just know it's filed with discrepancies. What I seek is to find the best choices one can make (when it comes to fix things) to make the whole saga more consistent.

I was a little busy lately (including search and drawing for the next ship I will discuss here) but I'm not giving up and I do hope to find a chart that will please most peoples, future will tell, but I think I can do that…

Bingowings said:

I still think your diagrams and silhouettes would make great posters and cover art.

I could see them blown up really huge in a frame on a wall in nerd heaven.

Oh thanks :)

Actually that's exactly what my project was about at the beginning, a big wall art with pretty much what you can see in my sig… ;)

Why did you come back?