Star Wars Custom Blu Ray Saga Set (a WIP) — Page 7

Obviously I meant more than just the battle, I was just using it as an example. The sand crawler shot is definitely one to be replaced no question.

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

towne32 said:

I would not consider inserting quick shots from TN1 for the sake of color.

I will not purely for the sake of color unless the color is unsalvagable in Harmy’s version and there is no other source. I have yet to come across a shot like this but who knows.
I will, however insert quick shots for the sake of quality and resolution, most notable during the battle of Yavin sequence where most of the space shots in TN1’s are very clean and where the jump in quality between blu Ray and gout upscales are most noticeable in Harmy’s imo. I will only do this if the shot has little to no noticeable damage on TN1’s and if the increased resolution and clarity is noticeable and improves the experience. And of course it will be color corrected to match.

I would recommend some of the more noticeable shots than the battle. Most of those are honestly great, despite being GOUT upscales. I think what needs it the most would be the sand crawler coming over the dune, the exterior shot of the cantina, and the detention block extension.

The issue is that none of these shots mentioned (aside from the Deathstar battle) are pure GOUT by the time V2.5 rolled around. Most of them are rotoscoped GOUT mixed with BD footage or 35mm stills that are higher quality than TN1’s release (even if it’s from them to start with). I’ve actually been doing some tests combining the two sources (along with some extra cleanup), and putting TN1’s work in there sometimes stands out as reduced quality of the overall shot.

The best candidates for replacement are the ones that are still fully GOUT shots in Harmy’s 2.5, and there aren’t too many of those. Battle of Yavin, and a few shots in the hanger preparing for the battle (used to replace Biggs scene) are main ones.

Not sure what cantina shot you mean. The static shot of the dewback? The dewback itself does look much better when you substitute in TN1’s version. But the rest of the shot stands out as a bit lower quality. So unless someone wants to re-rotoscope these things, it will be a bit of a tradeoff. I think the following shot would be good to replace, since I’ve found the color on Harmy’s (which is also 100% a TN1 shot, so there shouldn’t be much quality tradeoff) to be unrecoverable: http://tinyurl.com/zd379md but maybe DarthLucas has had better luck. Other shots, too, but I’m sure it will be obvious what version to use once you line them up in your editing program.

The issue with those shots are that they’re inconsistent. I’ll use the sand crawler as an example. Yes the still that the sandcrawler is rotoscoped onto is higher quality than the -1 shot, but it’s kind of distractingly obvious where the seam is. The -1 shot has the advantage of having consistent quality across the shot without being a dramatic drop in quality from the surrounding shots. I haven’t yet tried dropping the shot in, but that’s just my thinking behind it.

Darth Lucas said:

The issue with those shots are that they’re inconsistent. I’ll use the sand crawler as an example. Yes the still that the sandcrawler is rotoscoped onto is higher quality than the -1 shot, but it’s kind of distractingly obvious where the seam is. The -1 shot has the advantage of having consistent quality across the shot without being a dramatic drop in quality from the surrounding shots. I haven’t yet tried dropping the shot in, but that’s just my thinking behind it.

Would you cut from the first (night) sandcrawler shot to the end of the day sandcrawler shot, preserving the wipes as they are in TN1’s, or recreate wipes to switch from Harmy’s in the middle? I actually find the pink glow around the dewback in the previous shot more distracting than the sandcrawler. That and ‘I can’t understand how we got by those troops, I thought we were dead’ are the two most distracting in the film for me, as far as seams go.

Darth Lucas said:

The issue with those shots are that they’re inconsistent. I’ll use the sand crawler as an example. Yes the still that the sandcrawler is rotoscoped onto is higher quality than the -1 shot, but it’s kind of distractingly obvious where the seam is. The -1 shot has the advantage of having consistent quality across the shot without being a dramatic drop in quality from the surrounding shots. I haven’t yet tried dropping the shot in, but that’s just my thinking behind it.

This is what I was thinking with these shots. I realize that portions of Harmy’s shots are of higher quality, but the overall consistency and quality of the 35mm is much less jarring.

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

The issue with those shots are that they’re inconsistent. I’ll use the sand crawler as an example. Yes the still that the sandcrawler is rotoscoped onto is higher quality than the -1 shot, but it’s kind of distractingly obvious where the seam is. The -1 shot has the advantage of having consistent quality across the shot without being a dramatic drop in quality from the surrounding shots. I haven’t yet tried dropping the shot in, but that’s just my thinking behind it.

This is what I was thinking with these shots. I realize that portions of Harmy’s shots are of higher quality, but the overall consistency and quality of the 35mm is much less jarring.

I definitely agree with you guys on this. It’s just a matter of how jarring it is to have shift the quality of the whole frame in one shot vs. having elements in the shot that are lower quality. Case by case basis, I’m sure.

There’s also the matter of getting the grain profiles to match a bit better.

towne32 said:

Wazzles said:

Darth Lucas said:

The issue with those shots are that they’re inconsistent. I’ll use the sand crawler as an example. Yes the still that the sandcrawler is rotoscoped onto is higher quality than the -1 shot, but it’s kind of distractingly obvious where the seam is. The -1 shot has the advantage of having consistent quality across the shot without being a dramatic drop in quality from the surrounding shots. I haven’t yet tried dropping the shot in, but that’s just my thinking behind it.

This is what I was thinking with these shots. I realize that portions of Harmy’s shots are of higher quality, but the overall consistency and quality of the 35mm is much less jarring.

I definitely agree with you guys on this. It’s just a matter of how jarring it is to have shift the quality of the whole frame in one shot vs. having elements in the shot that are lower quality. Case by case basis, I’m sure.

There’s also the matter of getting the grain profiles to match a bit better.

Well the sand crawler shot is brief enough that I don’t think the extra grain would be too distracting, and might actually add to the feel. Same with the static cantina shot. The detention block extension is another beast entirely. I could live with it as it I suppose.

Definitely case by case. I’ll let you guys know as I come to them. Just keep in mind, I’m not creating Despecialized 2.8 here, just replacing and improving a couple of the most noticeable shots to create a slightly better viewing experience on the BD.

In a way, yes haha. But at this point it’s just a placeholder until Harmy finishes his v3.

Here’s a question that hasn’t been adressed: being a native english speaker with no problem hearing, I haven’t given really much of any thought to subtitles, but having recently spent the day with a ladyfriend of mine who has a hearing deficiency and watches all movies with subtitles, it got me thinking about it. I’m not exactly sure how to work with something like project threepio within Adobe Encore, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out. That being said, what if any subtitle tracks should be included in this blu ray? I’m not sure if there’s a limit to the number of tracks I can include, but I’d like to keep it to a relative minimum.

Darth Lucas said:

In a way, yes haha. But at this point it’s just a placeholder until Harmy finishes his v3.

Here’s a question that hasn’t been adressed: being a native english speaker with no problem hearing, I haven’t given really much of any thought to subtitles, but having recently spent the day with a ladyfriend of mine who has a hearing deficiency and watches all movies with subtitles, it got me thinking about it. I’m not exactly sure how to work with something like project threepio within Adobe Encore, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out. That being said, what if any subtitle tracks should be included in this blu ray? I’m not sure if there’s a limit to the number of tracks I can include, but I’d like to keep it to a relative minimum.

I believe what I did for Encore was the same thing I have to do for DTS audio (it messes up the duration of hh’s DTS tracks). Insert a placeholder track that can be enabled via your menu, etc (can be some small srt), build your disc, and then swap it out for the real .sup track using multiavchd.

I do think Encore has stricter limits for number of audio tracks than a method like tsmuxer, so perhaps the same is true for subs. Not sure what the priority tracks would be. But make sure to use the .sup tracks that exclude the alien subs since those will be hardcoded.

I’m rendering a split-screen comparison of Harmy’s Despecialized and my regrade of R2 in the canyon up until he is reunited with threepio in the sandcrawler. Will post a link here once I have it rendered and uploaded.

Here’s the comparison. I still want to make a couple tweaks to the black levels and such in a couple shots, but overall I’m pleased.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2bJjDvnfW0YSkw0bHV3d2x3YU0/view?usp=sharing

Although looking at it with fresher eyes, there do seem to be a couple shots that are a bit too magenta. I’ll do another pass of the color correction soon.

That’s what I was saying about needing to correct some of the black levels.

I’m not so much going for a specific look so much as just correcting the over yellow of DE and just getting it to a point where it looks most natural to me. I’ve been to this exact canyon in Death Valley, and those rocks and dirt aren’t deep yellow no matter what filters they may have thrown on the camera. Getting it to look natural has been very difficult in a few shots and the more I look back on it, the more work I think still needs to be done to get it right.

Here’s an updated version. Fixed the black levels and as much as I could the weird magenta highlights that were in a few shots. I think it’s much better now.

The split is diagonal this time. I think it better shows the comparison.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2bJjDvnfW0YOXplQjBqVUl2Y2c/view?usp=sharing

Looks like it is in good shape! If you’re using premiere, I’ve got some settings to for the Mos Eisley sequence if you’d like to swap notes.

towne32 said:

Looks like it is in good shape! If you’re using premiere, I’ve got some settings to for the Mos Eisley sequence if you’d like to swap notes.

I’m using After Effects for the color correction using mainly curves adjustments. But feel free to share! I’ve been kind of putting off mos eisley because I’m concerned as to whether or not I’ll be able to get it looking good haha.

Dek Rollins said:

The diagonal split definitely helps, but you still can’t see the whole thing on both sides, so I think that either doing it with one on top one on bottom, or posting some screenshot comparisons would be cool.

If you have any specific shots you’d like to see compared I can post some screenshot comparisons. I’m just doing the split screen so you all can see roughly the improvement in motion. 😃

Darth Lucas said:

towne32 said:

Looks like it is in good shape! If you’re using premiere, I’ve got some settings to for the Mos Eisley sequence if you’d like to swap notes.

I’m using After Effects for the color correction using mainly curves adjustments. But feel free to share! I’ve been kind of putting off mos eisley because I’m concerned as to whether or not I’ll be able to get it looking good haha.

Not sure if saved presets are cross compatible, but they should at least be replicable since the tools are nearly the same.

I’m pretty happy with where it’s at, but am continuously tweaking it, sometimes detrimentally. 😃

Will post a sample tomorrow. I’m mostly using curves and sometimes total saturation as well.

Here are the comparisons.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/159138/