Hal 9000

What export options are there?

Even an image sequence should be okay, if you can export that.

Fantastic! Excited to see it!

What export options are there? A .mov would be perfect, or at least something relatively 'open' that would work with Quicktime and Final Cut stuff.

Hope you're feeling all right! 

From the look of those screencaps, it looks perfect to me. I would not question that anything was modified about it.

Hmm. That's not bad. I think what I'm talking about is most noticeable during the low shot of the underlings working away in the pit. But I think that latest picture looks pretty good.

No worries; thanks for the test clip. 

I think the planet is darker than the rest of the image, and too crystal clear. I'd suggest blurring the planet overall, and making it a bit brighter. I know this goes against what I'd said earlier, but the wmv files on my computer end up looking very bright, and the bright image makes these things more noticeable. 

The streaks are gone though! It looks good, but it still sticks out as a composite, due to brightness and clarity differences. 

Awesome. From what I can tell from the screenshots, that'll look fantastic. I only pick number two because it is an apparent middle ground between equally good choices. If one of the three seems better to you, I would defer to your judgement. 

Could you render another test clip with the current progress? Something akin to a .mov would be ideal. 

Still can't tell a huge difference, just the brightness. It appears one is bright, two is a bit darker, and three is darker still. 

The wmv file you sent me appeared bright overall when I played it, but all three versions you posted today appear to be properly bright, so any discrepancies aren't as noticeable. That being the case, I think any of them look good. I'd vote for number two, just because it's a middle ground between three equally good options.

Since I am delaying v2 a bit, I'm taking the opportunity to go back and give Episode II more film grain. 

The pictures are so small; I can't tell the difference between the three. I think the edges could still be blurred a bit. 

About the streaks. Could they be painted out? They're very small, and surrounded by black. 

Oh, also, there appear to be two white streaks (frozen shooting stars?) to the right of the planet. I'm not sure what they are.

Sweet. Better to do this now before James Luceno's upcoming 'Tarkin' book comes out and I start rationalizing the Death Star's unnecessary presence. :P

Then forget I said anything about it. 
The planet just needs a bit more work, to blend with the surrounding footage, but it'll be great to have in my edit. Thank you again for volunteering!

Okay, here are my thoughts. The planet looks very clear, perhaps too clear. I know space doesn't have any atmospheric depth, but blurring it slightly might help it blend in. Especially the edges; I think JasonN blurred the edges when he did this for his edit. As it is now, the planet (especially the border) is very distinct and doesn't seem to be part of the original image. The scene is bright overall, at least how you exported it, so that might be what makes it look so noticeable. I can't tell whether the brightness should be changed for the clip or the new element, but something doesn't quite fit brightness-wise between the two. 

This is a minor point, so please ignore it unless it's a very easy change: The planet seems very big. It could stand to be a little smaller, which might help it blend into the rest of the picture anyway. If you have the motion tracked and all that, I wonder if it'd be an easy thing to change, but like I said it doesn't really matter much.

I am totally unfamiliar with rotoscoping and image manipulation, so I could be talking out of my ass. If it is possible, could you export it (or screencaps) with its original brightness? Maybe it's my Mac struggling to play a wmv file, but it looks too bright and that might be skewing my judgement. 

I'll check it out as soon as I get home tonight!

Octorox said:

At the risk of becoming annoying, can anyone give me a myspleen invite for this, so I can use it for my edit? I've tried asking for one on the myspleen forums to no avail.

 PM sent.

Thanks for the update. I might go ahead and get v2 of Ep1 and Ep2 out for now. Hope your exams went well!

Awesome.

I'd like that. Thanks.

Oh, my bad! I thought that was the 'regular' version. 

emanswfan said:

My bad, on the grain.

Here's the same shot with real anamorphic film grain scanned at 4K, I purchased recently.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/80765

 IMHO it's still a lot of grain, and it noticeably hinders detail. I do really like this look overall, but I estimate the grain is stronger than necessary. 

Would you want to cluster the Battle of Yavin as one big change, or every specific little change? 

Just curious; why start with ROTS?

Sounds like fun, though polling in this way could introduce incongruities unless some changes are clustered into packages.

I tend to agree; it might be too strong. I wonder how it would look if the settings were applied at 50%. Less might be more.

Anyone try upscaling and working wizardry to make it look ~okay?