emanswfan

I have to say I might feel guilty after watching this when it comes out, not knowing exactly how much work was done with everything, just to be able to thank him and the rest of the team enough.  Then again, maybe knowing say all the little tweaks Ady is doing would distract me from being able to actually enjoy the film.

Maclanachu said:

Seen this? 10 Ways to improve The Hobbit. ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcMkf2iq1Ac

 Most of that was just annoying, but the love story at the end had me laughing so hard!  It was perfect!

DuracellEnergizer said:

I wonder if Artoo's lack of rockets in the OT was ever "explained" in the EU.

 I definitely remember reading about it, not sure where though.

Well they are airing this spring for sure, no specific dates have been announced though.  Also, we have no clue where (which station or some streaming service?) still in the USA.

And, yes those are correct, Laserschwert.

DarkRha said:

I believe i saw somewhere that someone suggested giving all the characters frost breath during the Hoth scenes to give it a realistic "in a cold place" feel. Do you think Addy will add that?

Well, he did have a video test with it using the method explained by VideoCopilot.  And if I recall correctly, ultimately he said the work wasn't worth it, especially since it didn't look realistic enough for him.

EDIT: Saw it was just answered in the post above.

nightstalkerpoet said:

Should we see young Han in PT:R?

 He was already in the PT, sort of.  The Lego Star Wars special at least.

Okay I just realized something big.  Since they have the EE's available in 3D, doing VFX work with the 3D material would be a lot easier.  If I have to rotoscope something, or someone I can do almost automatically since 3D will have all the depth information already.  I can also make the CGI more minature-like in appearance like what I'm doing in my Star Wars PT.

Even simply adding something into the scene would be easier.

New interview with Exec. Producer Simon Kinberg:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/01/23/star-wars-rebels-interview/

poita said:

If they really did have the other 2 PTs completely finished, then there might be a 3D BD release at some point, the cost of mastering and distribution isn't all that high, and it would recoup some of the costs.

I'd be surprised if they were completely finished though, usually you use the money from the first project to fund the next one.

You should give PFDepth a try, there is a two week free trial, you can knock over a lot of frames in two weeks :)

http://www.thepixelfarm.co.uk/product.php?productId=PFDepth

 Pretty certain that they were finished, they screened them in Europe, I believe.

I actually totally forgot about the programs from Pixelfarm, I'll try that.  Thanks, would certainly expedite the process.

cuivienor said:

(maybe cutting Beorn entirely? he is entirely unnecessary in the movie).

 Luckily Peter Jackson has already confirmed that much more Beorn will be in the EE.  He's more important to the story in the book, but the theatrical movie just made him some random dude no one gives a s**t about.

Hal 9000 said:

And don't get me started on DoS. That was 'Phantom Menace'-level disappointment. It's a garbage film that shouldn't exist, the stale outside pieces of the end of the first film and start of the second.

 Good to know I'm not the only one comparing The Hobbit movies to the SW PT.  Peter Jackson has really gone crazy with some of his stuff.  I didn't mind the lengths, it's the fact the films are filled with bloated over-long action scenes.  I don't mind long scenes with dialogue (they remind me of a play), but three films could have given room to so much more character development.  The DOS EE better be 40 minutes extra of nothing but character development.

And don't even get me started on the CGI-fest...one thought ROTS was bad.

poita said:

What are you using for depth map creation?

3D Depth Map Creation Workflow:

First: I am using a cheap program I got ages ago called MakeMe3D which is pretty much a glorified Pulfrich effect.  It detects motion between different frames (and detecting camera changes) and is able to make a decent 3d conversion for scenes with motion of sorts.  It actually stabalizes and adjusts the Pulfrich effect accordingly for the detected foreground and background.  This program allows me to get much of the base for the depth information.  Luckily this works better than usualy beacause pretty much every one of those shots has a decent amount of motion, for this to work really well.

I then pull that into 3D Combine, where it calculates a depth map for each frame, and I can make some further adjustments there.  For example, if one frame has an error or lack of detail, I can fill it in with into from the previous frames depth map.

Next, I pull that depth map into photoshop and make some frame-by-frame adjustments to add more detail and adjust contrast in the depth map.

Finally, pulling it into AE I can use put it as a layer synced with the original footage to use Camera Blur effect referencing the depth map to create the miniature effect.

I would really love to use YUVSoft's Stereo Processing Pro Suite, but it seems it's far too expensive and I don't even think you can get it for personal use anyhow.

Now if they had only still rereleased the rest of the PT in 3D (they had it finished!) and then came out with a 3D Bluray set...

kk650 said:

There is no chromatic abberation anywhere near that strong in the OT, or indeed in any film that I can think of. Perhaps the chromatic abberation would look better if it was way more subtle but as it is there it's not a good look IMHO, it looks way too artificial, not at all like any film i've even seen. It's your project of course so whatever you want goes but I would certainly do something about it if I were in your shoes.

Apart from the chromatic abberation that shot looks great.

 Yes, it generally isn't as strong as that usually but I did want to at the least eliminate the red line around Anakin's face in the original shot.

Well, it's nice to know my chromatic aberration is backed up, as you can see subtleties of it in the OT.  Also, I've actually blurred the image slightly now, not sharpened it.  I also made the blur slightly more vertical to add a somewhat anamorphic look.

However, all the miniature style blur I am adding to the big CGI shots will be anamorphic.  And pretty much every big CGI shot will have blur of some sorts, all via depth maps I have been making.

I already have created detailed depth maps for each outside CGI shot in the ROTS opening, so you will see a much shallower depth of field.

Hopefully I can show the new ROTS opening shot very soon!

DominicCobb said:

emanswfan said:

Also, in other news.  I decided to play around with wiggleramma in AE.  I was able to get miniature like settings for some shots, but not overdone.  I have to finish keyframing, but I got the opening shot of ROTS to look like some dude was just moving the camera through a set of minatures, and not CGI.  I'm able to give much more 3D feeling to the CGI ships and such, which lends to making it feel more real.

No way. Don't believe it. Video or it isn't true.

Also, these screenshots look like the best thing to ever happen to the PT.

 Thanks, and yes I'll post a video soon on the camera shake tests I've been doing.

kk650 said:

Looking good in terms of colour, grain and fleshtones! Is it possible to get rid of the light blue outline on the edge of the left side of his face, nose and neck though? Looks like something possibly introduced by a sharpen filter or something like that.

 Just a bit of tweaking I have to do with chromatic aberration settings to fix that.

Anakin at the Opera:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/58679

I kept the shot looking very soft as is fitting for that scene, while giving it a much more pleasing color palette ala technicolor.

Oh sorry, I actually started downloading these right after you posted them, and viewed them and forgot to post my comments.

I like your new settings a lot more, though if you can get it closer to the print Poita is showing, it might make more sense for your project's purposes.

pittrek said:

 Why is the water so blurred?

 read posts above.

kk650 said:

What i'm not such a big fan of is the bokeh effect you've added, wide shots don't normally have such selective focus, also it doesn't seem quite right because its not going out of focus as the depth increases, its more like a circular blur filter that increases the blur as you go away from the center, which is the ship in this case, which is not how bokeh works in photography and the mind subconciously picks up on that. Also I think that adding bokeh in general is probably going too far IMHO.

Actually I can do that, I'm making depth maps for certain CGI shots, to give off miniature look real, also though I'll probably make it more artifacted than just blur.  I'm still working on it, but after looking at some shots from the hoth battle, I noticed the litttle details that make things look more physical.

They obviously used narrow apeatures to shoot miniatures which prevented bokeh, but still left certain lens artifacts.  These certain lens artifacts is what I am going to try to achieve in many shots.

Also, in other news.  I decided to play around with wiggleramma in AE.  I was able to get miniature like settings for some shots, but not overdone.  I have to finish keyframing, but I got the opening shot of ROTS to look like some dude was just moving the camera through a set of minatures, and not CGI.  I'm able to give much more 3D feeling to the CGI ships and such, which lends to making it feel more real.

Slave I with miniature effect:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/58475

My personal preference is the first one, since I like slightly underexposed.

However, the second one seems more like Star Wars is supposed to look like.

New interview with Abrams on the film.

http://www.thewrap.com/j-j-abrams-says-star-wars-episode-vii-script-done-confirms-jesse-plemons-talks/

SCRIPT IS DONE!

kk650 said:

Yes I imagined it was something like that.

In case you're interested, here's a quick regrade of your shot I did just now, reducing the reds in the fleshtones and desaturating the whole image, just to show you what i mean about getting fleshtones more similar to the OT film prints. The only problem is the reds in the lights get affected by the change in fleshtones as well, turning orange, so you have to be careful not to go too far. Regrading from my experience is all a balancing act with compromises left right and center, trying your best to strike the best balance between all the different colours. Great fun but a real pain in the arse because I'm always thinking about the compromises i've had to make so i'm never 100% satisfied with what i've done.

Thanks for that quick regrade.  I love to have thorough comments and suggestions on my color work, so I can make it better.

kk650 said:

Hey, that's really cool, great stuff! Certainly does look more like the OT to me. Two things that jump out at me though is that it's too saturated (you can really see it in the fleshtones, especially tarkin's) and the fleshtones are too red. Knock down the saturation and reds in the fleshtones and you should be cooking with gas.

 Yes, I already noticed that, I hadn't applied any color specific or skintone specfic filters.