Matt Giwer wrote:
> 
> Ken wrote:
> 
> >   I think the main problem is money and time. for a series you have serious
> > deadline issues and strict bugets to adhere to. If this were no problem
> > you would throw away your lightwave program and hire ILM to take care of
> > your special effects for you and give them all the money and time they ask
> > for to do.
> 
>         K-rap!
> 
>         If I see that expanding torus (compressed in y) with media one
> more time I think I am going to barf.
> 
>         Why is it a "good" image? ILM tells me so.
> 
>         Gentlemen, Lucas bought ILM and they have been technical state
> of the art but in practice today, anyone can afford state of the
> art processing speed. The thrust has gone to creativity not to
> workstation capacity.

Holy Matt droppings Robin,

  The point you are missing is that it is not just computational speed
as much as it is the marrige of film and computer generated graphics.
The two are becoming mutualy inclusive and the talent to do so in a
convincing manner is not something left to amateurs. ILM has paid
their dues, experience wise, and so earns them the recognition that
the industry and the public pays them.
  That the producers of Babylon 5 were able to do this in a weekly
production is a phenominal feather in their respective caps but
there were sacrifices in quality that had to be made to do so. I
stand by what I said that if superior quality was their goal, and
time and money were of no importance, they would have hired a firm
like ILM or Pixar to do their production work for them, and it would
have been a much more impressive presentation.

  You may now barf if you like... that is your prerogative.

-- 
Ken Tyler
  
mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/links.htm

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On Tue, 20 Jul 1999 03:10:56 -0400, Matt Giwer
<mgi### [at] giwersworldorg> wrote:

>	As to what we can do with it that was the point of my post. A
>1.1 or 1.2 gaussian blur would imitate B5 on an old TV. I can do
>that in PS but not in POV. 

I have done radial blur (spin and zoom), motion blur (uni- and
bi-directional), and twist blur in POV using the average pigment and
image_maps.

Regards,
Peter

Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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Not exactly the most efficient way to go about it, but I guess as a challenge...

Margus

Peter Popov wrote:
> 
> I have done radial blur (spin and zoom), motion blur (uni- and
> bi-directional), and twist blur in POV using the average pigment and
> image_maps.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter
> 
> Peter Popov
> ICQ: 15002700

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On Tue, 20 Jul 1999 16:26:38 +0300, Margus Ramst <mar### [at] peakeduee>
wrote:

>Not exactly the most efficient way to go about it, but I guess as a challenge...
>
>Margus

He he he
My nick in ICQ is POV-Nut, I guess I wasn't wrong when choosing it :)

And oh, btw PhotoShop doesn't come with a twist blur filter though
there're surely several done in Filter Factory.

Sorry, I know it's OT. I'll shut up... NOW!


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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Ken wrote:

> Holy Matt droppings Robin,

	While I am nothing if not arrogant, obnoxious and opinionated, I
do have some negative qualities also. 

>   The point you are missing is that it is not just computational speed
> as much as it is the marrige of film and computer generated graphics.
> The two are becoming mutualy inclusive and the talent to do so in a
> convincing manner is not something left to amateurs. ILM has paid
> their dues, experience wise, and so earns them the recognition that
> the industry and the public pays them.

	I have a minor document on that subject that I may post before
verifying and footnoting. My general conclusion is that existing
parallel machines could render a two hour HDTV movie in less than
48 hours. 

	I will give ILM all the credit for creativity they could ask for
but with the above, procuding a two hour movie is a touch more
than the processing power. 

	I have otherwise noted Star Wars I, everything but the central
character in a scene is out of focus and the characters in focus
are  movie so much you can't tell if they are properly animated
or not. 

>   That the producers of Babylon 5 were able to do this in a weekly
> production is a phenominal feather in their respective caps but
> there were sacrifices in quality that had to be made to do so. I
> stand by what I said that if superior quality was their goal, and
> time and money were of no importance, they would have hired a firm
> like ILM or Pixar to do their production work for them, and it would
> have been a much more impressive presentation.

	Having watched B5 from ep 1 and having managed to see every ep
on its first airing I can say my critisms are long considered. I
mean, did you notice that two eps a year were graphics
spectaculars? 

	As to what they did, yes, the producers get the credit. But look
at how many of the outside scenes were generic creations. There
were so many where clearly the plot and script made the creation
fit. Open a jumpgate? There are at least a dozen identical ones
rendered from slightly different perspectives. That is something
from the comps to do over night and weekends. The same with ships
moving. It was production managment, not great CGI. 

	I frankly do not think ILM or Pixar could have done any better.
Nor do I see these folks are really doing that good. 

	What they did was save us from matte shots and animated models.
It is faster but not necessarily more creative. 

	And what started all of this, finally seeing it on a state of
the art TV is what ruined my impression of what they were
accomplishing. 

>   You may now barf if you like... that is your prerogative.

	If I had bought a Trinitron I just might have already. 

	But when everyone updates to a TV of 1999 quality, B5 is going
to look a cut above the original Star Trek but not much. 

-- 
<blink>-------please--don't-----------------</blink>

http://www.giwersworld.org/artii/
http://www.giwersworld.org/artiii/

Finally up on 99/06/22 updated 07/13

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Matt Giwer wrote:

>         If I had bought a Trinitron I just might have already.
>
>         But when everyone updates to a TV of 1999 quality, B5 is going
> to look a cut above the original Star Trek but not much.
>

Well, I'd give it a bit more than that, but not as nice as Next Gen for
example (Aside from some of the space work). Of course one thing to
consider is that at the time, B5's budget per episode was about half that
of Next Gen. I'd have to say that their graphics were more than half as
good.

The thing the series had over the current ST at the time was in the stories
and in the non-perfect people. ST took a lot of this for Deep Space 9 (but
with lawyers and such lurking about we won't say 'stole'). Bottom line is
that for the most part, I feel the graphics were sufficient to help the
stories move along, but were not quite as good as a different TV might make
them seem.

--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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In article <37973BD3.B34F071D@geocities.com> , "Jon A. Cruz" 
<jon### [at] geocitiescom> wrote:

> The thing the series had over the current ST at the time was in the stories
> and in the non-perfect people. ST took a lot of this for Deep Space 9 (but
> with lawyers and such lurking about we won't say 'stole'). Bottom line is
> that for the most part, I feel the graphics were sufficient to help the
> stories move along, but were not quite as good as a different TV might make
> them seem.

Didn't DS9 and B5 both start in 1993?   With a usual year or more
pre-production how could anyone reuse the ideas from someone else?


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <37973BD3.B34F071D@geocities.com> , "Jon A. Cruz"
> <jon### [at] geocitiescom> wrote:
>
> > The thing the series had over the current ST at the time was in the stories
> > and in the non-perfect people. ST took a lot of this for Deep Space 9 (but
> > with lawyers and such lurking about we won't say 'stole'). Bottom line is
> > that for the most part, I feel the graphics were sufficient to help the
> > stories move along, but were not quite as good as a different TV might make
> > them seem.
>
> Didn't DS9 and B5 both start in 1993?   With a usual year or more
> pre-production how could anyone reuse the ideas from someone else?
>
>     Thorsten

Aha. He took the bait  ;-)

Well, B5 had been in production since 1987. In June/July of 1989 JMS pitched the
series to Paramount.

From the horse's mouth:

>      What was given to Paramount: the B5 bible, artwork, 20+ sample
> stories, the pilot screenplay and other material.
>
>                                                            jms
>

DS9 premiered 1/3/93, B5 2/22/93.

And then a tiny tidbit more:

> Subj:  B5 vs. ST                        Section: Star Trek
>   To:  Saturday, June 10, 1995 12:50:09 AM
> From:  J. Michael Straczynski, 71016,1644#236204
>
>      What I've said, repeatedly, is that I don't believe for a
> second that either of the creators behind DS9 would deliberately borrow
> *anything* from anybody.  What I *don't* know is the extent to which
> the development people at Paramount, who did have the B5
> material, may have influenced that development without them necessarily
> knowing the origin of the notes.
>
>      But frankly...it's old news.  There were striking similiarities
> between the DS9 pilot and ours; however, since then their show has
> gone on into very different areas, and the similarity has diminished
> further and further until there's almost no remaining comparison.
> So for me, that aspect is really not a major factor anymore.
> We move on.
>
>                                                              jms
>
>
>
Oh, and also one extra tech tidbit: B5 was shot in 16:9 so that once HDTV is
out, it can be remastered. It also has surround-sound.


--
"My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box" - W.A.Y.

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In article <379### [at] geocitiescom> , "Jon A. Cruz" 
<jon### [at] geocitiescom> wrote:

>> Didn't DS9 and B5 both start in 1993?   With a usual year or more
>> pre-production how could anyone reuse the ideas from someone else?
>>
>>     Thorsten
>
> Aha. He took the bait  ;-)

:-)  Well, actually, they all combine bits from here and there.  Doesn't the
command center (sorry, don't remember how exactly the called it) very
similar to some StarWars scenes?  Oh, and then the "Photon Torpedos" in the
first StarWars film, didn't those come from the original StarTrek.  And I am
surethey appeared before in some other sience fiction novel. Not to mention
some of the smaller ships in TNG or DS9, some smaller versions of StarWars
ships, aren't they?

Well, I am afraid they all take some bits from somewhere...


     Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

Post a reply to this message

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <379### [at] geocitiescom> , "Jon A. Cruz"
> <jon### [at] geocitiescom> wrote:
>
> >> Didn't DS9 and B5 both start in 1993?   With a usual year or more
> >> pre-production how could anyone reuse the ideas from someone else?
> >>
> >>     Thorsten
> >
> > Aha. He took the bait  ;-)
>
> :-)  Well, actually, they all combine bits from here and there.  Doesn't the
> command center (sorry, don't remember how exactly the called it) very
> similar to some StarWars scenes?  Oh, and then the "Photon Torpedos" in the
> first StarWars film, didn't those come from the original StarTrek.  And I am
> surethey appeared before in some other sience fiction novel. Not to mention
> some of the smaller ships in TNG or DS9, some smaller versions of StarWars
> ships, aren't they?

Yes, to one degree that is true. And B5's JMS spent a lot of time talking to
scientists to get what space & such would really be like (there are some
interesting tidbits from his participation in all sorts of on-line
discussions). StarWars had 'Proton'.

Anyway, but the point is at the time that DS9 came out it was far different
than ST and STNG, and in exactly the direction of B5. Given that before they
went into production on DS9 they had all the base B5 stuff, one can easily see
where that comes from. Sure, a new sf series might go in any direction, but
when they go in the exact direction of the flagship show being produced at the
rival studio & network...

Remote station that suddenly becomes the center of important travel. Major
stress of dealing with different races (the stress was _very_ new to ST).
Security chief being given a second chance. Station head dealing with mental
issues springing from an earlier armed conflict (new for ST). Becomes a major
diplomatic station. Grittier. Intra-personnel conflict. All sorts of little
pieces like that.

I'd view it very much like DreamWorks doing Antz to hit just before Pixar's "A
Bug's Life". And for that one Lassiter and Jobs have been able to publicly
criticise Katzenbergs[SP] character in making that decision.

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