Star Trek TMS "Return to Gothos" ch 1

Comment

Comment by Wolverine Studios on June 18, 2010 at 12:50am

Wow. That is an lot of steps. If you had any character make any movement, you would have to do that all frame by frame. Granted that it is better than by the pixel, but still it is a lot of work.
But I have to remember that you are an animator, not so much a Machinma editor. You would likely be creating the very stuff I would use as a 'raw material'. So I guess there would be a different approach to it.
My only real attempt at animating anything was for a scene that involved a Memorial marker being released out of the shuttle bay of an Excelsior class starship.
I used Serif 3dplus2.0 to create the marker and animate it against a Chromo-green background then overlay-ed it against the a shot of the Aft of the ship.
Its not anything fantastic, but for only three hours of work it was okay.
I'll post the raw, green screen video tonight with the understanding that what was overlay-ed was edited and is currently being redone for the sake of continuity.
I will also post a version of it exiting a ship.

Comment by pcolapat on June 17, 2010 at 8:14am

I used windows paint, the most inefficiant imaging tool in the world. I had to blend the image one pixel at a time. That is why I can't wait to get photoshop, I will be able to do so much more. I will be able to scan photos of anything, cut them up into about thirty paths, move the paths over to illustrator, repaint them, save the image and go back to photoshop insert the objects into a star trek online frame, then place them in the movie file. This will allow me to do things like adding cities, monsters, ships, backgrounds, all of it intergrated in a way that will look natural. I wont have to rely on just what the game offers me. I can add to it and tell the story I want to tell. By the end of the series i will be utilizing those techniques.

Comment by Wolverine Studios on June 16, 2010 at 11:06pm

I noticed one door I think. Looked like something flashing almost like a byte glitch.
I'll tell you, the illusion worked, I didn't notice a thing. What program did you use to do it?
I have a couple of decent programs, the oldest is Pinnacle Studio 9 plus. Used mostly for any chromo-keying and PIP I need to do, or if I need something timed differently other than half speed or double speed.
Its kind of finicky about format and frame rates and sometimes if something is too out of whack, it son't render the video.
My other is FXHome EffectsLab Pro. I can make any VFX overlay I will likely need, do some fair PIP, except that it translates black as transparent so I can't put anything dark over anything bright. Just started working with it so i have yet to learn all of its secrets.

Comment by pcolapat on June 16, 2010 at 1:50am

Thanks. I have a decent vocal range, and sound forge helps alot. The funny thing is, that I just began using pan and crop. It is unfortunatly needed to do a long brige sequence as I can only control one charcter. The shots of spock, scotty kirk and trelane were all done on seperate character slots. None of the characters on the bride can be manipulated, the captain is the only one you have any control over, so you have to make four different captains, and make their appearance that of your crew. Log out and log back in on a different character to get certian shots. There is also no first person perspective, that is a challenge some times. There is also, you may have noticed the flashing doors in episode one. Keeping those out of the shot restricts your camera angles. They will be fixing that issue in an upcomming patch. Also you may have noticed some still shots, those were in there because I wanted to get kirk and trelane standing on the bridge in the same shot. The character in those shots that is furthest away is actually cut and pasted in. If you didn't notice, than the illusion worked ha ha ha. Anyway, thanks for the comments.

Comment by Wolverine Studios on June 15, 2010 at 11:53pm

I'm not sure what engine you are using but it looks good. Toons are a bit shiny, much like Moviestorm or iClone but the lip synch needs work :)
Your exterior shots look like STO. I may have to invest in an upgrade, I currently use Klingon Academy.
I didn't need to see the credits to tell you did alot of the voices. I also tried that once and turned out horribly. You must be younger than I with a more versatile voice, but you can still tell its the same person even tho you did a fair job at altering not just your voice but you speech patterns.
Some of your camera work was also a bit jerky. Zooms/trolleys and pans were kind of start and stop, and some of your camera angles were 'odd'. Of course that may be due to the engine or game you are using.

On a VERY positive note, I really like the story. Every time I see the original episode, I have wondered if Trelane would truly let his 'toys' go so easily. Now I get to find out!
The writing is good, the dialogue appropriate to the characters. Overall a very fair piece of work.