chillyche

Lestat coming out of retirement to post here! Welcome back.

That movie is unbelievably cute.

Everybody wants to see jets transform.

Sent a PM

I haven't gotten around to asking them YET, but that museum is usually cool with that kinds of stuff. if worst comes to worst, however, I plan on buying at LEAST a deactivated ejection seat (or building one) and filming in front of a green screen.

First rule of Art Department: Never buy what you can rent! Unless for some reason buying is cheaper.

Yeah, I want to second Nanashi's opinion about the Canon rebel sensors. Or even the EOS line. While you can certainly get some cinematic looks from dslrs, particularly if the intended exhibition format is online, the crummy h264 encoding and the noisy sensor make keying work a real pain. I've seen 5D and 7D footage mixed fairly successfully with footage from higher end cameras (REDs or Alexas) to pretty good effect. DRIVE was shot primarily with an Alexa, but had a bunch of 5D sequences cut in. If it were possible for you to shoot practically with the Canon and then do your VFX work with a higher-grade sensor, you'd make life a lot easier on your VFX team.

That said, sometimes you work with what you've got. And we can sit around here and debate the merits of dslrs all day and not roll a frame of footage. So. Perhaps the best plan is to just MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Still, I think you'll need to work up a treatment to present to the community here. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got planned.

How many VFs are transformable?

http://vimeo.com/54622567

Name: Alexandra Yokohama

Age: 24 (circa 2015)
Sex: Female
Eye Color: blue
Hair Color: deep red
Skin Tone: medium
Height: 1.63m (5'4")
Rank: UNS Lieutenant (O3)
Ethnicity: Japanese-American

Squadron: SVF-109 Apollo (off of UNS ARMD-08 Pegasus)

Craft: VF-1B, VF-4

yeah, it's really a shame to not have access to the original SFX tracks. But what are you gonna do, right? Exactly what Hik did. Make the best of what we got, and produce a heck of a piece.

Jealous.

Here's the thing: I personally didn't have any issue with them sticking the rookie Adama in a Raptor. You wouldn't let a teenager drive a Corvette until he's proven himself to be a capable and competent driver. So, seeing as he's a wet-behind-the-ear nugget straight out of the academy, I got no issues with the higher ups knocking Adama down a peg or two and telling him to prove himself behind a Raptor.

One of the big complaints you seem to have with B&C is that they don't show enough of Adama being a Viper pilot. Now other than the similuation where he pulls out his sidearm, we didn't see much crazy Viper shenanigans.

See, there's a legitimate PLOT reason to stick Adama in a Raptor, I suppose. But only within the context of the plot they wrote. My bigger complaint isn't that it makes no in-universe sense to put him in a Raptor, but rather that it makes no sense in a broader what-people-want-to-see sense. The tease at the end of the show is there because they know people want to see a show about Viper jocks. Since they know that, we can only assume they stuck homeslice in a Raptor full well knowing that's NOT what the audience was clamoring for. This raises a question: why did they do it?

The answer is likely made up of multiple reasons, but many of them are pretty apparent. And that's the problem. When writing is apparent. When the hand of the writers (or network/studio considerations) is blatantly obvious in storytelling. The loose story that they wanted to tell in B&C was a story that required throwing some disparate characters together, including a non-combatant, the quickest, easiest way for them to do this was to toss all three into a Raptor. It FEELS like a setup from the second episode in. Stop me if you've heard this one: a nugget, a short-timer, and a roboticist walk into a Raptor.... It's a classic away-team story. Which generally signifies that they don't have any good localized stories. The show was called BSG: B&C, but the Galactica itself, its crew, its pilots, its mission are largely ignored in the show. It FEELS small, it FEELS like they had a limited budget, limited characters, and so they stuck just a couple of people in a Raptor and sent them to a largely abandoned planet. I can feel their limitations in the very story they decided to tell.

If you read my other titanic post, prior to the conclusion of the series, you'll see that my major problem with the show isn't the lack of Vipers (that's actually just something I came to think about after the show concluded) but rather the fact that it's really poorly written.

I suspect the bluray movie version will be a little tighter. I recently decided to watch that Halo: Forward Unto Dawn thing, and the bluray version was slightly better than the web series version, mostly because it decided to take a little bit of time here and there (mostly right up front) to contextualize and add a little bit to the characters. I'm not sure I understand why web series think that you can skimp on characters. Storytelling is about characters. That's it. That's all it's about. It's about characters having arcs, going through ups and downs to come out the other side. A good plot helps, too, but it won't help if the characters are bad or don't have satisfying arcs.

I'm critical about this stuff, sure, but it's because there are a billion talented screenwriters and filmmakers out there, and there's no excuse for crappy stuff. Although, I get how and why it happens. Limitations, time, money, whatever. I have written stuff, and worked on stuff that had a good idea at the core, but for various reasons fell flat. Frequently because of time limitations. So I get it. I don't disparage the production team for working on this thing. I just think that it's really unfortunate, because by missing the core of what made BSG so successful -- which was a nuanced web of character, plot, action, and real-world relevancy -- B&C doomed itself. And in the fact of that doom -- being a show that wasn't going to get picked up, that the network didn't have a lot of faith in, I wish that they had just pulled out the stops and made it about damn viper pilots... like everybody wanted in the first place.

Finally. Yeah, seriously, lens flares. I like lens flares. I liked the way it worked in Star Trek, mostly. I understand they're using them partially to obscure the fact that everything is an effects shot in B&C, but man, it was over the top. And felt derivative. That's the main problem. BSG should not be copying Star Trek, that is unbecoming of a show with its own established look and feel (even if maybe some of that is copying Firefly). It kinda just says "hey, sci-fi! Lens flares! This was clearly made in the late 2000s early 2010s! Check it out! We have video-copilot.net's Optical Flares plug-in! Awesome!" Which is not to say you can't have some lens flares. It's just to say... yes... the abandoned ski resort at night time does not feel like the appropriate place to cram in a few more optical flares. But I think everybody is probably on the same page about that stuff. Sheesh.

oh snap.

Yeah, can't say I'm too impressed with the finale, either.

What I can say is the epilogue, if you will, which is Husker finally getting into a Viper is pretty fun, in the same way that the shot at the end of Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man is. You just get to enjoy the thrill of flight along with the protagonist, and you get to show off some effects work and some local architecture. But for B&C, it left a slightly bittersweet taste in my mouth. The taste: WHY WASN'T THIS SHOW ABOUT VIPER PILOTS PILOTING VIPERS?! You know what I mean?

In the 2003 series, we learn that Bill "Husker" Adama used to be a heck of a viper pilot. We also are told that Tigh used to be a heck of a pilot. Not sure if that gets reconned out, or not post Season 3, but whatever. Still, the idea is that Adama is like one of the sickest pilots around. At least for a few decades, until one Kara Thrace shows up. In the highly mediocre Razor flashback sequences (and web series), we see Adama flying a Viper. So when we're told about B&C -- a series starring a young Bill Adama -- we ASSUME he's going to be in a viper. We're looking forward to a show that captures some of the excitement of Season 1 of BSG2003. We're looking to get some of those assault on the Tyllium mining asteroid episodes, or Starbuck and a couple of nuggets versus 8 toasters, or 33, or maybe, even something like Season 2's Scar episode. We're looking for a show ABOUT pilots and the day-to-day life of said pilots. It seems like an easy formula to rock. But for some reason, somebody somewhere decided that we wanted to toss a Viper pilot into a small boat with a whiner and a mysterious mildly sexy brainiac, and that would be better. The last shot, that finally gives us what we've been craving also serves to remind us that they specifically did NOT give us that during the show. Jerks.

As far as the ultimate plot for the pilot here, I have to say it's a bit of a mess. As Uxi points out, it's highlighted early on when a pilot suggests that it's all a bunch of a bull, but I disagree that that justifies taking the audience on a ride where none of the events actually matter. I'm going to write a bunch of SPOILER stuff here, maybe not in tags, because it would look like a redacted FOI document if I did.

The mission remains secret until the final 20 minutes of the piece, meaning that for over two thirds of the story, we don't know WHY these characters are doing what they're doing. Outside of "they're following mysterious orders," which may be what a good soldier does, but makes for bad storytelling. Particularly for a protagonist. A protagonist is meant to make things happen, not just simply go for a ride. This problem could have been easily solved by Beka Kelly giving our odd couple pilot and ECO a COVER STORY MISSION, rather than being infuriatingly vague. That would have solved multiple problems. We -- as the audience -- would at least believe we knew what was going on, which would make any change to that plan resonate with us, and Husker and Coker would just do their jobs (which Adama loves telling people to do anyway), and Coker wouldn't constantly whine and try to desert (in the middle of nowhere FYI). Or alternately, Beka Kelly could have just told them what the mission was. There was really no reason not to. That way,

Unfortunately, it's pretty easy to see that this fundamental problem was not a mistake, but rather a choice. A choice to keep audience members in the dark, guessing, wondering. This is the legacy of Damon Lindeloff and Lost. This is what "edgy writing" has become post-Lost. Is just keep throwing mysteries at people, never solve a mystery, only introduce a new mystery. We saw this thinking invade BSG2003 with the introduction of the Final Five in Season 3. Prior to that point, the show had never presented itself as a mystery-based show. It HAD mysteries in it (is Earth real, what's the Cylon Plan, why does Sharon say that the Cylon's know more about Colonial religion and history than they do, how much truth is in the scriptures, who are the other sleeper agent Cylons?), but these were elements of a show that was NOT a mystery show. It was a chase/survival show. And one that delved into lots of sociological and psychological territory, while keeping us thrilled with space dogfights. But in Season 3, they decided that a better way to keep us glued to the sets was to create an overarching mystery -- who are the Final Five?! It became important for the Cylons and the Humans to find this out. Causing lots of weird contradictions (the Cylons say they're programmed not to think about the final five, so they don't remember them, yet they remember them enough to know they don't remember them, and they remember them enough to come out and say there are 12 models).

Blood & Chrome plays equally on "mystery" when it doesn't need to. And shouldn't. Blood & Chrome had hoped to be more of an action show than its predecessor, and therefore could have played itself much more straight. Husker and Coker go on a mission, they know what it is, Beka hands them new orders, they know what they are, they try do accomplish the mission, they meet difficulty at the hands of the toasters, there's a plot twist, a resolution, and a conclusion. There's no need for it to be mysterious. There can be doubt seeded along the way. That's great. But mystery for mystery's sake is lazy, and sadly permeating a lot of writing these days, particularly in science fiction.

I also wasn't wild about the pre-Six cameo at the end. It was nice to hear a familiar voice that tied us to the good ol' days of BSG, but I was a little put off by the line. "Doesn't mean we hate you any less..." seems a bit like a cartoon villain in my opinion. One of the things I always liked about BSG is that at least in the initial seasons, and before "The Plan" the cause of war seemed murky, and complex. We never got a great idea of what happened. Cylons were created by humanity, probably to do dirty jobs, they became self-aware, and they rebelled. In the context of the show, the Cylons AND Humans often saw Cylons as Humanity's children. There was the idea that in order to become self-determined individuals, no longer bound to their parents the Cylons had to rebel. As children do. But, in this case, by way of starting a massive stellar war, with genocide as the end game. At the same time, both sides feared that the other side wouldn't let them continue to exist. Hate never really played into any of that. I mean, certainly hate boils up when you have two sides of a war fighting each other, terribly, and horribly. And it bubbles out of unruly adolescents who feel that their parents are trying to control and limit them. It is possible, that this pre-Six Cylon entity was simply psychologically immature and expressing an adolescent hatred toward humanity. Or, perhaps was just a foot soldier who had bought into whatever propaganda the Cylon war machine had generated. But I still think that hate as a motivation feels a little simplistic. At least without some exploration of root cause. Granted, the pilot was designed as such -- a pilot -- to launch a new series, and maybe they could have investigated that more, but it feels weak in this context.

All that said, as far as spaceship porn goes, this show had a few moments. But not nearly as much as it should have. Does anybody want to see three guys on a green screen shoot at a couple of CGI robots? Not really. Does anybody want to see some Vipers mixing it up with a bunch of flying pancakes? Yes. Everybody does. So why did the show shoot itself in the foot within the first episode, by assigning young Adama to a RAPTOR instead of a Viper? Because they wanted to tell this silly, uneventful story filled with tropes and cliches rather than actual good storytelling. I won't lie, BSG2003's pilot ALSO used a lot of tropes and cliches. They basically mined the submarine movie vaults for a lot of scenarios (not the last time BSG would make some specific nods to Crimson Tide), but the storytelling was strong, the stakes were high, and we could forgive them.

I want to see fun space ship stuff as much as the next guy. But when it's BAD, it hurts our chances of seeing more. The reason BSG was so wildly popular was because it was well made, and appealed to not only spaceship dogfight buffs and sci-fi fans, but fans of The West Wing, and ER. It appealed to broad audiences because of well rendered characters, intriguing questions about OURSELVES (as opposed to about the Final Five), and exploration of topics that are relevant, but dolled up in sci-fi to make them a little more palettable (sp). B&C fails to capture audiences who want more than just some lens flares and ships flying around, which is why it won't and can't succeed (among other reasons that have little to do with the show's actual merit -- the changing priorities of SyFy, for instance).

If they make more... I'll probably watch 'em. At first. I'm always willing to give things a second chance.

492. I can't believe I hadn't subscribed already.

I NEVER NOTICED THE STAR WARS TITLE CRAWL TEXT BEFORE! Also, why am I caps popping and locking here?

Sounds interesting. Wish I could read it, but I'm sure google's translation would butcher it.

Maybe follow the advice at the bottom of this forum?:

http://psx-scene.com/forums/f180/%5Btut%5D-ripping-ps3-game-audio-65985/

Sweet model. Crazy design.

My christmas gift to you.

Hahaha. That's the best comment I could hope for.

Yeah, I watched a lot of their behind the scenes stuff for FoC and I was very impressed with how they rigged their characters. They definitely swap out the models somewhere in the middle of the transformations. The problem with Macross of course, is that models have to move not just from A to B, but from A to B to C. I still think it may be best to swap models, but man, that slow transform in Macross Zero is dope. Still, we'll do what we can do.

Sorry. Sorry. I had to. I couldn't help it. It's not even timely. But. C'mon.

Little rigging test here. There are numerous issues, of course. I literally just applied a stock mocap clip to the rig, and that was that (I mean, after hours of troubleshooting), I didn't adjust anything. Upon viewing the results, I know what sorts of things must be done to fine tune the rig, as well as what would have to be done to help that animation. This is just to test the rig, and see if I can actually animate a dang character. For more, read the about section at the actual Vimeo page.