Battlestar Olympia

Unimatrix · October 8th, 2006, 05:48 PM

With our initial testing finished, we now have a majority of the models into Blender 3D

We have original music being composed for the project and going to try and do everything we can just using Blender 3D, iLife '06, and Effects Lab Pro.

With the VFX testing done and standardized between myself and an other animator, we are going to need some volunteer Voice Over folks. So if you have a decent mic (or not so decent for the wireless scenes) let us know.

This week i hope to have a revised version of the script ready for review after getting back some notes from the writers.

The final format for the project is going to be iPod Video/itunes (m4v 320x240).

If you want to help animate some scenes and know how to use Blender 3D, or want to learn (since it's free) let us know. We need tons of stock footage to do for a "b" reel of vipers and raiders flying pass, shooting at each other, etc.

Viper 1 · October 8th, 2006, 06:57 PM

I wouldn't mind learning how to use the animation stuff.
And I think I have a decent voice over voice...... but not a good mic...(I don't even think I have a mic.....)
Any chance I can help anyway?

Unimatrix · October 9th, 2006, 12:31 AM

If you haven't already, download blender 3d (www.blender3d.org). That's the first order of business. Next is I have to ask what your system specs are because some of the models are massive and slow to a crawl even on my Dual 1.25Ghz G4 PowerMac with 4GB of Ram.

Then All I have to do is send you the models. (Which will be available sometime this week at Blendergalactica.com...I'm waiting for the domain to resolve at this point)

Aussie Warrior · October 10th, 2006, 09:31 PM

that is a nice looking shot, well done

Unimatrix · October 12th, 2006, 10:20 PM

And I forgot to post these shots:

And

After getting back High Def tests, we decided that the series will be rendered and edited in 1920x1080 for possible output someday to 1080i or 1080p on Blu-ray or HD DVD or iTv or whatever comes next. For major online distro though, the output will be for iPod video.

So basically by the end of the season we are going to be attempting feature level effects with Blender 3D.

Aussie Warrior · October 12th, 2006, 10:36 PM

Great shots, really detailed

Kalmidor · October 16th, 2006, 02:59 PM

Wow...fantastic. Did you do all this yourself? Should be great in the end...can't wait to see the end results

Unimatrix · October 21st, 2006, 07:18 PM

The basic Galactica Model is from here (the truespace version I believe) and then I imported the file into blender and completely retextured it using the old Texture Pack from Scifi-Meshes.com. Then I added the turrents from Coxxen's low poly 3DS models and created some custom textures for the Olympia Name Plate and the flag on dome structure.

So I can't take credit for it all, but I am the one who put it all together and cleaned up some of the mesh in Blender. Still the Landing bays are an issue right now. We have a clever editing trick up our sleeves for that.

Everything to this point is being rendered almost exclusively in blender includes most of the explosions as particle effects. Once the renders are complete and we have a rough cut of the episode finished, I then take that sequence and open up a program called Effects Lab Pro. It is geared to make Scifi/fantasy fan films and extremely easy to use and has all the needed built in effects, such as the BSG "jump", Caprica Orange, etc. filters already there in preset mode. Also we can add darn good looking additional explosions, lighting, and muzzle flashes with the program.

On the high end of things, I have fully licenced copies of After Effects 6.5, Shake 4.0 (yes back when it costed $3000...three months AFTER I buy the program the price drops to $500), Final Cut Pro 4.5(HD), DVD Studio Pro 4.

However, the original music for the series is being composed in GarageBand and since we doing our Post Production in Effects lab, we're going to try and do as much editing as we can using iLife 06, Blender, and Effects Lab. I only plan to open Pro Tools if we need it.

So when the series is finished, we'll be selling the sound track with the composer getting all the $$$ for his efforts. We won't see a dime, but that's okay. The person doing our music is amazing. Things sound great and it's just Garageband.

We will begin releasing the series after Season 3 of Galactica. (Probably a month after) so when the rabbid fans need a fix....also it gives us time to iron out any more production problems that come our way.

Unimatrix · October 25th, 2006, 12:25 PM

Ship 2 of BSG-23: The Mercury

And our early FX test reel. Basically our proof of concept using the TOS series stuff. A lot of inconsistancy as we were expiramenting. The stuff coming back now is almost perfect.

http://www.blenderxgrid.com/bsg23.html

Dyonisis · October 26th, 2006, 07:25 PM

i was unable to view the clip.

ernie90125 · October 27th, 2006, 10:30 AM

I think you've touched on this before in another thread, but I can't find where to refer to it, and am still a bit unsure.

You are making a TNS universe fanfilm, with some TOS ships from what I see in this clip. I'm not a fan of TNS, but I always encourage people to explore their creative ambitions.

What was the inspiration because using TOS ships in the TNS universe ?

Might you be prepared to create a 100% TOS version for us TOSsers ? If so, I would love to showcase it on my site.

(I love that you have original music. A SW fanfilm has just commissioned a score from the 60 person Warners orchestra for a fanfilm. It really shows you're going the extra mile when this is done.)

Best Wishes with the project......

Unimatrix · November 1st, 2006, 07:52 PM

The original concept came about because there were no models available for Blender other than from the TOS here. (Thanks to Blender's vastly improved import scripts). I was looking for a project to improve my texturing skills some and got to thinking, "Hey why not bring the old ship and truely "reimagine" it into the new universe"...almost a Bridge, if you will.

So we started to work with what we had, the TOS models and this episode was originally designed to be "40 years ago" and show the ship during the 1st Cylon War in the new series continuity. Hence one reason why the ship's textures are much brighter in the FX demo than in the images posted here.

The problem with our original concept stuff is that basically we had to invent our work flow from scratch to balance things like rendering time, compositing time, etc. has we were trying to get decent production quality. So we tried rendering everything at first to TARGA format with Alpha layers and then composite in all the layers like a good video production staff should. However, we quickly found out that ate up a lot of time. So we moved to doing as much as we could in blender including the BG world textures.

The first episode was going to show the ship and commander back in the day along with another famous ship from the new series.

Well, then we got the renders back from Episode 2 (set in the new series timeline) and realized what we had for Episode I sucked...badly.

Now we've spent the last month arguing whether we should re-render the 1st episode or scrap it all together and start with episode II. The debate is still raging and I think we are going to go back and fix all the test renders and get the consistancy together.
****************

The trailer may require Quicktime 7+. I think it's encoded using H.264, not Sorenson 3 like I normally use.

Dyonisis · November 2nd, 2006, 08:57 PM

uhmm wow that was AWESOME.

Unimatrix · November 6th, 2006, 02:05 PM

I don't like releasing this short because it contains the temp track for our composer...but here is a sample of what is to come. I will only keep this up until our composer snags a copy, so enjoy.

www.blendergalactica.com/bomb.mov

The background plate is close to production, the raiders flying by was a quick composite job and I haven't even taken the shot into composite lab to add fun stuff, like shockwaves, etc.

I am hoping that Terragen 2 is out before we too much farther into production. As that will solve our little planet problems.