Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA (07/20/84)
There were many scenes in TLS that could NOT have been done with conventional model techniques. these fall into several classes: 1) Painted or metalic ships. Models have to be shot against blue screen for matting. This restricts the colors that the ships can have. Note that Star Wars used White ships almost exclusively. (Ron Cobb had some difficulty convincing the powers that be that space ships really could be different colors). 2) Complex moves. Some actions are impossible or very difficult to film with models. TLS used some very long pull backs that would have required camera tracks several hundred feet if they were done with models. Also some of the rolls, etc would have been impossible with models needing supports. Computer space is nearly infinite and there are no strings or supports to hide. 3) Lots of Ships. Model shots with lots of ships require lots of matting and this results in a degradation of film quality (plus matte lines, etc.) The armada scene in TLS had many more ships than Revenge /return/ of the Jedi armada. The ships in TLS also had more movements and interactions. These would have been impossible with models. 4) Lack of Mattes. Starfighter used very few OPTICAL mattes. There were many 'mattes' done in the CRAY. Starfields, moons, multiple ships were sometimes done in several passes and the resulting bitmaps were merged within the CRAY. This resulted in much cleaner composites than could be done with opticals. 5) Details. The ships in TLS had much more detail and realistic detail than SW, etc. Ron Cobb (the Art Director) is a NASA artist and took much of the weaponry out of Space and Aviation Week. Also the pilots inside the ships actually move. Try that with models. (then again try to notice it while the ship streaks past.) 6) Laws of Physics: The computer doesnt know about Newton or Einstein. Objects can do nearly anything you want them to. Two objects passing thru each other or one shape evolving into another are two neat efx that Starfighter didnt use but could be done. Drawbacks of DSS: 1) it is too crisp. There was not enough time to add dirt to all the ships or use other techniques to cover the extra sharp images that computers generate. 2) Explosions. TLS explosions look like rejects from Battlestar Galatica. They were real pyrotechnics filmed by Apogee. Digital Prod. Scanned them into the CRAy memory and matted them together. Blah. Simulated explosions are still impossible to do realistically. 3) Motion Blur. Real objects and some model shots will blur on the film. The simulations and many model shots suffer from 'temporal aliasing' ie you see the ship in two places at once. This is a difficult problem but one which is close to being solved (ILM claims to have a method). For some other examples of Digital Productions work see: Pontiac Fiero commercial, AT&T blue bits and sphere closing, Sony Walkman commercial (just won a Cleo), Devo videos She's out of Sync and Peek-a-Boo, CBS wednesday night movie opener, and 2010's Jupiter in motion.