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Archived News-October 2005
Week 1
| Friday October 07, 2005 | |
| Duality Hosted | |
Today I have updated the Movies Section by hosting the hit fan film Duality. Duality has been in our Movies section since its inception, but for a while now the artist website (www.crewoftwo.com) has been down. So, I have decided to host both the original version (my favorite) and the newest version with the new original film score. Duality is a story about a Sith Apprentice that must face the current Sith Lord in a duel to the death for his final trial. Who will win? You might be surprised! Enjoy!
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| Friday October 07, 2005 | |
| Gamics - Episode 17 | |
Today we have Episode 17 of Star Wars Galaxies-Jedi Advent, and Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force which have been created by Nathan Ciprick. You will be able to access these stories through the Comics section. Star Wars Galaxies-Jedi Advent- Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force- Be sure to join us next week for the eighteenth episodes of Star Wars Galaxies-Jedi Advent, and Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force. Then join us every week as we continue these adventures from the Star Wars Galaxies videogame in the form of Gamics! | |
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| Thursday October 06, 2005 | |
| Movies Section Update | |
Today I have updated the Movies Section with the newly added Star Wars Figures and Vehicles section. It now includes two new TV Commercials. The latest additions are the Star Wars Action Figures commercial which features the X-Wing Pilot, R5-D4, Han Solo, Greedo, and more. Also, the Star Wars Landspeeder which features the Landspeeder with Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C-3PO. Enjoy!
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| Wednesday October 05, 2005 | |
| Character Section Updated | |
Today I have updated the Characters Section with another clone from Episode III. The latest addition is Sergeant Fox who many thought was a commander for a while, but has now been put to rest. You can get a listing of characters using their picture by episode at the Characters Section. Or, if you would like to see an alphabetical listing of all of our characters, you can check out the Character Index. Enjoy! | |
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| Wednesday October 05, 2005 | |
| New Wallpaper | |
Today I have posted three new wallpapers created by Andrew. Thanks Andrew for your great contributions and sorry for the delay! These great pieces and others can be found over at the Wallpaper section!
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| Tuesday October 04, 2005 | |
| Battlefront II Trailer | |
Have you seen the latest Battlefront II trailer yet? Gear up for combat again because Star Wars Battlefront II is almost here. For those who want to live out the action of the Star Wars universe, this sequel to the bestselling Star Wars game of all time is due out on November 1st, the same day as the Episode III DVD release. Star Wars Battlefront II adds all new space combat, playable Jedi characters, and never-before-seen environments straight out of Episode III to the hard-hitting action. In addition to the group combat, Star Wars Battlefront II also has an all-new single-player experience that transports gamers through an epic, story-based saga centering on Darth Vader's elite 501st Legion of stormtroopers. It will be available for PC, Xbox, Playstation 2, and Sony PSP Formats. You can view the trailer at the Official Star Wars Site. | |
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| Monday October 03, 2005 | |
| Homing Beacon #146 | |
The latest Homing Beacon has arrived and today we to talk about modeling and computer graphics. Lucasfilm's pioneering efforts on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles created a host of production techniques that made the Star Wars prequels possible. Digital technology opened up the scale of the critically acclaimed series, granting it a lavish feature film look for a fraction of the budget. The show employed low resolution effects that married 16mm film footage with digital extensions and additions executed in consumer grade software like Photoshop. With this technique refined, it was scaled up to theatrical film quality for Star Wars. When it came time to do Episode I, it was apparent that the production was beyond the scale of anything ILM had ever attempted. With so much of the film relying on innovations in computer-graphics, the visual effects supervisors had to determine ways to balance the workload between CG and other methods. "We started pushing a lot of things that didn't have to be computer graphics into other techniques," says John Knoll, the only visual effects supervisor to work on all three prequel films. Contrary to a popular yet mistaken notion, Episode I had more miniatures constructed and filmed than the entire original Star Wars trilogy; it wasn't all computer-generated effects. The bulk of that miniature use was for the creation and extension of environments such as the cities of Theed and Mos Espa, the interior of large starships, and the Jedi Temple. "I like using miniatures because the image you get back is constrained by nature to be physically possible," explains Knoll. "The only thing in computer graphics that constrains the image to be physically realistic is your own eye. The gamut of what you can create out of a renderer is very large, and the gamut of images that look real is very small. But when you shoot a miniature, you get a lot of that for free, so we did a lot of environments that way." In some cases, like the high speed desert landscapes during the Podrace, miniature use wasn't possible. "The miniatures would have to be so enormous to cover that much terrain that we couldn't afford to build them," says Knoll. Instead, Episode I employed a hybrid solution developed by Knoll and matte painter/modelmaker Paul Huston. It combined very detailed photographs of miniatures wrapped around simple low-res geometry that a computer could easily handle. "In essence, you're using the computer graphics as an image warping tool rather than a rendering tool," says Knoll. "The frames looked very realistic because at any one time, 80 percent of what you're looking at is a photographed real object." The latest generation of coupling real photographs with computer-generated geometry is called Zenviro, and was used extensively in Episode III. "One of the big expenses in shooting miniatures is actually the stage time," reveals Knoll. "The actual cost of building the asset in the model shop and building and texturing a model in computer graphics is very often comparable. It's not actually the cost of building the asset that kills you; it's the stage time." As a solution, ILM still built many of the miniatures required but did not shoot them all on stage with a motion picture camera. "We would shoot high resolution photographs, take a relatively simple CG model of it that didn't have all this fine detail, and just project the photos on it and use it to generate the background for the shots." Examples of this technique can be found extensively aboard the Trade Federation cruiser, throughout the hallways, bridge, elevator shafts, and General's Quarters environments. To find out more about the creation of Star Wars environments, check out your local bookstores for Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days, a new photo-packed book from Harry N. Abrams books, written by John Knoll. | |
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| Monday October 03, 2005 | |
| Gamics - Episode 16 | |
Today we have Episode 16 of Star Wars Galaxies-Jedi Advent, and Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force which have been created by Nathan Ciprick. You will be able to access these stories through the Comics section. Star Wars Galaxies-Jedi Advent- Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force- Be sure to check back later this week for the seventeenth episodes of Star Wars Galaxies-Jedi Advent, and Star Wars Galaxies-Path to the Force. Then join us every week as we continue these adventures from the Star Wars Galaxies videogame in the form of Gamics! | |
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