Topic: What's this ship?

[AlchemistiD]

Can anyone tell me what model the souped-up BOP in the latter part of Part 1 is?  I think I'm gonna want her in my wing.

http://www.borgwarmovie.org/

[ModelsPlease]

It's a model by Mindblip, designed by Raven night and it can be found at Battleclinic, Nightsoft, and IIRC Mindblip's site is still there as well.

[AlchemistiD]

But what ship is it?

[MajorRacal]

The Noc'jedg.
A Klingon battlecruiser leaves stardock. 
Design credits to Raven Night "Ravennx", Gabriel Crown "Mind-Blip", and Scott Brown "Captain KoraH".

[ModelsPlease]

The Noc'jedg.
A Klingon battlecruiser leaves stardock. 
Design credits to Raven Night "Ravennx", Gabriel Crown "Mind-Blip", and Scott Brown "Captain KoraH".

IIRC it's listed under a different name at Battleclinic, you'll just have to search the Klingon files.

[CaptainTombs]

man just checked the site out very sweet sort of a cheap mans version of cgi, love the reuse of the elite force models aswell dling the first ep now

[Mackie]

yeah quite interesting concept of a series
although, no offence, but BC would have been alot efficient for the space sequence :p

[CaptainTombs]

watched all the eps have to say there bloody good, i agree the space scenes could be better, but either way can wait till the next ep is released

[kephren]

It's listed as the N'kal in the Dom Wars mod. 

What's with the comments about BC, though?  Does it have scripting or something that
would make it more suitable than SFC3 for machinima?  I played BC and wasn't that
impressed with the graphics.  Unless you're talking about the warp SFX, which I could
easily add in video post-processing.

[kephren]

OK.  I created a new warp sequence using SFC3 and video post-processing.  I've stored a Divx (at 661kb) of the new effect at

http://www.borgwarmovie.com/warpout.avi

Any comments?  Will this overcome the "he oughta use BC" problem?

[CaptainTombs]

link doesnt work

[Mackie]

It's listed as the N'kal in the Dom Wars mod. 

What's with the comments about BC, though?  Does it have scripting or something that
would make it more suitable than SFC3 for machinima?  I played BC and wasn't that
impressed with the graphics.  Unless you're talking about the warp SFX, which I could
easily add in video post-processing.

what the heck man? the graphics are hell of a lot more impressive than in SFC3! 

http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1128700063.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1128884978.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1126217100.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1126132422.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1125999336.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1125835334.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1125424281.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1124244156.jpg

http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1124292311.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1124277227.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1124074479.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1123875183.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1120318779.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1122752756.jpg
http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/8/potd/1122215675.jpg

and these are just basic examples of screenshots 

[CaptainTombs]

http://www.borgwarmovie.org/warpout.avi ah sorted here is the correct link

[CaptainTombs]

watched the clip way more better

[kephren]

Nice graphics are right...

How controllable is the game?  SFC3's movie-making capability is rudimentary, but it does work.  To do machinima you need to be able to tell units exactly what to do -- or at least to tell them to not do anything at all while other things happen around them.

Truth to tell, though, I'm not looking forward to learning how to monkey with a new game engine.

[Mackie]

Nice graphics are right...

How controllable is the game?  SFC3's movie-making capability is rudimentary, but it does work.  To do machinima you need to be able to tell units exactly what to do -- or at least to tell them to not do anything at all while other things happen around them.

Truth to tell, though, I'm not looking forward to learning how to monkey with a new game engine.

Well it is controllable, knowing that there are several ingame "story scenes" by the engine... although those are scripted.
You propably wont even need to start to learn how to make them, I would suppose that there are several people on BCU ( http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/index.php) who know their way around and once you show them what youve accomplished already I think they would be willing to give a hand

Im not saying that you absolutely have to go with BC, just look into it as another possibility!

[kephren]

I'll have to look into that.  Maybe some specialty scenes -- like the arrival of a giant fleet.  I was surprised that the ship graphics were so good because the human graphics weren't particularly strong.  In any case, you've inspired me to make better use of the SFC3 engine, pairing it with video effects to richen things up a bit.  I just complete the first four minutes of part five and I'm quietly pleased with the results.  The sequence ends with the warp-out sequence I posted above.

[Mackie]

I'll have to look into that.  Maybe some specialty scenes -- like the arrival of a giant fleet.  I was surprised that the ship graphics were so good because the human graphics weren't particularly strong.  In any case, you've inspired me to make better use of the SFC3 engine, pairing it with video effects to richen things up a bit.  I just complete the first four minutes of part five and I'm quietly pleased with the results.  The sequence ends with the warp-out sequence I posted above.

Good good, BC is also much superior when it comes to battlescenes
You oughta look over here; http://www.nanofx.org/ -> thats BC Enhanced 

And oh by the way, ive become very impressed with your work this far, is there anything I could possibly help you with?

[kephren]

Woah!  Mighty nice CGI.  Maybe too nice.  Those screenshots are almost movie quality and thus might look jarringly realistic when compared to the EF2 animation. 

My philosophy on high-res, high-quality graphics is a bit different than most folks.  Most gamers (and many machinimists) want the highest level of graphical realism possible.  To me, that's a secondary issue.  I'm much more interested in having high quality voice talent combined with a graphical medium that fits the story-telling.

For example, "Clone Wars" was in my view much better than the live action movies with all their fancy CGI.  To me, the "Star Wars" universe is very, very comic book.   The overwrought melodrama worked very well with a highly stylized and fluid graphics approach.  Similarly, "The Incredibles" wasn't particularly realistic; if it had been more so, it would have lost much of its charm.  The CGI in Sin City -- probably the best film of 2005--were completely and perfectly cartoonish; the director actually toned down the "realism" of the live actors to match the cheesy "graphic novel" look. 

This is not to say that hyper-realistic graphics are "bad," but only there must be a match between the subject matter and the medium.  Which leads us to Star Trek.  I have no doubt that somebody could do a damn good ST adventure using hyper-realistic graphics (I'd go with Half-Life 2 at this point, and -- obviously -- Bridge Commander).  However, I also think that the subject matter and early 1990's architectural style of Star Trek fits the EF2/SFC3 combination in much the same way that the "Samurai Jack"-style animation fit the Star Wars universe in "Clone Wars."   

In any case, combining a hyper-realistic CGI character engine with a cartoonish starship CGI engine would seem awkward -- and vice versa.  In other words, if we (and I'm now including the people who have volunteered to help on this project) move to Bridge Commander or another engine, we'd have to be careful to keep within the realism parameters of the EF2 engine.

Any comments?

[ModelsPlease]

Personally I could care less about the difference of the EF2 engine and the BC engine. I say if BC is the best for rendering the starships, then use it. I really don't think anyone here is going to be upset about seeing the ships they love, rendered at the best quality they can be. BC also offers some wonderful bridge renders as well. I don't mind at all the cartoonish overtones of the characters, but I wanna see the ships the best they can look.  The diffence in appearance to me is inconsiquensial.
-MP