1701 Refit - TMP Warp Effect

[animator]

1701 Refit by Dennis Bailey.


This is a VERY basic image. I have not done this specific effect before (the ST:II - VI version is completely different), and so am trying to get a feel for it .

Software used:

- 3DS Max 2009

- Adobe After Effects CS3

[pacal]

I was recently wondering why the straking effect seen in TMP has never been dupicated or reimagined more interestingly in other Trek films. Do keep the work and show your interpretation of the front rainbow streak effect as seen on the cover of Cinefex #1.

[Buckaroohawk]

The warp speed effect in TMP was always a little too flashy for my taste. All those rainbow streaks were just SO 1970's. Still, the effect perfectly represented the raw power of the warp engines, like they were literally tearing open the fabric of space to get the ship past the speed of light. And the sound effects were just amazing. No other representation has ever done it justice.

Your attempt to replicate the effect looks like a good start. The light streaks on the right side of the ship don't look quite right. They look like multiple copies of the light sources rather than streaks trailing from them, but that's probably just a limitation of the program you're using. Can't wait to see more!

[Lonewriter]

If I were you I would move this to the wip section and keep working on it, it's a good start, it just needs tweaked a bit. BTW, SFM rules require credits on the image itself.

[animator]

Originally Posted by Lonewriter

If I were you I would move this to the wip section and keep working on it, it's a good start, it just needs tweaked a bit. BTW, SFM rules require credits on the image itself.

Sure, I'll move to WIP section and add some credits .

About those odd-looking trails: The effect is created by rendering out a standard animation of the ship moving forward, then rendering only the Self-Illumination (Windows, Deflector, Warp Coils etc...), and compositing them in AE CS3. The Self-Illumination layer is echoed and blended to create the illusion of a light trail. I believe the irregularities in the trail to be the result of an insufficient framerate.

EDIT:

Question: How do I move this thread to the WIP section?

[Melak]

Nice work so far
You have to ask a moderator to move it, best shoot a PM to one.

[animator]

As requested by Buckaroohawk, my attempt at the Cinefex #1 . This is still very much a WIP, so the lighting is nowhere near presentable yet.

[juanxer]

Originally Posted by pacal

I was recently wondering why the straking effect seen in TMP has never been dupicated or reimagined more interestingly in other Trek films.

Films-wise, ILM didn't get to replicate it that well in STII, and reading about the other films' VFX it seems that each new Trek director couldn't resist playing with the signature Trek effects (warp, transporters, photorps and so) and leaving his mark on them. Also, just having the Enterprise streaking while at warp is more economical than doing a lengthly warp entry streak effect first, followed by a not so interesting non-streak warp flight, I suppose.

TV-wise, my guess is that it has the problem of being a one-ship-at-once-only "chase plane"-style warp vfx, while the TNG-type one allows for quickly establishing any number of ships jumping off the scene in the same shot. Also, it has so many elements covering the frame that it would be difficult to repostion and resize them for different shot demands. It would have been too inflexible for the TNG producers to handle, given those years' video fx equipment.

Also, it is a bit too long and dramatic on the screen. In the series, warping has always been a bit of a casual affair. I had hoped for ST:E to go the TMP route, given that they were fully 3D VFX-based, but I guess the dramatic constraints were the same.

TNG's warp VFX matched Roddenberry's original idea of the warp effect for TMP (Trumbull tried to do that slitscan stretch effect, but the equipment wasn't working well and the workload was too massive to lose much time on that approach), and probably he wanted to recycle that into suggesting a new generation of warp engines.

Anyway: I just LOVE TMP's warp effect, and I so hoped that ST XI would homage it somehow. Alas…



Trumbull commented in Cinefex #1 that they added some additional pools of coloured light on the hull when the warp effect started, so that the Enterprise would show some wider streaks here and there.

Even if doing the streaks as a "echo time"-type of compositing app effect reflects somehow the original photographic technique, perhaps another valid approach would be to construct a set of polygonal pieces matching the streak areas, stretched far back, to render and massage in post. Or do some "inverse" volumetric shadow cones (my 3D app lets me produce cones of light instead of cones of shadow at the flip of a switch).

Anyway: perhaps it would be interesting to create in AE an additional streak layer by duplicating and recontrasting the Enterprise via Levels to isolate its hull's pools of light.

[Mr. Wilde]

Very nice.

I did a warp animation once, using a lot of zoom blur in Photoshop and After Effects. But it's only a post effect and thus not truly 3-dimensional as I originally intended.

In my opinion the best warp effect I've ever seen is the one in Star Trek III, when the Enterprise goes to warp to escape from the Excelsior. The warp jump in The Motion Picture is close second.

[animator]

The warp effect in Star Trek III was unquestionably the best. "Stealing The Enterprise" is actually my favorite of all Star Trek sequences (followed closely by a certain unscripted scene in IV - you know the one).

If you play back the few seconds when the Enterprise warps away from the sebotaged Excelsior, you'll notice that the warp streak does not only appear to wash over the ship (that really adds an epic touch to the shot), but it does not streak in the direction which Enterprise is moving. It's probably deliberate in any case. ILM had a way of adding "quirks" to Star Trek effects .

I'll clean up that last render when I get home later and add some decent lighting. The streaks and flare could use some work to...