{"id":328,"date":"2009-06-23T19:07:34","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T02:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=328"},"modified":"2009-10-09T09:00:36","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T16:00:36","slug":"digital-vs-cgi-jemhadar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=328","title":{"rendered":"Digital vs. physical Jem’Hadar"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last posting I shared images of the Jem’Hadar cruiser model. RKW asked for some comparison shots between the physical model and the CGI model used on DS-9.<\/p>\n

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Physical model from episode, "Ties of Blood and Water" (Gary Hutzel, vis efx supervisor)<\/p><\/div>\n

As you could see from the photo above and next below, the physical model was pretty good looking and would have been used as long as possible on the series.<\/p>\n

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Physical model from episode, "Call to Arms"<\/p><\/div>\n

With season 6 episode\u00a0 #546, \u00a0“Valiant,”\u00a0 we were forced to create a CGI (Computer Generated Imagery<\/em>) version of a Jem’Hadar \u2018Battleship.’\u00a0 The main reason was compelled by the story. If possible we would have used the physical model for both the cruiser and the Battleship, with the scale of the model being the only difference.<\/p>\n

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John Eaves' drawing of Jem'Hadar Cruiser and Battleship with defiant for size comparison. (Image courtesy of John Eaves)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the story, a young crew on the \u2018Valiant”, a sister ship to the Defiant, encounter a Jem’Hadar Battleship which is much larger than the Jem’Hadar Cruiser.<\/p>\n

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Valiant begins an attack run. (Both ships are CGI.)<\/p><\/div>\n

They think they have discovered a weakness in the battleship and do a series of close-up attack runs. Not such a good strategy as the Valiant is destroyed.<\/p>\n

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The Valiant attacks! (CGI)<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the story called for close up attacks, the camera would have to be flying an inch or so off of the physical model. This was pretty much impossible with the motion control camera \/ rig and more importantly, the physical model was never constructed to tolerate that kind of close up scrutiny. It just did not have the detail to hold up.<\/p>\n

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Jam'Hadar Battleship (CGI. Note all of the additional texture.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Digital Muse (now Eden FX) was contracted to construct a digital version of the Jem’Hadar Battleship.<\/p>\n

The design was quite similar to the Cruiser but with a lot of added texture and detail. That is what you will see as the major difference between physical and digital models. The wing sweep \/ wing-pod relationships\u00a0are\u00a0\u00a0different, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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"What You Leave Behind" (All CGI)<\/p><\/div>\n

Having a digital model greatly helped us as we got further into the Dominion war story-arc in DS-9.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last posting I shared images of the Jem’Hadar cruiser model. RKW asked for some comparison shots between the physical model and the CGI model used on DS-9. As you could see from the photo above and next below, the physical model was pretty good looking and would have been used as long as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,34],"tags":[43,41,40,44,42,79,78],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-film-vfx-history","category-visual-effects-techniques","tag-cgi","tag-ds-9","tag-image-g","tag-john-eaves","tag-motion-control","tag-star-trek","tag-visual-effects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}