Why Are The "LoTR"'s Special Effects So Different From B5?

I like the pilot of "The Legend Of The Ranger".The story was interesting and the crew was great.There is only one thing bothering me.The special effects illustrating space and Minbar just don't look at all like the effects from the series and the other movies.Both the "Valen" Cruiser and the Liandra are not something that the Minbari would ever build.We know that their cruisers, fighters and transports don't have any of those right angles and and cubic shapes as the "Valen" and they are not black coloured.All Minbari ships in the series have blue-green colours.The jump points(both outgoing and incoming) in "LoTR" are all blue coloured and we all know that in the B5 universe the outgoing jump point has an orange colour.The planet Minbar also looked completely different.The weapons of the Liandra look more like the human torpedo-like system but why a Minbari EA vessel would use torpedos and not the advanced Minbari "green beam" weapons which are obvoiuously superior and much more effective. All this makes you wonder whether you are watching the same show or something else.

I don't know maybe the reason is that the special effects crew was changed.Even if that is the case the original B5 design of the effects was surely available for them to use and they were able follow the old pattern that we all like to watch.

Truth_Seeker said:

I don't know maybe the reason is that the special effects crew was changed.Even if that is the case the original B5 design of the effects was surely available for them to use and they were able follow the old pattern that we all like to watch.

Click to expand...

No, none of the original effects files were available because everything that had been turned over to them at the end of the series had been lost.

Jan

Jan said:

No, none of the original effects files were available because everything that had been turned over to them at the end of the series had been lost.

Jan

Click to expand...

I can't believe this.It's a shame.

How can anyone do such a thing?

From Alec McClymont who worked as an animator for GVFX (the team who produced the cgi for LOTR) and who is the head 3D Lead over at Atmosphere who did the effects for The Lost tales.

Concerning the targeting system of the Liandra and the look of hyperspace

Well I don't know who came up with it but I assume it was JMS. It was in the script, so I can't really say beyond that. As for the Hyperspace, no, there was an effort to do something different with it. Most if not all of "Rangers" was done in Maya, and it's just as capable of doing a bit huge red and black fractal as Lightwave or any other package is. . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . Honestly I liked what the folks in TO did with the Hyperspace. I thought it was cool to have a more volumetric, violent look to it. As for the targeting system, that was obviously built into the show, VFX aside. I can't say I'm prepared to give up on the basic concept of the weapons system, I think it's a good idea that maybe didn't reach its potential in execution. At the end of the day, pushing buttons to fire weapons might be more realistic but it's pretty boring. I'd like to see an approach done with the Minbari beam weapons, where the weapons officer sees the beams firing from their palms and gracefully, calmly moves their hand across the target, which was an idea Chris Wren had.

Click to expand...

Can’t remember where I put the stuff from Chris Wren right now (who designed the Valenn and Liandra) but he basically said he worked closely with jms on the new designs so it does appear to be something jms wanted rather than being “forced” on him.

Well I still haven't seen it.

I was led to believe that the Valen was supposed to look ugly and unpopular... and that the Liandra was a much older Minbari ship that was nornally only used for scouting... and wasn't fitted with the same tech.

I can't understand how the special effects team could simply lose five years of hard work on the series.This files should be preserved very carefully.

They didn't, it was Warner Brothers who definetly lost the original CG footage which was sent to them at the end of each season (for supposed upres'ing and inclusion into the videos/dvds releases).

Apparently they also misplaced the original CG files containing the models and animation files which they asked for after Crusade was finishd. At least this second part is the general perception of things. Though interestingly one set of files was discovered in time to help with the creation of the Lost Tales - go figure.

Then all of us should make a complaint against the Warner Brothers Storage Manager.Great job really!!!

Triple F said:

Though interestingly one set of files was discovered in time to help with the creation of the Lost Tales - go figure.

Click to expand...

Word from JMS was that they actually got recreations of the ships from some fans. I've always wondered if that was a cover for finding somebody who'd worked on the effects who'd kept a personal file but we'll never know.

Jan

Problem was ... like in any creative industry ... Foundation and Netter Digital were effectively creating the FX on a commission from WB, which means that it all belongs to WB and not to the FX company. According to JMS, WB wanted everything handing over and no backup copies kept by the companies or individuals (something they are perfectly entitled to insist on) and Foundation and Netter complied with the requests.

And I'm sure I remember that the Valen was so ugly and brick-like because of the human influence on the design process ... in fact isn't that commented on in the movie itself?

Plus, again from memory, didn't JMS say that the LotR Hyperspace effect was kind of what he had wanted all along, but the technology wasn't up to it in 1994 when the show started?

Jan said:

Word from JMS was that they actually got recreations of the ships from some fans. I've always wondered if that was a cover for finding somebody who'd worked on the effects who'd kept a personal file but we'll never know.

Jan

Click to expand...

I wouldn't bet on that.

With regard to the fan models, only really one fan though, it was a pretty well known model builder Fabio Passaro. Lives in Wales apparently - didn't know that!!!!

Got some stuff off Alec McClymont over at Atmosphere about it. Including why some AOG minatures made there way onto the screen. Disagree about the canonicty (even though I hate using the word) bit.

I got in touch with Fabio because I remembered he'd built a nice model of B5 a while back and posted it on a Lightwave user forum. Eventually it was decided that he should just build the new station instead of us buying his old one and working from that. Fabio was kind enough to let me use the other B5 stuff he'd built, since we were in pretty desperate need of assets without having access to the original models, and it's not exactly cool to download fan meshes and use them in your professional B5 show. I only ended up using a couple of his meshes, but since they were from AOG and sort of semi-canon if not totally canon it made the most sense.

Click to expand...

[edit]

@ GaribaldisHair
Not sure about the hyperspace thing. This (unlike the other stuff I've been quoting lately is in the beta version of B5Scrolls), it's Ron Thornton doing the answering.

Who came up with the look for hyperspace and where you happy with it?

Me again and no. I did wish we could have made it more dangerous looking - again time and tech limitations. I wanted it to look like they were transiting through Hell (Catholic upbringing. what can I say??)

Click to expand...

GaribaldisHair said:

Plus, again from memory, didn't JMS say that the LotR Hyperspace effect was kind of what he had wanted all along, but the technology wasn't up to it in 1994 when the show started?

Click to expand...

That's correct. This post is probably the one you're remembering:

>I think hyperspace looked better in Lightwave. Also, the new jumppoints
>seem to persist much longer than usual, before collapsing.

Hyperspace is now *much* more complex than it was using lightwave, with more
levels. It was always meant to look pretty hellish, but we could never quite
pull it off with lightwave, it always looked 2d. This is more what I
originally had in mind.

Click to expand...

Jan

Triple F said:

With regard to the fan models, only really one fan though, it was a pretty well known model builder Fabio Passaro. Lives in Wales apparently - didn't know that!!!!

Click to expand...

Heh, that guy is apparently on Facebook... so we can all go there and stalk AHEM, thank him for his efforts!:devil:

I really liked the old effects because they were very realistic compared to the other sci-fi tv shows or movies in 1994.In different sectors space has different background colours because of the nebulas(not jet black everywhere).We see the station in all the different angles which creates a real 3D experience.There are also different appearances during the day-night cycle due to the shades falling on the station.The explosions are also the most realistic ones in science fiction.

Truth Seeker are you by any chance using internet exploder or firefox as your browser?

Triple F said:

Truth Seeker are you by any chance using internet exploder or firefox as your browser?

Click to expand...

No it's the regular Internet Explorer.

OK, as your using exploder , and if you have a broad band connection (though it's not totally necessary), have a look in here. I’m guessing you haven’t seen it.

http://ftp.themadgoner.com/B5/B5Scrolls/B5Scrolls.htm


You should find the extended replies section as well as some of the screens “behind” the gold ships on the menu interesting (read the instructions about what button to press). Mojo goes into some detail about the colourful Nebulas for example

One thing, don’t give me a hard time on the way it looks or the fictional stuff that appears on the scrolls for each ship. All that’s coming out, the link is to a small Beta version of what will finally be produced, and there’s going to be a lot of changes in the format to the thing as well as a lot more info.

Thanks for the link Triple F.I appreciate that.

Legend of the Rangers really sucked as part of the B5verse, it was actually worse that River of Souls and that was just terrible.

The Valen was built and designed by Humans, the Liandra was a Ranger ship and was specifically designed not to look like a typical Minbari ship.

It is true that the design teams did reach out to the fans to get the designs and files. Tim Earls sent an e-mail to Brandon Bray at http://www.b5tech.com/] and asked to use several of his files for the Lost Tales DVD.

James

For models? The other thing is Tim wasn’t part of the design team. He was brought in to do story boarding as far as I know. Though might check on that, now that you mention it.

Alec (the 3D lead over at atmosphere) was heavily using the size figures that Brandon put together from a few sources (including Tim’s own figures for the likes of the Omega/warlock/Starfury/Centauri fighter) that are displayed over at B5tech, as a baseline to work from. But he also used one that Fabio had put together a while back to tweak a few things here and there before waving the final figures in front of jms.

Guess that (along with the models) is whyFabio got his name in the credits. Though to be fair (especially how jms was all for thanking the fans) I did half expect to see Brandon or the site mentioned somewhere.

Here’s a link to Tim’s charts on the of chance anyone reading this hasn’t seen them before.
http://www.isnnews.net/warlock/resources/sizecharts/index.html