Love this:
Starfield spaceship build
- Thread starter ghostryder
- Start date
I've been watching these and it's pretty cool. I am just curious how the vinyl they used will hold up over the long run. There might be different types, but I'm familiar with the vinyl my aunt used to use in her sign shop. It wasn't super sticky, so I could foresee it lifting up several years down the road.
I'll be the bad guy here, but I watched all of the episodes on this.... And the prep on the printed pieces was below par. I could see artifacts and other remnants on a lot of the parts, and they showed up even more once paint was applied. I am not trying to sound like a nit-picker, but this was a model built for potential filming, with direct support from Formlabs, they had a team working on it, and it took 5 weeks.
Again, I know I'll sound like a nit-picker to some, and I didn't expect perfect virgin surfaces, but I thought the parts could have been prepped better. Once weathering is on, a lot is hidden, and depending on the equipment, nobody will perhaps ever see what I was seeing. My OCD just didn't like close 4k video shots that really highlighted finish issues. Not asking for torches and pitchforks, I love that Adam does this stuff and shares both experience and techniques, but it if anything surprised me.
Again, I know I'll sound like a nit-picker to some, and I didn't expect perfect virgin surfaces, but I thought the parts could have been prepped better. Once weathering is on, a lot is hidden, and depending on the equipment, nobody will perhaps ever see what I was seeing. My OCD just didn't like close 4k video shots that really highlighted finish issues. Not asking for torches and pitchforks, I love that Adam does this stuff and shares both experience and techniques, but it if anything surprised me.
modelerdave
Sr Member
I thought the same thing. Some of the prep could have been better. The washes and weathering made some of the 3D printing artifacts more obvious. I would have also laid a sryrene sheet down on the floor of the large cockpit to cover the seam and even it out. It’s still an incredible model but I would have probably spent a month just sanding the parts, which is time they really didn’t have.
I agree, it's been a very fun series to watch, but the overall vibe I see is just "rushed sloppiness". Adam is used to making movie miniatures at a brisk pace, sacrificing detail for speed. He says as much a few times in the series. As such, many of the parts/paint on this ship just comes across as slapped on, then wiped off. Where's the finesse? Where's the attention to detail? There are support marks all over the hull of the ship, as well as the cockpit cutaway. If all this was for was to shoot a couple MoCo shots and call it a day never to be seen again, then fine, but they're making a 6-part series (each one 40 mins to an hour long) in High Definition for their 6M+ subscribers who will be scrutinizing everything that they do. So why not take a bit of time and make it something truly special?
Like, on the last episode, Adam was detailing his cockpit cutaway model. Cool. But why go through all that work if you didn't first fill in the massive gap/seam line in the floor first? (He even mentions that it was bothering him as well). My thought throughout that entire episode was to give that model to a Studio Scale RPF-er and it'd be detailed and painted perfectly, rather than the many shortcuts that were taken in this series.
Now, I don't know what time constraints they had, and I know they have lives outside of the Tested channel. But I know they mentioned 6 weeks in there, and that seems like a good amount of time to do some decent prep and paint work, rather than just getting all happy slappy with spray cans and washes.
Rant over.
It's a fun, informative series.
SB
EDIT: I hope I'm not coming across as pissy or entitled or whatnot. I have a lot of respect for Adam and the team for doing things that we WISH we could be doing for our day jobs!
Fett_Ish
Sr Member
I am a Real-Time 3D artist for a living, hard surface is my specialty. They gave him the in game engine model,which has a bunch of rendering tricks done to make it look good. He ate up a lot of time basically remodeling alot to get it where it was. If they gave him the triangulated export file, the amount of work required to ‘smooth’ it is not trivial. Some of what he had may have been the high poly assets created to bake onto the lower rez ship as I noticed the face ting wasn’t universal. There are many tricks that can be done to a video game model for detail that won’t print and the same can be said for filming or ‘pre rendered’ assets. Polygon modeling using subdivision surfaces is the go to atm for this type of modeling. It can be used for 3D printing,I do it,but it isn’t ideal and why so many prints I see are faceted which is poor modeling. Movie assets tend to be a lot of shapes put together which also doesn’t work well for printing an example would be the models made for Rogue One. All the copies of model parts they made and then put on models each part would have to be printed rather than a whole fuselage……and if anyone is actually interested in explanations speak up,lol, no one wants to read this… TLDR there are lots of reasons we saw shortcuts and I think they did what they had to do. The 3D modeling ate a lot of time as it does.
Preaching to the choir here, I feel you. I am also mainly a hard-surface guy these days (Full time either way), and a lot of my contract work is high-poly hard surface and procedural pieces that are used for concept before getting dumbed down for actual game use. Not a month goes by that I am explaining why in-game models (even with textures included) are little more than a reference I use when working up quality printable assets.
The Starfield assets that they were supplied for this project were, relatively speaking, not low-poly or under-detailed; there are portions in the series where the quality of the base extracts are discernible, the bulk of the workload was more combining those individual meshes into a cohesive group of water-tight parts, and then engineering the assembly and routing for all of the electronics, lighting, power, etc.... Pretty much what I do 50 hours a week lol... (I am an overexplainer so apologies for the book, I am sure I am not explaining anything you aren't already intimately familiar with)
All of the above is fine, and it does take a significant amount of time to convert a game asset to a printable model, but that's not really what made no sense to me per my original post. If you are working with Form labs (and they were not clear to what degree they were), you should have access to SLS printing, 8k resin, a whole boatload of <.05mm print solutions that would make parts finishing minimal. I do prototype at the shop here, but also contract out to commercial-grade printers for large high-detail pieces. The finish on a lot of those ship pieces were par for a hobbyist with a couple of high end home printers who thought the prints weren't going to need much prep-work so they skimped.
So anyways, yeah 95% of people will probably not recognize the reason why some of the parts are wonky on finish, but they are glaring to me. Just a little spot-putty and primer filler with a follow-up sand would have cleaned it all up. As mentioned though, a crew of 5 people for 5-6 weeks does not mean 1500 man-hours of work on the ship. My OCD just hates knowing that 3 hours of prep would have made all the difference.
Zuiun
Sr Member
Having seen some screen-used models in person, I found them to be very... underwhelming. Sloppy paint, seam lines, ill-fitting parts. And these are ships that looked stunning and 100% convincing on the big screen.
I think we forget that building for display is a WAAAAAY different animal than building for film.
They haven't released the final episode yet, where the model is shot on a motion control rig, with effects added in -- and personally, I'll wait to see that before rendering any judgement on the quality of the build. In the end, they are making this to film, so how it looks in the final product is the only thing that matters.
Fett_Ish
Sr Member
Yeah, Adam comes from the school of, get it done to the level needed for a shot. I built a full size R2 years ago and was shocked when I saw a screen used hero r2! Lots of ships and props look amazing in 24 fps dramatically lit and the old memory, but rough under glass!
Sorry I misunderstood and yes I noticed some support stubs and that floor seem bugged me too, but Adam is from a different school. I’m sure the model will look great on film. My boss is always telling me I get too into the details, but that’s the fun part for me! I could not build physical models for film, I am too slow and anal. I will let a model sit unfinished literally for years until I gain a skill or confidence to get it done ”right’. Like most artists I am my own worst critic! Adam I envy for his skill and attitude!
joberg
Legendary Member
^^
This; models made/painted for SFX shots seems to be "exaggerated" in the way the wear & tear was applied. Of course, lighting/film has a tendency to remove some of the details...thus the washes are darker than on a display model.
If you look at Adam's video on the Prop Store's sale of one ST vessel (done by Greg Jein, btw) you'll see that most of the window were just applied by hand (black and using a cut-out) and not really sharp in terms of lines and whatnot. Speed and knowing what the final shot will be is one of the experience a model maker knows and will apply to his work. What seems sloppy for us, is good for them
Another of those paint job is the production of mattes. Sometimes the colors seen on the matte seems to be strange. But as soon as you see the shot/effect on camera, these colors suddenly match the scene in lighting and mood.
Fett_Ish
Sr Member
This happens in 3D as well. In the 3rd season of Picard-SOILER ALERT- The Enterprise D makes an appearance and I thought how beautiful the CG model was. Then I saw a closeup in still and all the windows were framed blocks that sit proud of the hull. GROSS! But to cut all those windows into the hull would be messy and make the model very heavy, for them to be part of the texture would mean either a gigantic unwieldy size or they would look bad in the closeup. Time constraints, budget, technical constraints are still with us in the age of CG.^^
This; models made/painted for SFX shots seems to be "exaggerated" in the way the wear & tear was applied. Of course, lighting/film has a tendency to remove some of the details...thus the washes are darker than on a display model.
If you look at Adam's video on the Prop Store's sale of one ST vessel (done by Greg Jein, btw) you'll see that most of the window were just applied by hand (black and using a cut-out) and not really sharp in terms of lines and whatnot. Speed and knowing what the final shot will be is one of the experience a model maker knows and will apply to his work. What seems sloppy for us, is good for them
Another of those paint job is the production of mattes. Sometimes the colors seen on the matte seems to be strange. But as soon as you see the shot/effect on camera, these colors suddenly match the scene in lighting and mood.
I did notice you could see print lines or something on some of the parts. Adam has explained the whole "You can have it good and cheap, fast and cheap, etc..." or however that goes. I'm guessing Bethesda didn't pay the price for a perfect model.
Fett_Ish
Sr Member
We would say Fast,cheap,amazing. Pick 2
xeno
Sr Member
I also thought it could have done better, I was screaming at the screen seeing those support stubs still there at the end
and the full model should have at least have some detail in the cockpit.
BUT.. you cant really judge a SFX model by it's maker, the problem here is that we have no idea what time and money deal was.
having made a lot of models and maquettes for customers, you are always bound by the financial time (hours = money)
and even if I could have delivered the most perfect model, I always had to do less perfect because the client did not want to spend that much.
I even cringed at my results, but the client was happy, and that's all that matters
A lot of people know that real props usually look crap, but they also know that with the studio lighting it would not really show.
and the full model should have at least have some detail in the cockpit.
BUT.. you cant really judge a SFX model by it's maker, the problem here is that we have no idea what time and money deal was.
having made a lot of models and maquettes for customers, you are always bound by the financial time (hours = money)
and even if I could have delivered the most perfect model, I always had to do less perfect because the client did not want to spend that much.
I even cringed at my results, but the client was happy, and that's all that matters
A lot of people know that real props usually look crap, but they also know that with the studio lighting it would not really show.
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Zuiun
Sr Member
See, but I don't even necessarily think this is a "they didn't pay enough for a perfect model" kind of situation because what we consider "perfect" in this forum isn't necessarily right for film. What they paid for was a model for film.
There's a saying in photography: If it's not in the frame, it doesn't exist. The basic idea is being able to see the framing of an imperfect scene to eliminate the ugly details.
In a way, I think a similar philosophy applies here. Except in this case, it's knowing what details won't show up on film, so not sweating them, and knowing what details to over-exaggerate so that they DO show up on film.
skiffy
Sr Member
I always say to my animation students 'if it's not in the camera's frustum - don't build it' Lighting and depth-of-field play a major role there too.These are pros that knows exactly how it's going to look on film and that's on the years of experience they have
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