Blu Ray Disks: Star Trek: "The Doomsday Machine" (Part 3 of 8

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Star Trek: "The Doomsday Machine" (Part 3 of 8 - Test #1)

This video is my "reimagining" of the visual effects from the classic 1967 "Star Trek" episode "The Doomsday Machine". I am the sole creator of all of the models and images you see in the revised visual effects sequences. I started this project way back in 2005, long before Paramount and CBS Home Video got the bright idea in their heads to remaster the original series in high definition and with new CGI effects. Well, that project, which involved 79 episodes (eighty if you count "The Cage" pilot episode) has started and finished (and they did a great job!) in the time it's taken me to get not quite halfway through one episode. Admittedly, I picked what is arguably the most effects-heavy episode in the original series, and they had a small platoon of people working around the clock, whereas I'm one amateur hobbyist working in his scattered free time... but still--five years??! What you're viewing in this clip is an assembly of visual effects footage in various states of completion. The opener to Act II with the Enterprise sailing through the debris field is complete but for a planned re-rendering of the planet killer--I tweaked the model's textures after I released test footage last month, and now it doesn't match the appearance of the machine in the following scene. Speaking of which... the following sequence where the planet killer opens fire on the Enterprise is semi-complete; there are about 20000 more asteroids and the glowy blue dust cloud that still need to be added ...