| Episode
104: "Basic Training"
This was the first
show I was officially assigned to while on "Grey Team", and for me, the
title of this episode was very appropriate. My supervisor at
the time, Mike Stetson, opened my eyes to the wondrous possibilities of
using the camera like a character, so that the audience could feel like
there was really someone guiding an actual lens in their hands, making
decisions about what they were viewing. It was a radical break from
the usual cold, lifeless linearity inherent with the typical use of a CG
camera in most children's television.
In many ways, this
series was unique and everyone working on it knew there was something special
about it. Needless to say, I learned a lot during the production
of this show and from my supervisor directly (People used to joke that
a year at Foundation, was like two anywhere else). In fact, I still
view Mike Stetson as a mentor and good friend to this day. And even
though there was a constant battle to wage, with production problems to
solve and insane deadlines to meet-- it was probably the best time in my
life.
Shot numbers are
given whenever possible, and not all the shots I worked on are displayed
below. The accompanying text is a combination of my personal
opinions and admittedly biased memories of this chaotic time in my life;
and should be taken as such. |
 Shot
93
This screen display
was made from a number of recycled components already available at Foundation,
and revamped to fit into the Trooper universe. The brain was obtained
from Marvin Landis' web page, from CAT Scan data of a real brain.
The animation was done entirely in Lightwave, and a clip map was used to
reveal the "active" areas of Gossard's brain. Edge RGB was used to
give everything a unified 2D look. All the Latin is correct for the
parts of the body identified on the display, since the audience sees this
full screen for a couple of seconds in the show. FYI: The official
Trooper screen display font is OCR extended, and we tried to use it as
much as possible, for consistency. |
 Shot
139
Holobugs are fun!
I created this effect using a couple layers of the built-in grid texture,
with asynchronous velocity, Edge RGB, and Steamer with an animated image
projection sequence for the laser effect. Prem's Relativity was used
to keep the laser projectors in the ceiling tracking only on the Z-axis,
so they stayed on their rails as the bugs skitter towards Rico and Higgins
in the control booth.
One of the sticky
problems with this shot wasn't in creating the holographic effects, but
the fact that the set had been modeled way too short for the action to
occur in. This was solved by remodeling and extending the target
room using Boolean and cut and past in modeler. It pays to have these
things worked out ahead of time, but in the end, the audience never noticed. |
 Shot
Number Unavailable:
Before Carmen gets
her fighter attacked and forced down onto the surface of Pluto (that woman
can't fly anything without crashing it), she gets to kill off a couple
of those nasty Hopper Bugs first.
Particle Storm and
a custom collision object were created to simulate a missile's ignition
and the smoke sweeping around the craft (rather than just letting it go
through it), as the warhead seeks its target. Hypervoxels were used
for the smoke trails, with their own internal light source. The explosion
was done using a tinted Pyro element (to match the green bug guts), and
a pre made explosion assembly of bug bits, for some chunky style action.
Add green flairs to taste. Serves 4. Yum! |
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