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- I have been picking up rumors here and there about a pilot film called SPACE
- to premere on Fox. Many months before b5 came out they had articles and
- pictures and stuff in Starlog ang other magazines, but so far almost nothing about
- Space. All I know is that some elaborate mega CGI Jedi like space battles are
- being made up in LIghtwave 3D for the pilot episode.
-
- I got a few questions. I'm really curious on how Space is going to compare
- effects wise with B5. I love B5 but it Ron Thornton made several BIG mistakes
- on the show that make it a bit fake sometimes.
-
- 1. 24-30FPS? B5 has this bizzare problem of conflicting frame rates, swithcing
- from 24 film to 30FPS for CGI, even worst they sometimes mix 30FPS CGI
- composites over 24FPS film backgrounds! Is their going to be a constant frame
- rate, and is the CGI going to more closely match the look of the film footage?
-
- 2. How are the spaceships gonna maneuver? My favorite thing about B5's ships
- is that they can do all them fancy full 3D moves in space. Quite realistic. But
- I did complain on how ridiculously SLOW ships in B5 move. Their is no air
- resistance to limit space fighter accelleration so in a dead run, dogfights would
- involve fighters and other ships attacking with FAST closing speeds of many
- hundreds, or thousands even tens of thousands of meters per second.
-
- 3. No nebulas? It was sort of alright with B5 against that big blue nebula. But
- everywhere else ships travel in B5, their is big bright colorfull nebulas in the
- background. I'm an amateur astronomer, and I know that their are NO bright
- nebulas anywhere near Earth, and bright Orion like clouds are very rare in the
- galaxy and you would usually not have one so close to an inhabbited solar system
- especially since those nebulas have hard radiation from supernovas coming off
- them once in awhile.
-
- 4.Weapons? The BIG mistake on B5 is that nobody uses missiles or directed
- energy weapons. Fighters only carry PPG's which are dreadfully slow unguided
- projectile weapons that limit dogfighting to ranges of less than a mile or so!
- Real space battles would even with EM countermeasures would involve nuclear tipped
- missiles and instantanious energy weapons that can shoot down targets many
- miles distant. For once I would like to see tactical nuclear weapons employed
- in battles against capitol ships.
-
- 5. Moving guns? The fighters in B5 only have fixed guns, they can only shoot s
- straight ahead at point blank range. I always loved Ron Cobb's Gunstar design
- for "The Last Starfighter" with the gunner having full 360degree engaging capability
- since real space fighters can move in any direction, they outta be able to shoot
- anywhere they please.
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