Again with the fresh renders and re-composition. One of the things that rankled me upon review of the original CG rendering of this scene was that when I created it during first edition cleanup, I was (more or less) matching the CG shots to the photoshop shots… and the photoshop shots were exemplary of my limitations at the time.
A few years of experience, and I figured it was time to get a smidge more creative. Panels one and four are straight-up accuracy rerenders. Five has been completely overhauled – I have some issues with the specularity blamming off of the Sabrosa’s mast, but the anime smoke trails are purdy and the new camera angle works extremely well. I’m all for the one-point Kubrick shots, but this is one case where a canted angle works nicely.
Unlike, say… every single interior shot of Starhunter.*
Six would probably look better at a higher rez – that little smear of pixels the Cheops is shooting at is the Sabrosa, at its actual relative distance (to earth and the Cheops). I did a test render with the daedalus in place – at this scale, it’s indistinguishable from the background.
Seven… is largely a redux of the original, with some key differences. The first CG version had photoshopped explosions – this time around, the BLAM! is built from slightly souped up volume lights. A small step up the learning ladder for some effects work I’ll be doing in the next book.
* Watch Starhunter. Then re-watch Firefly. You’ll be amused. Very amused. I promise!
