Red Dwarf Remastered Credits

[Jawscvmcdia]

Why do they occasionally credit Robert Llewellyn as ‘Rob Llewellyn’ in some of the remastered episode credits? I’ve never seen them do that outside of the remastered and it just looks careless.

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Topic

[Ben Saunders]

Building a huge expensive model that’s too fucking big to film has got to be one of the most ridiculous things that has EVER happened.

[GlenTokyo]

Too big to film in the place they decided to film, not too big to film elsewhere as proved by the movie concept footage.

They could have just planned ahead and booked a studio big enough, just proves how rushed it all was, even before set backs. Only the audio side (minus the library music and incongruous sound effects) got it right.

[Dax101]

Im glad they never got to remaster Series 6 because in retrospect a fair amount of the effects for that series were mostly decent so trying to remaster that series would probably end up with changes made just for the sake of changes.

[flanl3]

I’m also glad that they never got to remaster series 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, or 12 or back to earth in the same way they remastered series 1-3 because it would have been absolute garbage, even for series 7.

[GlenTokyo]

Series VI arguably has the best special effects of any series when you add it all up, including the new ones. Brilliant model work plus those SVC special effects that really hold up and suit the aesthetic.

The only one that’s comes to mind as a bit crap is the Rimmer face warp in Legion, but even that is pretty well done – the wall behind him doesn’t warp as well, which I imagine was pretty hard to do in the early 90’s.

The Legion tractor ball is fantastic for example, and the AR game, and Rimmer’s boot up, and the teleporter.

I’m choosing not to blame them for the space filth enforcement drone, that looks like something from Top of the Pops in the 80’s so I think that one is the BBC haha

[Dave]

The weird thing is that there is that brief shot of the enforcement drone where it isn’t a weird 2D flipping effect, and it looks pretty good.

I think the effects in VI are largely great, although Legion’s face always seems a bit crap. But I think that’s maybe just ill-conceived rather than poorly-executed.

[Ben Paddon]

The remastered version of Tikka on the Series VII DVD is pretty nifty, though.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

> The model we have now though is even worse that that imo, too short, cone too long. I’d honestly take a CG Dwarf now, some hybrid.

> The big section too has horrendous light leakage that really makes it look like some plastic sheets over a strip light.

I agree. And it’s a really annoying symptom of them cutting down the longer pencil model that would have had everything in proportion. It’s the nose cone that looks ridiculous, it’s like half the length of the rest of the ship.

I’m not sure I’d go as far to say I’d prefer a CGI Dwarf, although the one in BTE isn’t awful. But I feel they could touch the model up a bit to make it look a little less awkward …

Although now I say that, part of the charm of Red Dwarf (the ship) is that is is big, bulky and awkward.

[Plastic Percy]

Just watching Polymorph and was wondering if anyone knew what the deal with the corridor the second Polymorph basketball bounces along is. I figured that it was something they filmed on the VIII set, but it looks more colourful and industrial than VIII. The same shot is also used for the fireball in Me2.

[flanl3]

Yeah, but imagine if they’d remastered Tikka with the same crap effects, garbage sound and music, and strange cuts present in the rest of remastered. And also if they’d remastered every other episode that way. Wasn’t there some thread where we started making a load of VIII remastered jokes or something?

[Dax101]

I think the corridor is part of the same set in the 10th anniversary smeg ups special, as you can see it behind Kryten

i might also be apart of the extended Tikka to Ride ending also as i assume that was filmed around the same time as the 10th anniversary stuff was filmed.

[Moonlight]

It’s the nose cone that looks ridiculous, it’s like half the length of the rest of the ship.

Personally, I adore this. It gives the ship a wonky vibe that doesn’t look like anything else, whereas the full Remastered ship is just Red Dwarf made to look like a generic sci-fi spaceship.

[GlenTokyo]

The corridor is VII vintage as Dax says, available due to Xtended.

The cone maybe could work being that big if the ram scoop was smaller. It was never so massive on the OG Dwarf, maybe a scale down (Doug can fire up his 3D printer) would bring some balance back.

[Ben Saunders]

The ram scoop is the biggest issue with the new Dwarf model, as well a the fact that it’s painfully obvious that the lights in it are just LED strips that bleed through in the most unconvincing way.

The CGI Dwarf in BtE was shot from incredibly far away because they couldn’t afford the detail necessary to bring it closer, lmao.

I think replacing the original, terrific I-VII model shots with CGI is sacrilege, because they were so masterfully done for the most part, but with the exception of, like, The Beginning, has there even been any better-than-decent model shots in the newer series’? Twentica doesn’t count because sometimes I feel like everybody was just so amazed that we were getting a not-terrible, actual-model shot that they were too busy jizzing themselves to see that it was just alright.

Stuff like the exploding space station in Give & Take and the one in Krysis is all CGI, right? Has CGI reached the point where having another crack at a CG Dwarf/Starbug would be feasible, or can we still only use it for guest ships shot from far away? It would free things up in the logistics and shot choice department to be CG.

Given the advances in 3D printing I would guess that the cost of building models has come down significantly, but the actual logistics and cost of shooting them are still pretty big.

This is a long comment x

[GlenTokyo]

The ship shot in Officer Rimmer and the pod in Samsara, as well as the CG shots you mentioned show to me that it could be done very well.

The models just aren’t there currently, they either need to get Mike Tucker and co in to do the lot or go CG for me. Because almost all the Starbug shots are generic blue screen and comped together, there’s no interactive lighting, maybe if they knew where things would be used then they could address this but I don’t know if they can afford it.

The CG guy said on one of the BTS docs on series XII said that on occasion it’d be better to use a CG Starbug and it’d fit into the scene better (lighting and interaction with the event, reacting to a shockwave etc) but the show is about models. That really didn’t sit right with me.

Models were used because they produced the best product. If that’s no longer the case then evolve.

I love the models, really, it’s like my particular extra area of love Dwarf wise, but if you’re not going to do it properly I’d rather them not do it at all than badly. I also appreciate not everyone cares about them as much as me so I may seem like a bit of a dick when I’m criticising all the time.

As you say, a lot of them are alright, very few are anywhere near as good as BBC VisFX and more than there should be shouldn’t be in the show really.

That shot of Starbug flying down the side of Red Dwarf where you can see it has no engine gives me nightmares haha

[GlenTokyo]

I still think 3D printing is a terrible way to do it too. They’re brittle and porous so don’t take a paintjob very well. Maybe it’d be better to print negatives of each section and and use them to make a slush cast of each, I know this is becoming popular now due to the increased resolution available.

3D printing should be used for printing widgets and small versions of stuff, like the 6 inch Starbug, and maybe legs and feet, but almost all professional model makers that I follow go 3D print, finish (fill and prime, sand smooth), mold and then use the castings for the final product. They could get 6 or 7 full sized hollow resin Starbugs this way, maybe more. They’d be light, durable and they’d take paint, and you’d be able to detail it better.

It would almost certainly be cheaper too.

[International Debris]

but the show is about models. That really didn’t sit right with me.

Yeah, this seems to be a bit of a response to the negative reaction around the late ’90s use of CG, and reminds me a tiny bit of the overtly broad comedy of VIII being a response to the less popular dramatic/filmic VII.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the fact that there’s actually a TV sitcom with models in it in 2017, but it’s just so disappointing. I’d much prefer they spent their time doing some really good, varied fly-bys of the Dwarf itself, and then threw everything else together in CG. Certainly the many XI/XII shots mentioned above show that it’s more than possible. Almost all the shots of Starbug and Red Dwarf together in recent series have been really poor, and they only serve to cheapen the look of the show. I understand the practical limitations these days, with models being a niche thing, but given how good the rest of the show looks, it seems daft to stick to poor looking model shots on the grounds that fans didn’t like poor looking CG in the ’90s.

[Ben Saunders]

Yeah, I know the Star Wars prequels get a lot of shit for poor CGI, but stuff like the beautiful opening space battle of Revenge of the Sith could not be done with just models, and I think it’s silly to limit yourself arbitrarily if you could realistically achieve better results with more modern technology.

I do like Mike Tucker and don’t want to see him out of a job, though.

At least one of the model shots in V/VI was a greenscreened Starbug superimposed onto an old Dwarf flyby, and it looks a bit wonky, but I only noticed recently watching my pristine DVD on a big screen rather than my wobbly old VHS on a tiny one. Perhaps the move to HD and digital also makes believable model shots more difficult, since everything is bigger and more defined, you can see the flaws more and there is less visual noise to cover up for things?

I remember there were some shots in Rogue One where I thought “wow, that’s a really nice model shot of that Star Destroyer” – it was ALL CGI. CGI made to look like model shots from the 70s.

I still think models are super cool from a 13-year-old-boy perspective, but I think if CG is going to look better, go for CG.

[GlenTokyo]

Mike Tucker isn’t involved enough, that’s the issue. I believe The Model Unit just did the bazookoids and the landing pad, and they helped with the Twentica crash, but the models themselves were built by The Magic Camera Company and those two blokes that look like Trevor and Simon haha. They need to go back to real environments, starfields etc if they’re going to do models.

There are chroma key shots in series II that look more convincing than now and that’s not right surely.

I don’t think it’s HD though, watch Moon on bluray that looks great, even the OG ship shot used in Skipper (where that came from I don’t know, either a rescan or an upscale, still looks great though) there’s just not the attention to detail.

The paintjobs, lighting and details aren’t quite right.

They’ve got a decent DOP for the models though I think, he seems to care and is of the right generation to do it justice, but it’s the models themselves.

[Ben Saunders]

You’re right about the OG ship model still looking good in Skipper, but those were stellar shots of a great model in an expensive studio, I’m thinking maybe the fact that the newer model shots are mediocre AND in HD hurts their believability. If it was shot at 480p and shown on a 20-year old third generation VHS it might look more cohesive, but then again it might not.

[Jawscvmcdia]

“Because almost all the Starbug shots are generic blue screen and comped together, there’s no interactive lighting”

Lol as if they didn’t do things this way back in the “classic series”:

[Dax101]

I think the Remastered along with 7 and 8 left a bad taste in my mouth because i still would rather they stick to models because at least with Models there is no worry about whether it looks real or not because its an actual model and in close up shots you can see the detail is really there.

Now in 2017 perhaps they have got CGI to that point now where they could make some CGI shots as good as the model shots but this show is still on a fairly low budget and CGI is still fairly tricky to make look good even today.

Thats why they never zoomed in on the Red Dwarf CGI model in BTE.

[GlenTokyo]

But Jawscvmcdia, the thing is, one of those is tinted to match the light from the sun, and the other two are lit similarly to the other model shots so they don’t stick out like a sort thumb like the new ones do.

Look at the one that’s in Give and Take, explosions going off below and Starbug and yet it’s lit by one massive white light on one side and the rest is in shadow. And the model is worse.

[bloodteller]

if we’re complaining about model shots, i’d just like to point out that halfway through XII they clearly ran out of ship fly-bys to use. at this point they begin to use this really really shit shot which is clearly just a .png of the ship being dragged across a background and it annoys me quite a lot

[Ben Saunders]

That middle shot of Starbug flying away from the explosion looks incredible, though, I thought it was one non-composited shot because I’m thick

[Ben Saunders]

And yeah XII decided to use the same flyby with the same sting like 14 times, fs

[GlenTokyo]

That sting should definitely be retired.

[Dax101]

The remastered shows kept using the same sting too and it just seems to the default sting now.

Admittedly the remastered sting isn’t as good as the original one, it seems to lack something somehow.

It just seems to be slightly default now.

[bloodteller]

other stings are available

[Phil]

>Lol as if they didn’t do things this way back in the “classic series”

Why did you post three separate screengrabs that refute your own point though?

[Paul Muller]

I had a go at building and animating a 3D Starbug a few months back.

I never properly finished working on it, but here’s a quick test shot that I put together:

I tried to replicate the lighting and movement of the I-VI model shots as much as possible, but adding a bit more depth and some interesting planets etc.

I also tried to match the grade and film noise to something approximating 35mm, not sure that worked, but it shows that a bit of post-processing can make a difference.

I’ve been thinking of getting hold of the raw FX shots from XI and having a go at re-comping with new backgrounds etc. Of course, that would probably be copyright infringment so I definitely won’t do that…

[GlenTokyo]

I had a go at building and animating a 3D Starbug a few months back.

I never properly finished working on it, but here’s a quick test shot that I put together

I really like that. Nice work, especially once it’s flown past the camera, it looks as good if not better as anything I’ve seen Dwarf wise in CG and most of the recent models to me, the planet and the asteroid, and the effects on top really add a realness. With an actual scan of Mike Tucker’s Starbug and all the texture reference this would be amazing.

When you say you didn’t finish it, what were you planning to do, bit of motion blur as it passes the camera?

Anyway, had a look at some of your other stuff too, maybe send a DVD to Doug, you can be Veale 2.0 haha – what do you render on? I imagine that’s where the expense comes in.

[flanl3]

Jawstingdia

[Dave]

That Starbug looks great Paul.

[International Debris]

Now in 2017 perhaps they have got CGI to that point now where they could make some CGI shots as good as the model shots but this show is still on a fairly low budget and CGI is still fairly tricky to make look good even today.

There are plenty of shots in XI and XII that show they’re capable of doing really good CG, so I don’t think it falls into question really.

[flanl3]

The CGI shot of the underwater Samsara was really nicely done. Too bad you can’t see it.

[Dave]

I thought that was one of the worst offenders – it looked tiny.

[flanl3]

That was probably Starbug. I doubt you saw anything else.

[Jawscvmcdia]

Another great shot:

[Jawscvmcdia]

And another

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[GlenTokyo]

Thats a point I was thinking about last night as to why it looks worse now. Nothing ever happens to the models. Some of the best shots are of starbug getting hit by a flaming meteorite or Ace in his ship, or doing a barrel roll or something.

The only things we’ve had recently that I can think of are the crash in Twentica and the grabbers in Siliconia.

[flanl3]

The crash in Twentica was excellent though.

[GlenTokyo]

It was, the actual crash itself was great, and the shot from the cockpit as it approaches those rock pillars is fantastic. The only dodgy bit is the (again composited) bounce off the rock. But it doesn’t spoil what comes before and after.

[Ben Saunders]

I was never that blown away by it – yes it’s models, crashing, which is nice, but the lead-up to it had some dodgy compositing, the Starbug model looks wrong and the way the sand interacts with the model is a bit iffy, it looked CG on UKTV Play but I think it’s just slowed down.

I don’t hate all the model shots though – Siliconia looked great, one of the Dwarf flybys in X actually looked decent, The Beginning obviously. I’m worried I’ll name another bit i thought looked great and it’ll turn out to be CGI now, though.

I think the motion blur pretty much always looks terrible. The way they fake motion blur it’s like they’re not even trying to make it look real, just… blurry.

[bloodteller]

imo they should just use models for the Red Dwarf fly-bys and then do everything else in CGI- there’s no real point in using models for quite a lot of sequences in XI and XII, and throughout XI/XII they’ve shown they can do CGI very convincingly- the Samsara crashing looked great for example, as did the ship in Officer Rimmer.

plus the starbug in XI/XII is really weirdly lit in quite a lot of the shots so it just makes it look like CGI anyway. paul muller’s one looked more like a model than the actual model

[Ben Saunders]

I think I agree with you, bloodteller.

I would like to see more models interacting with environments – snow, sand, lava, water – which I think might be better done with real models, but the stuff that’s just in space should probably just be done with CG. The little boy in me would intellectually prefer a Red Dwarf model, but you might be able to convince him CG is the future.

[GlenTokyo]

You do models because stuff is hard to compute, like sand crashes would be rendering for fooking ages whereas with a model and a high speed camera you have it done in a few seconds (minus prep time obviously) but a lot of model shots in X XI and XII may as well be flat images because their lighting doesn’t match the environment and their presence doesn’t affect the scene.

Paul’s CG with the actual model scanned in would be fucking immense if they gave us that for all the flying, and have models for landing and crashing where there’s an actual environment for it to interact with.

[Moonlight]

The cone maybe could work being that big if the ram scoop was smaller. It was never so massive on the OG Dwarf, maybe a scale down (Doug can fire up his 3D printer) would bring some balance back.

Who needs balance in space? I encourage spaceships to distribute their weight weirdly instead of looking like planes or boats.

[GlenTokyo]

Who needs balance in space? I encourage spaceships to distribute their weight weirdly instead of looking like planes or boats.

Just seems unlikely than the engine intake would be half as long as the ship, fictional spaceship or not.

Bit like having a 200ft cooling tower on top of a disposable barbecue.

[Plastic Percy]

I’ve been rewatching the Re-Mastered Series and it’s awakened some nostalgia in me. It was the first Red Dwarf I owned – one Christmas as a lad I was given the Re-Mastered Series II, Byte I and Red Dwarf VII: Xtended. So for me I’ve never really had much problem with the faults. Heck, I still think some of the CGI shots look like models and think the work done to malfunctioning Rimmer looks great in Queeg.

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