Millennium Falcon Turret Spin

Created this animation to show how the turret is now able to rotate, as I outlined in the previous post here

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

so the turret is backwards... spotted on The RPF by the eagle-eyed Jaitea. It's be speculated that the turret can or should rotate into this position, though it's never been seen on film. Until now.

I think I can deal with this. I think I'll have to do a quick animation, to see what it looks like swinging around. But visually it totally makes sense, and doesn't break the ship or add anything stupid, in my opinion.









But what's really weirding me out though is the disappearing red panel...

this is the rear quarter from the first teaser, ostensibly from the same desert battle with TIE fighters. Note the red panel


and here she is now with in the new trailer with no red panel.



what gives?

I kind of hope she gets blasted at some point, and we see Han or somebody standing on the falcon replacing her panels. That could be a fun scene. But I also wonder if the flight scene in the teaser was made up specially for the teaser, and the model they used had a red panel for some reason, which was discarded for the actual movie.

time will tell.

Force Awakens Star Destroyer

Built in Sketchup using photogrammetry.

Falcon and X-Wing in flight

with some bonus extra angles

Force Awakens X-Wing

I'd built a model of this a long time ago, but lost it in a back-up fiasco. So here's an all new version. Designed in sketchup from photomatched images of fullscale prop built for Force Awakens.

Earlier work in progress renders...

Comparison

Adding a little texture now...

Episode 7 Falcon Cockpit

Han's side

Chewie's Side

New Corridors

Back in August last year, images of the Falcon's interior leaked onto the internet. At the time, I did a perspective match of one of the images, and noticed something interesting about the layout. From the leaked image, it was apparent to me that the production crew was following the exact same layout designed by Roger Christian on A New Hope, and Empire. The model of the interior I'd already built from production blueprints from the 70's and 80's fit perfectly. Except for a spare bit of corridor, that seemed to be a new addition to the interior we'd seen before .

Working with the perspective match, that spare bit of corridor seemed to fit at the end of the main ring of corridors, creating a T-intersection if you were to take a left after climbing the ramp into the Falcon.

just a few days ago, on May 4th, a video was released by Vanity Fair, covering a photoshoot in the interior of the new Falcon.

at the 13 second mark, I noticed a bit of corridor serving as a backdrop.

at first glance this looks like a view standing in the cockpit corridor, looking toward the main ring of corridors, much like this shot from the new trailer, with BB-8

but notice that in the first shot, the ladderway, which would be visible if this were the same area, is missing. 

I'm feeling pretty confident at this point, that what we're seeing is the new corridor I speculated about back in August. 

This is a model of the corridor layout as it seems to be from what we've seen so far. I can't wait to see if I'm right, and to get to see more never-before seen interior spaces of the Falcon!

Episode 7 Millennium Falcon

How's My Driving?

got into a discussion about the visibility of the Falcon's mandibles through the cockpit window. You can't see them in any of the shots in the movies, but if the camera were further forward you would be able to. Just take a look at this image from inside the cockpit of the fullscale Falcon built for Empire.

User Wavey on the RPF said that it "would be hazardous pulling out on to the interstellar highway." I came to the conclusion that the Falcon needs this bumper sticker...

oh the fun we have...

Falcon in Flight

What's left...

Once the areas highlighted red are done, that's it for the top of the new Falcon. Then I can sit back and wait for more reference images to emerge, which will no doubt prove I was wrong about everything, and I'll have to start all over again... I do enjoy this, right? Right?... I sure hope so...

Making-of the new dish

It took a long time to finalize the design of the Falcon's new dish, but it was well considered. There were moments, though, that might be a little less remembered by the movie-making history books.

"Almost there..." "Loosen up!!"

So close and yet so far...

I've put a lot of work into the model since December, and it's getting there, but there's always more to do. And I haven't even touched the bottom half of this thing...

also, I realized this blog is called "all things Star Wars" but I've pretty much been on one big Falcon kick for a long long time... will have to wait to get inspired by the next trailer.

Ep VII Falcon in Motion

Took my work-in-progress model and made a quick animation in 3ds Max.

Though it's subtle, the camera motion is actually bit of a geek out. I made a replica of the special camera rig developed for Star Wars by John Dykstra, the Dykstraflex Camera.

Since the days of Star Trek ( the Original Series) spaceship flybys were created by taking a stationary model and moving the camera toward it on a dolly track. The ship would be filmed against a bluescreen, which would be matted out in post production and replaced by a static starfield. The resulting illusion would be that the ship was moving toward a seemingly stationary camera.

Dykstra took this further by introducing a computer controlled rig that could repeat the exact same camera motion over and over, allowing for more effects to be precisely composited together.

The very particular axis of rotation on his camera rig gave the ships Star Wars a distinctive movement, as they seemed to pivot gracefully into and out of frame.

EP VII Millennium Falcon Work in Progress

Adding more details from the photogrammetric studies I did of the trailer screencaps.