The making of Chromium Voyager

Warning: This page contains major spoilers. If you haven't already seen the movie, looking at this page would spoil the effect for you. If you have seen it and you want to see my scene by scene account of the making, read on......

Scene 1 - Opening. Render time 22h 35m
	I originally created this scene as a test, just to see how the trees blew in the wind and how the sun looked shining through them. When I joined it to the music, I realised it worked quite well, despite the fact that the camera movement is quite 'robotic'. So I left it in.

Scene 2 - The second one. Render time 6h 55m
	Another fleeting glimpse of the star craft, still not giving too much away.

Scene 3 - In yer face. Render time 23h
	From the first frame of this section, you are looking directly at the ship, but you don't realise it. What I wanted to achieve here is confusion. I wanted the viewer to be constantly analysing the images, and only work out what you have been looking at right at the end of the scene.

Scene 4 - Reveal. Render time unknown (computer crashed)
	This is one of my favourite scenes in the movie. A wonderful cue, right where the music changes so drastically and beautifully, this sleek object is revealed. But still you don't know what it's going to do. Hmm, pity about that seam line right down the front. I didn't want that there!

Scene 5 - Overhead. Render time 7h 12m
	A first look at the engines in a dormant state, the only shot of them like this. I can almost touch the Voyager when the video is showing the directly overhead view, it almost looks plastic!

Scene 6 - Engine startup. Original render time 18h 46m
	This was the second version of this scene. Originally, there was a tree directly behind the ship that wasn't there in the previous scene. As I watched it more and more, this became more and more obvious. I had to change it. Re-rendering took 17h 58m.

Scene 7 - Take off. Original render time 52h 44m
	Once again, this was a re-done scene. In the first version, the camera came from the opposite direction, and didn't move as far. The ship had a design problem that only became apparent in this scene, that had to be remodelled at this point, and also, the damn thing moved backwards before it sped off. Render time of the new scene was 42h 5m.

Scene 8 - Follow. Render time 30h
	If I had re-done this scene, I would have changed it so the camera jumps over the trees instead of going through them. Although nobody has complained about that aspect of it, so it's probably ok as it is.

Scene 9 - Looking back. Render time 12h 13m
	I really like this section, it just seems more 'natural' than other scenes. I realised at this stage that I could pan and tilt the camera, so I was experimenting with this here.

Scene 10 - Snake. Render time 4h 51m

More camera experimentation, a bit of zoom. Notice how the image is a little more hazy at the start of the scene, that's because we are zoomed in so much. It clears up a little as we zoom out. The movements of the ship itself, I feel are a little overdone, but I liked it, so I didn't change it. Actually, it was the second version of this scene. The first had the ship flying sideways at one point. I though that was a bit 'Pendragon ferry'. It had to go.

Scene 11 - Ascent. Render time 2h 37m
	Launching up into the cosmos. I can't say much about this one, what you see is what you get!

Scene 12 - Breaking atmosphere. Render time 1h 30m
	I like how the clouds work in this scene. They are all two dimensional clouds by the way, they have a size in the x and the y, but not the z. What this means is they are thin as thin can be. Vue 6 renders flat clouds faster than full-on 3D metaclouds. It was a test to see how it looked. I liked it, it stayed.

Scene 13 - The leaving. Original render time 8h 12m
	The second version of this scene. In the first, the ship was not reflective at all (a mistake on my part) and the planet looked like a green dog turd. I changed a few more aspects too, but mainly I created a new planet and wrapped clouds and an atmosphere around it. Render time of version two was 17h 21m.

Scene 14 - Thrust. Render time 1h 10m
	The original scene here was just a cut to the surface of the (dog turd) planet as it rotated and the sun appeared behind it. On its own, it wasn't that bad, but it interrupted the flow of the movie, and the planet was crap anyway. I decided a blast of the thrusters before the ship speeds up would fit better. Re-render time 47m.

Scene 15 - Acceleration. Render time 2h 42m
	This scene was re-done time and time again. I spent (wasted) so much time on this one, I thought I would never get on to the rest of the movie. I couldn't get anything right in this scene, the stars, the ship, the planet. After about 9 versions, I ended up with this one, and decided it's going to have to do. To be honest, I'm not 100% happy with these next three scenes though.

Scene 16 - Velocity pursuit. Render time 1h 48m
	Zero reflectivity on the ship - can't see the stars reflected in it. The stars themselves don't look too bad though.

Scene 17 - Arrival. Render time 2h 38m
	The ship is highly reflective in this scene, evident as it approaches the destination planet, but before that, as previously, you can't tell while it's in space. What I like about this scene is the rapid deceleration of the ship just before the planet appears. It's not obvious, it's one of those 'might not notice' things.

Scene 18 - Approach. Render time 3h 19m
	Another re-done scene. I can't remember the first one, so it must have been awful. Render time of second version was 12h 55m.

Scene 19 - Orbital traverse. Render time 13h 21m
	Yes, you guessed it, another one that was done twice. In the first version, the ship wasn't reflective! How this happened, I have no idea but it looked like wet snake skin. The time above was for the snake skin version. The new reflective version was considerably longer, but I forgot to note how much longer. Maybe double it.

Scene 20 - Atmosphere entry. Render time 47h
	A wonderful scene if I do say so myself. I was waiting for this one since the start and really looking forward to doing it. The heat effect is created by using a preset material in Vue, hot metal I think it was called, and the glow at the front is achieved by a collection of four invisible lights moving, pulsing and shining directly onto the ship. Lovely.

Scene 21 - Trails. Render time unknown (didn't make a note)
	Another of my favourite scenes, another point where the music changes along with the tempo of the action in the video. This was probably the first scene I saw in my head, and started the ball rolling on this project. It's probably why I like it so much.

Scene 22 - Retro. Render time 3h 43m
	Well, I had to get the thing to slow down somehow. I think this is the only way.

Scene 23 - Destination. Render time 46h 26m
	Now we move into the area of some very long render times. Quite irritating really, as I knew we were nearing completion yet it took forever to do the scenes where we arrive at the complex. Notice the two pyramids in the ground? These are the beacons that guide the ships in.

Scene 24 - The complex. Render time 109h 11m
	All the zillions and squillions of reflections that had to be calculated here really took its toll on my poor little 2Ghz computer. As you can see from the render time, I had to wait four and a half days to see how this scene looked. It's a good thing it turned out ok, I wasn't looking forward to having to do it again.

Scene 25 - Dome. Render time 88h 23m

Where the three ships converge on the dome. Another long render time. I can't do much on my computer while these things are running you know. I had experimented with lots of different effects here. Lights swirling inside the dome, outside the dome, under the ground!! I was finally happy with this one. The ships should actually go inside the dome as it becomes transparent, but I got fed up with waiting for the render and ended it early.....

Scene 26 - Pull back 1. Render time 13h 52m
	....So I had to create something new for after it. I realised pulling back would make the render faster as there wouldn't be so much detail to draw. The ground looks a little bland, as I didn't intend to be pulling back like this. I was beginning to get fatigued and wanted this thing finished. I do get impatient from time to time.

Scene 27 - Pull back 2. Render time 2h
	It was still taking too long. GRRR. Pull back further. As you can see, the landscape was not supposed to be shown from this distance. Oh well, it makes it look kind of 'alien'.

Scene 28 - Oh my god it's finished. Render time 8h 14m
	I wanted a beautiful scene to finish on. I thought "Ah, pan out even more - lots more!". If you look carefully, there's a beam of blue light coming from the dome shining out into space. It's about at 3:30. Can you see it? There's also two suns. Did you notice that? Oh my god it's finished.