Viper redux: turning shinola into shit

Over the weekend I posted the above image of a Viper from the 1979 version of Battlestar Galactica; as most people are aware, when that show was produced there was no such thing as CGI, so all of the visual effects were created “old school,” meaning the Vipers were actual, physical models, photographed with real lights and a real camera.  Thirty years later, visual effects on the new BSG are created entirely with computers, but, despite all this fancy new technology, the goal of most artists is to still have it look  like good old-fashioned miniatures and cameras!  Of course, on the new series, there never was a real  Viper model, so we have nothing to compare the CGI version with to see if we “got it right.”  However, there is plenty of footage of physical Viper models in episodes from the original BSG, so I decided to see just how close I could make a “fake” Viper look like a “real” Viper…

BSG VFX: A Thousand Points Of Light

Imagine you’re driving on a moonless night in a desolate area with no street lights.  Now let’s say your car’s headlights don’t work and you’re approaching an 18-wheeler who’s decided to have some fun by turning off all his illumination.  The above image is pretty much the last thing you’d see before a bright, orange and yellow fireball reminds you to get your headlights fixed.  It’s also what you’d see on Battlestar Galactica  if we didn’t put some lights on our spaceships!