Babylon 5 Original Effects in 4K 24p
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- Опубликовано: 28 янв 2021
- UPDATE: Please consider throwing Tom Smith some money on Patreon. He is the guy who has been re-rendering these shots from the old Lightwave 3D source files: / b5scrolls
All credit to the original visual effects artists at Foundation Imaging and Netter Digital who made television history, and to Tom Smith who has been meticulously re-rendering these classic animation files in HD: / @tomsmith6107 
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![Babylon 5 Keeping The Dream Alive [Animated Movie]](/img/1.gif)
I would buy a 4K re-release of the entire series in an instant. Even if it was just the space effects
I'm with you! Unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to see that. It's my understanding that it was shot on video, so there isn't a piece of film from which to take a high resolution digital scan. And the effects were done with a video toaster, and there are no models available for the any of the modern rendering software. So someone would have to recreate ALL of the models and textures and then redo all of the shots and effects. It's definitely doable, but it would take a LOT of effort and wouldn't be cheap.
@@johnjorgensen6882 This explanation makes me more knowledgeable, but also makes me more sad.
@@Concord003 I know... me too.
@@johnjorgensen6882 Not quite right. This video is made from the original scene files and mostly original models and textures. And it is rendered in a vintage version of Lightwave that would have been used near the end of the show's run. Many of the assets still exist, and re-renders at higher resolutions are possible in many cases.
@@BobbyD262 Very nice! Well... maybe there is some hope that they would do that for the whole series.
RIP Mira Furlan.
That show has lost so many of the cast members, long before their time.
@@Marc-dm1fh That's true !.. What a loss ! :-(
What happened to her?
@@henrikg1388 According to Furlan's manager, she died at her home in Los Angeles due to complications from the West Nile virus.
@@ZLOY_63_RUS Jeez. How in God's name did she contract the West Nile disease. Not exactly a common thing among Westerners. Thanks for the reply, anyhow!
I'd pay real money to have B5 remastered with this level of re-rendering for the effects and the live action film that was shot. It's the vfx that's in the way of a proper remaster. This is STUNNING!!!!! Wish I could give it a thousand thumbs up!
For me the detailing in the panelling for the remastered vfx look too pronounced. The clarity now I find a little off-putting, especially for the station at 1:13.
No kidding. That was just freaking awesome. I would pay as well!
Just added my thumbs up to your cause.
If you are serious about this, then you can start a kickstarter for that.
#metoo
Rest in Peace, Mira, Jerry, Michael, Stephen,Richard, Jeff, Andreas and all the actors which died way to young. And I love this material.
Man, just reading that list hurts. So many people that became like good friends over the years of the show...gone way, way too early.
Yes...😞
Studio: "there will never be a remastered version of B5, the digital effects are too hard to reproduce" Internet: "Hold my beer"
Also HBO: we have streaming service for Poland, but no, we won't make Babylon 5 available in any form there, because it's too expensive.
Poles: Where's my torrent client?
I would buy HBO subscription literally the same day I saw B5 being available here. I don't want to grab a pirate , so for now I just hold to my memories. But eventually I may lose my patience and do what most of my sci-fi loving friends are doing :(
@@Krzysztof_Lis I know it's old fashioned but just get a DVD player and buy the whole set. If you can.
@@johncee853 I know, it's theoretically possible to privately import it but even a used copy is at least 120 USD with shipping, with customs fee and VAT tax it will be coming close to 200 USD, plus dvd drive for my PC (I don't have a TV). That's a 30mo HBO or 50mo Netflix subscription for DVDs alone. Or put in other way, a 3rd of my monthly salary. Very high price for an outdated product. I'm a fan, but not a fanboy. I would be willing to pay as much for a remaster, but not for old dvd-version. BTW, DVD-version is circulating here in mkv format, whole series fitting into 64GB pendrive or sd card, together with fan-made subs in several languages. Star Trek TNG also did a few years ago, now it's gone, because every trekkie I know got Netflix sub and is watching TOS and TNG remasters, along with DS9, ENT and Disco.
Actually i think it could be more problematic in scenes with human characters inside...
This is Babylon 5; the correct response is "Hold my Spoo." ;-)
When watching B5 back in the 90's we had to do the upscaling in our HEADS!
this was cutting edge in the early 90's what are you talking about? lol
I get what you mean.
Funny but true!
I think the same.
watching it on my 27" Zenith CRT TV it always looked fine 🤣
@@LeMMingSlayeR lol crt
Anyone else here to pay respects to the fabulous Mira? And of course The Vorlons in 4K!
ME ALWAYS AND TO ALL WE HAVE LOST. BUT THIS IS INCREDIBLE.
The space ship design in this show is the best I've ever seen, even now.
I really like the TOS Movie era and the TNG era of Trek, but I agree about B5. I still remember how exciting it all seemed when it was new!
Nah Expanse has the best and most realistic designs.
couldnt agree more. particularly the shadows. they're just so unique and look so alien. they give off this sense of being far beyond any science we even understand. its the same with all the races in the show really, you can look at their ships and kind of tell how old they are. or how young in the case of the human ships.
I couldn't wait for the next episode each week. Them days I remember well.
The space ship designs and variety in B5 were among the best ever.
But particularly the Shadow ships were probably the scariest looking ships ever designed.
They were a moment of genius imo.
If the budget and today's technology had allowed at the time they could have been the up there with Ripley's alien.
And speaking of aliens, the actual Shadows themselves were such a brilliant creation and a breath of fresh air from yet another humanoid alien species.
They really could have done so much more with them using today's technology.
Babylon 5 was so ambitious for it's time and the limitations of their budget.
I believe every episode was made for around ⅓ of the cost for an episode of STDS9.
It looks it in places but I still love B5 so much more.
Amazing! My wife and I never missed an episode. It was and is one of the best Sci-Fi shows ever produced: smart, great over-arching story line intersected by numerous smaller story arcs, deep character development, with true vision and mission.
when i saw it back in the day i never ever skipped all the intro's of all 5 seasons. Though i must have rewatched it a few times lol.
Still love these effects and designs. They STILL stand up even after all this time. One thing I loved about B5 designs was that they looked like they were actually made. Like, manufactured properly. You could see each plate of metal on every hull, and because not every plate is absolutely identical, there was shading differences, or differences in metal hue. They weren't seamless, smooth items; they were built from physical parts, with seams, defects, flaws, etc. Very real, at least to me.
Shadow ships are still the scariest thing in space though. Can move in any direction, any facing, fire from any side or piece, hull material constantly reconfiguring and bubbling.... And their scream. And the cutter beam they fire... I never realized just how malicious their attack on that Narn base was; they were done with the planetary base, and they came back to cruelly dice the remains of the orbital base into shattered rubble.
I disagree, those effects haven't stood the test of time at all
One of the best SIFI sagas written. Ever! RIP Mira.
what does rpm status mean on the star fury?
@@raven4k998 Revolutions per minute
@@shiftstart shame there wasn't a number there it would have been more sick if it read 5000000 on the starfury hud
Phenomenal job. Babylon 5 > Than any other Sci fi show ever
Really? I tried watching several episodes over the years, and always thought it was just awful.
@@unbannablebob395 I wouldn't say Expanse is better, but it's certainly one of the top 2 sci fi shows with Babylon 5. Mainly because it's based on some books so there's a good story that is constantly moving.
@@unbannablebob395 the expanse has a slow start with the first few episodes....but after that it just turns godlike. Especially if you like realistic space flight/combat. Well, about as realistic as it can get while still being sci fi
@David Rapp I thought The Expanse was going to be something extraordinary during season 1 and enjoyed every second of it. It had everything, a Garibaldi-like character playing a space cop on a space station similar to Babylon 5, other interesting characters, lore / world building, politics a grand plot with a huge mystery. Unfortunately, the conclusions to the plots from season 1 in season 2 turned out to be less than satisfying to me and then they started to introduce new flat, uninteresting characters with weak cast. The actress playing Roberta Draper for example, can barely speak and don't even get me started on the generic Asian characters and their plot that went absolutely nowhere, I don't even remember their names. At least season 4 had Adolphus Murtry.
@@JAnx01 I think the cast is pretty stellar to be honest. The Expanse has taken the cake for being one of my favorite science fiction shows. As a kid, I grew up with Babylon 5 and DS9, then enjoyed BSG and now The Expanse. I can't think of too many shows like that that captured my attention fully.
RIP Mira Furlan she will always be in our hearts and prayers
its a literal sin that WB wont take the time to re-render all the CGI for this show. I'm sitting here getting teary eyed watching this. I wish my mom was still alive so i could show her this, she loved this show as much as I did.
How does computers being more powerful help though. Scenes render faster, sure, but you still have to create the scenes from scratch. Only a handful of scene files have survived from S2 and S3, which you can "just render", but the entire show has probably 15-20 hours worth of CGI across 5 seasons. That's 10 feature films worth of CGI to recreate. It doesn't happen by just pushing a button, that's going to take enormous amounts of man power and years to create. And that's the simple part with pure CGI shots, then we have the issue of huge number of composite shots.
@@dominantprime And yet the producers of Star Wreck did exactly that with a handful of regular PCs and a lot of time and effort producing high quality replica models of Omegas, Starfuries, a Victory and Babylon 5 itself.
@@zephyr8072 Yes, a lot of time. It took them 7 years to do the CGI for a 90 minute film. At that pace they could get the B5 effects done in about 70 years.
@@dominantprime Remembering they were students on a budget of nothing..
@@zephyr8072 sure. Fail to see your point though. Student or not, it's gonna take them 70 years. A proper CGI company with a full crew, it's gonna take them at least a year per season. There's no magic button that makes it happen instantly, just because "computers are so powerful now", which is the whole point here.
GORGEOUS, INCREDIBLE! AND THE DEVINE MUSIC BY CHRIS FRANKE.
Is this the B5: Into The Fire music? (ITF was the abandoned video game by Sierra On-Line)
Lightwave and Amiga 3000s comes to mind!!
@parallax3d
To loosely quote the late great Stan Winston; "those are just tools. they do absolutely nothing without a skilled artist."
Shadow Battle Crabs still give me the creeps, wondering what they would look like if there was a modern reinterpretation of them?
The Reapers, but uh er, with black paint
Battle Crabs? Really? I remember reading that the designer of that vessel based it on a dream that he had about black window spiders.
@@Venezolano410 Ya, sorry. I also originally called it the Shadow Spider Ship, but I started playing the official Babylon 5 Wars game and in the Shadows expansion, they referred to it as a Shadow Battle Crab.
@@RangerXML I think they were always referred that way. I remember the word crab, never spider.
@@jamesaron1967 In the show itself they are just called Shadow “ships” or “vessels”, all references to spiders and crabs were from Babylon 5 fan websites back in the day. The groups I chatted with called them Spiders, then when they were released prior to the Shadow War expansion on the Agents of Gaming website (they released ships on the website for the game as PDFs), it was called Battle Crab.
Great upload!
Thanks to the writings(Lightwave Pro magazine, Usenet) of people like Ron and Mojo, I picked up all these neat techniques early on(doing stuff like explosions, wormholes, shockwaves, shields i.e with just one-point polys, morphs, procedurals and deforming geometry) used in the show. I was able to apply a lot of it later at Amblin and other studios.
Great time! Much fun was had, despite the long hours and lost weekends. ;)
I did the same thing! But I never really got into 3D animation professionally (I became a videographer/editor). I'm diggin' all your insights. Do you still have any Seaquest assets you can share, or even re-render like this?
@@BobbyD262
Maybe I'll put something presentable together.
I have some complete ships(or rather subs), some structures, some fragments of environments and terrain(nothing of it complete). A lot of scenes with placeholders instead of objects attached to them. Some composite shots with missing background/foreground plates as well as all of the explosion/fire footage missing(part of some stock collection). All this due to how content was stored and archived. You never had all of the models and scenes locally on your machine, but instead pointed at different content folders on a central server.
@Neb6
Yes, something like that. They came from the Pyromania collections by VCE Films. I think every studio had these back in the 90s.
Wow, that looks amazing. I wish they would release the series on blu-ray with this as the CGI.
@David Rapp They have but although the SFX scenes look much better the live action as suffered colour wise I think.
@David Rapp Nope. The cost is not worth the return.
@David Rapp Not that easy, someone still has to set things up, kick off the renders, and then double check everything at the end. That's still going to take people because there's no way you could do that with just one person. That's assuming you can even simply, push a button and have it done automatically which I strongly suspect is not possible.
@David Rapp a big part of the problem is that any live shot with sfx in it was shot directly to digital tape for cost reasons, so unlike film, you can't just rescan it.
Not going to happen, very few people buy and watch DVDS and Blu-Rays now in the western world and most new TV shows and Films are only released digitally. This looks excellent up could only happen and work on a steaming or VOD format provider. Studios are not going to spend big money on a physical release that very few, if any people would buy. Things change. The simple fact is that nothing released via disk has any hope of selling successfully.
Hardware hacker: “hey, I turned up the power on this blu-ray laser diode, and look at how much paper it can cut through now!”
Shadow: “hold my beer!”
This is absolutely gorgeous!
Absolutely beautiful! Love B5.
They need to remake the whole series in 4k. Imagine all the new fans, plus new appreciation from us "old" fans. Great job!!
As long as they pay proper respect to the source material like they did with the BSG remake I'd be all for it!
I would prefer a re-imaging of the whole series in 4K than risk being disappointed by a remake.
JMS is doing a ReBoot of B5 on the CW. it's not a continuation but an actual ReBoot. He says it won't be exactly the same because then there would be no twists or surprises. So I guess we will see if it's anywhere near as good as the original. And with examples like the one above the studio needs to shutup and actually make a 4K release of the original and the Movies. People WILL buy them.
This is insanely awesome .... Thank you soooo much ! ... Love to see this quality on a widescreen 1080/4k B5 release in the future. You sold me dude ... love the execs to say ... YES YES YES !
That was stunning thank you for the effort you must have put into this, loved it
Fabulous!! This is the way to see it now. Thanks so much to those who made this possible.
Incredible. I never thought I would see theses effects scenes in such loving detail. They look amazing.
God, I LOVED that show. 90+hours of the lord of the rings in space. Just magnificent.
Holy crap. That looks fantastic!! Great job!
Absolutely incredible color & motion. Wishing this whole series was remastered. I have all of the originals & they still work but now that everything else is 4k HD B5 deserves to be updated.
Outstanding. That was a joy to watch.
I knew every piece from every episode. Apart from the long in cockpit of a star fury section.
Thank you. I wish they would commission you to do it all.
Thank Tom Smith. He's been the source of the clips I re-edited and tweaked: www.patreon.com/B5scrolls
I'd pay 5 times what I paid to Amazon for every episode from both shows and every movie in 4K. It's gorgeous simply gorgeous. Just a shame we've lost so many of the cast.
The models look absolutely massive and epic. Kudos!
Beautiful work! I'd love a B5 remaster like this.
amazingly, superbly done.
Amazing. Thank you for your hard work. My favorite sci fi show.
Well done - Thanks for these sharp memories!
Really beautiful stuff. Well done :)
Just beautiful. Thank you.
Fantastic work!
Outstanding! So much better than I remember.
Amazing work!
Beautiful!
Thank you 😊!!
Masterful job! So many of the original cast, gone now, this made a great homage.
Thank you, really enjoyed that. Great to go back and enjoy this well-crafted series, and let's hope the reboot stands up to this.
I have been a B5 fan since day one - when it first aired in the UK on channel 4 - this upscale is the BEST I HAVE EVER SEEN IT EVER. All credit to those involved, I watched this on an LG 65" OLED and an Android box (Zidoo z9x), which has the ability to turn any SDR content into HDR - OMG this was a revelation, this could almost pass for a new show. AMAZING THANK YOU, IT'S SO WELL DONE - JUST WOW. I understand ALL the issues with trying to do this for the whole show etc, but you never know, in the future, the fans + HBO + new tech etc, might get a version out that looks this good for all of it, even if the live action bit's ain't as good. WOW WOW WOW, I'm a huge fan and this deserves to be seen by every fan.
This is not upscale. These are actual re-renders of the original assets.
Surprisingly, and considering the era and age of the show, the effects hold up really well in 4k! Thanks for doing this video!
So that is how the thing that Warner repeatedly said is impossible looks ;)
Yes, exactly...this is what the impossible looks like, and likely accomplished on a budget lower than Warner's bill for their executive's lunch.
@parallax3d LOL Yeah, in a lot of way...it IS great. You know, the funny thing is that when I remember scenes from B5, I remember them as being so much better than they actually were...LOL
That was awesome! B5 as it was meant to look.
Wow Im so impressed ! even better than I thought it would be after seeing the title. Well done. You have done the show proud.
This is amazing!👍💚
Beautiful! Perfect! Thank you 🙏
Amazing work
Amazing job!! My favorite show ever.
Very nicely done.
That looks so amazing!
Beautiful!! I know is tall order but perhaps JMS together with fans, can make a deal with the studio and do a kickstarter for a remaster
Eine der besten Serien ever. Habe sie geliebt und liebe sie noch heute.....alles auf DVD :-)
Thank you for this.
great work!
Supercool Work!
These are beautiful.
I had NO idea the original 3D assets still existed :O
Yes. Many were privately collected and saved. Unofficially of course.
@@BobbyD262 Thank god they did. At least Babylon 5 was spared the destiny of Voyager who's later seasons 3D assets got lost... because the CGI house who did them does not exist anymore...
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 Actually it was the same team (B5 season 1 to 3 and Voayger). So I would bet many of the Voyager assets exist somewhere.
@@BobbyD262 oh man.. hopefully... Then CBS Digital could actually restore it because people want DS9 and VOY getting remastered so badly as well. But at least Voyager still looks amazingly well even in SD. Way better then TNG ever did before the HD remaster.
This is amazing!!!
Thank you for this movie.
Absolutely breathtaking.
I'm glad there are still people out there who care about Babylon 5!
Great job!
This looks astounding.
Holy Crap !
That was awesome !
beautiful. this brought a tear to my bung.
Beautiful, thank you
Absolutely beautiful!
B5 doesn't need it's CGI remade, it just needs to be upscaled or re-rendered
It can’t be upscaled. That would be like zooming in on a low resolution photo.
@@Jbluez1 The upscaling looks good here.
@@Gambit771
This isn’t a simple upscale!
It had the elements re-rendered first.
Watch the video to the end!!
I think they could get pretty far with higher res textures, some more smoothing on round objects, and modern rendering for the lighting and shadows. It could look really good if someone is willing to put some extra money into it.
Oh wow! I didn't know this was done by Foundation Imaging, they took over for one of my favorite companies Mainframe Entertainment. They did Reboot, Shadow Raiders, Beast Wars and more!
I was always so effn impressed by B5! Never got the attention it deserved.
Simply fantastic!
I've always found, since animations where a bit more rudimentary, a bit less nimble perhaps, it always looked more like I'd imagine large objects in space would behave. Not dancing around like small aircrafts in air, but rather static and heavy.
I think I read that ILM would shoot some Star wars model shots overkranked to get the exact effect you're talking about.
The Babylon 5 crew actually consulted physicist to get the precise motions of the ships and the space station. Especially if you were to actually build bit Babylon 5 it would rotate precisely how you see in the TV series. The size and rotation were calculated to give Earth normal gravity. NASA actually got permission to explore and possibly build a ship based on the star Fury four youths with the International Space Station. They said the design made more sense than anything they had came up with.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Why am I not surprised? LOL
im speechless!!! its awesome!!
this is gorgeous
B5 had some great ship designs.
These look Great!
Magnificent treatment! Want to watch again at this quality
So good. Thanks for posting. These look pretty amazing just with the upscaling, but I would love to see a modernized take on the models!
This looks great!
*BEAUTIFUL!*
Heres to all the actors who are no longer with us from B5.
Emperor Turhan: How will this end?
Kosh: In fire.
Lovely work. Those Shadow beam weapons still look devastating!
This is amazing.
So much amazing detail.
Truly remarkable. I need this remaster so bad.
Looks effing amazing!!!
This look awesome!
It is g*d-d*mned criminal that WB is too f*cking lazy to remaster the best Sci-Fi show ever on TV and put it out on Blu-Ray!
Wow ! Great job. B5 was recorded on film but the graphics were from Amiga 2000's running lightwave at standard NTSC resolution.
Absolutely beautiful
Man those Omega class ships still look so good.
Wow!! So much nostalgia...It makes me want to go and rewatch B5 immediately. And the Shadows ships.. inevitably most ship designs look similar between various sci-fi shows/PC games but the Shadows are so damn unique, never seen anything quite like it!
Excellent!
The thing I always loved about B5 ships is how they obeyed Newtonian physics. Objects in motion remain in motion. That leads to some great shots, like Starfuries pivoting in place and facing the opposite direction to fire, while still maintaining their previous direction of travel, JUST like it would actually happen in real life!
Stunning!