Additive blend with lightsabres

[CaptainRAVE]

OOps, just a little hiccup there, lol.

[Ushgarak]

Why is that an error? Sabres are MEANT to cast shadows.

In fact, when theyndid the Special Editions, far from removing the shadows from the sabres they made them better defined.

 

Sabres are solid (as you can tell in a hundred ways- for example, Qui-Gon was impaled on one). Solid objects have shadows, whether they are giving out light or not.

[CaptainRAVE]

There wouldnt be that much of a shadow. The light from the saber would light it up. It would be there, but not as dark as that.

[Darth Lunatic]

That makes sense.

 

Although ultra hard core star wars nerds may debate that the blade is not solid but a tightly condensed array of photons shaped in a cylinder due to the electromagnetic waves.

 

The fact is the blade is not transparent. Which means light does not pass through. Which means it will cast shadows.

[Ushgarak]

Oh gosh, don't even THINK about what thew hard core fans can make of what sabres are. I've seen so many analysyes that it scares me...

 

Well, maybe it should be a softer shadow, I don't know. But just so everyone knows that sabres having shadows is a long established thing.

[CaptainRAVE]

I dont think when we actually watch the film it'll be noticed anyway , apart form the most Hardcore fans. I'll probably notice it the 5th time I watch it

[Darth Lunatic]

I don't really care about it. It won't make the film any worse than it's already gonna be.

 

Nsync playing Jedi?? LOL:D

[ChangKhan]

Originally posted by Darth Lunatic

That makes sense.

 

Although ultra hard core star wars nerds may debate that the blade is not solid but a tightly condensed array of photons shaped in a cylinder due to the electromagnetic waves.

 

The fact is the blade is not transparent. Which means light does not pass through. Which means it will cast shadows.

 

Actually, if a saber's blend is additive, it *adds* to light passing through it. It *is* transparent, but its own light is so bright you don't see the extra light coming through. If it was not transparent, it *could* be darker than the background behind it, but, as the new trilogy shots show, it *is* transparent, it's additive, and therefore would *not* cast shadows.

 

The original trilogy, however, had lightsabers that were opaque - simply "alpha" - the color of the saber replaced the background color. Which is why Luke's saber in that RotJ shot is not affected at all by the sky and desert behind him. If that was an Ep2 style saber, you'd barely be able to see it because the light behind it would be passing *through* the saber and adding to it's color making it washed out and white.

[CaptainRAVE]

Thank you for clearing that up.........and thats the final word and at least noone can argue against that

[Proto]

Ok, so in JKII the sabers will be performed in "new trilogy" or "original trilogy" style?

[Ushgarak]

Any object that can impale someone is going to cast a shadow. No other way is possible. It might not have to be very strong (in the case of, say, a glass tbe), but solid objects ALWAYS cast shadows.

[CaptainRAVE]

Apart from transparant solids......like glass

[ChangKhan]

Originally posted by Ushgarak

Any object that can impale someone is going to cast a shadow. No other way is possible. It might not have to be very strong (in the case of, say, a glass tbe), but solid objects ALWAYS cast shadows.

 

Well, what makes something "solid" is the fact that it's atoms have a repelling force against your atoms... What makes something cast a shadow is that it stops some light from passing straight through it. It's technically *possible* that something could retain the first property without having the second, for instance, something made up of particles smaller than the wavelength of light?

[Ushgarak]

Glass casts shadows, just very weak ones. Light going through glass is obstructed just as it does when it goes through any other object, just to a much lesser degree.

 

 

And the sabres also cast shadows in The Phantom Menace. And this, again, would have been dliberate.

 

Sabres are meant to cast shadows, that is how it is.

[Redwing]

We don't know about the properties or physics of lightsabers in the first place. It's been long established that they cast shadows, in every movie shot they are seen. So we can't really argue with that, can we?

 

 

BTW as for Luke's saber, we can assume it was rather poorly made, thus looks different from the TPM/AotC sabers

[Lord_FinnSon]

You have to remember that when original trilogy was in post-production, Lucas had to do a lot of compromises. He has praised digital technology so many times and said that only now he can visualize the creations of his imagination like he wants to see them, so prequels and the way sabers, for example, seen in them must therefore be just like he wants them to be, right? Even though they were mostly "cleaned" up for Special Edition, end result seemed a bit rushed and because Lucas has stated that original trilogy will be published on DVD after he has done Episode III, things might change even drastically; there are still so many shots, laser bursts, chroma keys and a lot else waiting for ILM to clean them up. So, don't look at too much what Lucas' team has done in the past, but instead keep in mind that "always in motion is the future", like Yoda said. Nothing has been finalized completely.

[Ushgarak]

That is not an entirely baseless point.

 

But you cannot simply ignore that sabres have cast shadows in all four films so far- shadows that have been deliberately kept in, even improved. and they appear to be in AOTC as well.

 

If they had just been left there, it would be one thing, but it's dead simple to remove thoser shadows, and instead they improved them.

[Lord_FinnSon]

Actually, I don't remember seeing sabers casting shadows in TPM, but instead in original trilogy and in that Episode II trailer shot(they might still change it before movie premiers). Don't forget the possiblity that ILM can also leave something into the movie simply because they didn't notice it and couldn't therefore correct it. They are only humans, you know, and these movies would come back again and again, if Lucas wanted to correct every single mistake.

[Ushgarak]

They are in TPM.

 

And as I said, they HAVEN'T been ignored- to the contrary, they have been made to look good.

[dazilla]

I also noticed that first thing when I saw the screen. I also concluded that it must have been the last rendering pass - the shadows that messed it up. I definitely think they'll fix that.

 

edit: sorry, i was replying to the last page of the previous post, the one which links to the screen with the shadows in front of the lightsaber.

 

Btw, about the current topic, I agree that sabers cast shadows, but just like a lightbulb casts a shadow. Try it yourself. Take a lightbulb, put it under another lightbulb, and tell me if it casts a shadow. It will *not* cast a visible shadow. Simply because the light intensity of the light source projecting the beam onto the lightbulb will not be high enough to drown out the light of the lightbulb. *But*, if you had a 1000W movie spotlight projecting a cone of light at the lightbulb from 4 feet, the lightbulb would cast a shadow, because the light coming from the bulb would be less intense, so you would see a slightly less bright spot on the wall between the bulb and the spotlight.

 

Oh, and as for the sabers casting shadows in episodes IV, V, and VI, it's just because they didn't have the technology to remove them, IMHO. Even now it would be a tremendous hassle to go through every frame removing the shadows from each person. It would be a lot easier if they would simply place the lights so that the situation would never come up.

[Flirbnic]

Originally posted by ChangKhan[RAVEN]

 

Actually, if a saber's blend is additive, it *adds* to light passing through it. It *is* transparent, but its own light is so bright you don't see the extra light coming through. If it was not transparent, it *could* be darker than the background behind it, but, as the new trilogy shots show, it *is* transparent, it's additive, and therefore would *not* cast shadows.

 

The additive blend on the glow does not add to the light passing through it. The glow is not a physical part of the sabre. Only the white core is. Whether the white core is opaque or not is the debate. If the sabre casts a shadow, then you would see a shadow of only the core, NOT the glow.

 

The original trilogy, however, had lightsabers that were opaque - simply "alpha" - the color of the saber replaced the background color.

False.

Which is why Luke's saber in that RotJ shot is not affected at all by the sky and desert behind him.

That shot was not in the movie. The trilogy used additive blending.

 

[Obi Kwan]

I must say that this is the best debate that we've had on these forums for months!

 

Filrbric- Does that shot of Luke with the well defined sabre over the desert exist in the actual film or was that just a shot that was tampered with for marketing? If it does appear in the film, it would be cool to see a comparison of those two; maybe they used a different type of sabre blending for that one shot or shots with similar problems to show the sabre.

[Guest Sifl]

Originally posted by Flirbnic

That shot was not in the movie. The trilogy used additive blending.

 

Ah, maybe it was a photo-touchup. odd that starwars.com (where I got the picture) would use something so inconsistent with the movies...?

 

Anyway, if it somes down to whether the blendmode is strictly additive so it's "right" by whatever standard fanatics like yourself set or whether I can see the color of my saber? I'd rather see the color.

[Emon]

Ah, I get it now. In some of those pics, the stencil shadows and stuff are off, and the additive blending on the sabers defaults to off.

 

So basically, in some pics, some stuff is off so it looks like poop.

 

And basically, the blending defaults to off, so that means I'll turn it on >:-D

[Emon]

Okay, listen... The sabers in the movies cast shadows because of the plastic rods they use to actually film the fight, the saber glow and stuff is applied later, and the shadow's left.

 

Lightsabers SHOULD cast shadows, but in the game, you'd hardly notice it, especially when the light of the saber is on it, it would wash it out, and it would REALLY wash it out during a duel. It also takes up more processing power. I bet you'd never even notice it if it WAS there.