Sardaukar prepare to defend their Emperor.

Here is a work-in-progress of a new version of the shot where the Sardaukar rush forth from the Emperor's steel tent and prepare to engage the approaching Fremen.

The original shot seems almost as if it was a last minute rush job - It doesn't look like one of the many clever Emilio Ruiz del Rio shots (Whereby a miniature was filmed on a high platform to carefully match live action filmed at the same time.). This looks like a miniature was was filmed and then the Sardaukar were composited onto it later - but that the live action portion didn't have enough lighting on it, leading to the Sardaukar becoming a dark blob in the center of the frame. This is exacerbated by the greenish tint to the live action which doesn't match the surrounding miniature.

The searchlights have been added in post as well and don't seem to really be coming from where the Emperor's ship would be positioned at the top of the tent.

Referring to the book it seems that there are a large number of Harkonnen vehicles present as well...
"He swung the telescope to the far side of the Arrakeen landing field now, to the Harkonnen frigates lined up there with a CHOAM company banner waving gently from its staff on the ground beneath them..."

Right now, the Sardaukar are temporary models and they are not yet moving quite right. I will probably have more of them coming forth as well as the Steel Tent contains 5 Legions of them (Per the book).

From WIKIPEDIA: "A typical legion of this period had 5,120 legionaries as well as a large number of camp followers, servants and slaves. Legions could contain as many as 6,000 fighting men when including the auxiliaries, although much later in Roman history the number was reduced to 1,040 to allow for greater mobility."

So the Emperor could have as many as 30,000 men or as few as 5,200. Going with the typical number of 5120 per legion that would mean 25,600 Sardaukar are in this structure.

However in the film the Emperor states. "I want 50 legion of Sardaukar on Arrakis at once!". He obviously doesn't bring them all down with him!

The Emperor's "Selamlik" - Work In Progress

Frank Herbert uses the term "Selamlik" to describe the metal "tent" that the Emperor's uses as his base while dealing with the Arrakis affair.

"The selamlik (Turkish: selamlık) was the portion of a Ottoman palace or house reserved for men; as contrasted with the seraglio, which is reserved for women and forbidden to men.
Selamlik was also a portion of the household reserved for the guests (from the root word selam, "greeting"), similar to the andronites (courtyard of men) in Ancient Greece, where guests would be welcomed by the males of the household. The harem is the portion for the family."

The description from the novel:

"It wasn't the lighter that excited Stilgar's awe, Paul knew, but the construction for which the lighter was only the centerpost. A single metal hutment, many stories tall, reached out in a thousand-meter circle from the base of the lighter - a tent composed of interlocking metal leaves - the temporary lodging place for five legions of Sardaukar and His Imperial Majesty, the Padishah Empror Shaddam IV."

Other details include Gurney Halleck's observation that it has 9 levels (Instead of only 6 in the movie version).

Below you can see the original model being prepped for filming, how it appears in the movie - as seen by Paul through the oil lenses of his binoculars, then two of My work in progress renders, the first matching the same angle as the movie version but with the camera pulled further back to permit visibility of the entire structure and the second render revealing more of the environment, including two Spice Harvesters and the Baron Harkonnen's ship.

I am looking at rebuilding all the DUNE 3D models I have made to take advantage of the improvements in 3D since I first made them - in particular to take advantage of new more realistic rendering engines that should help to take the CG curse off of the images.

As a side note, the image with the sand-crawlers took 37 minutes 53 seconds to render out on My machine at home, while a render at work during My lunch break, took only 7 minutes 19 seconds!

Sardaukar Lasgun

As a follow up to the Sardaukar pistol I made recently, here is the Lagun / Rifle. It's a fairly low rez model with only basic texturing, not meant to be viewed up close, but should hold up fine for distant shots on the CG Sardaukar.

I only had the one reference image to work from (The prop looks pretty beat up as well), so it is probably missing details. If anyone has better images of the prop, I'd be interested in seeing them. A search of the net revealed nothing new.

SARDAUKAR PISTOL/LASER GUN

Just finished up a low resolution version of the Sardaukar pistol - for use by eventual CG Sardaukar - so I didn't include some of the smaller details, though I may add them later.
To My knowledge this prop doesn't appear in the film, nor have I found any examples of it as concept art. However, it WAS a toy made by LJN (Called the Sardaukar Laser Gun) along with the Fremen Tarpel Gun (Which seems to have been based on the concept art for the Fremen needle gun) - Next will be the Sardaukar Lasgun/Rifle you can see in one of the examples below (along with the pistol).

Guild Heighliner - HD Redux

So I have decided to sort of start over - after a fashion - in as much as I am starting at the beginning again and retooling everything for the greater detail demands of HD. Means more work of course!

Have never been happy with the level of detail on the Guild Heighliner, so I have been working out how to use the new "instancing" features in Lightwave 11.5 to create a good look. Had to remodel the ship to accommodate the way instancing works. I also have not added in the node flow that allows the instances to rotate in 90 degree increments for more variety.

Here's a couple of in progress comparison shots... Same model with instancing turned off and instancing turned on. (It's not lit properly yet though and I will eventually play with the surface textures when I have finished modeling - still have to do the three large vertical doors)

Castle Caladan

(Click previews for larger image)

For the introduction to the planet Caladan in the movie, it starts with a really awesome panning shot of enormous waves crashing against a rugged coastline, before cutting to a really awful model cliff side and totally out of scale waves, before cutting again to show the Castle where the Duke and his family reside.
My vision here, using modern digital compositing techniques, will be to extend the first panning shot, so it continues up the ragged cliffs until the castle is revealed at the top... possibly having the camera close in on the window where paul is sitting, then cutting back tot he interior shot that starts at the window with the rain outside and pans over to see Paul at his desk.
I've included an image of the model, a mock up of what I sort of want it to look lik, a render of the model and a render of the planet Caladan.

Guild Heighliner

(Click image for large view. Click post heading for animation on youtube)

Here is the massive Spacing Guild transport ship. It is so enormous, it dwarfs the huge Atreides Frigates. While most of the model is essential a lightly detailed tube, the mid-section is festooned with mechanical detail. For this I used freely available "greeble" & "nurny" detail models - usually only on two sides of the model to keep the polygon count low while rendering.
The main part of the model that is incomplete are the huge golden "doorways" that open into the interior of the Heighliner. I have various refernce pictures, but none of them show the detail clearly, so I have had to do My best to make it look ok... just have to make some "normal maps" to help create the intricate surface patterns and get some better texturing done.

Film Book

(Click images for larger view)

A simple prop model made in order to facilitate integration of the new planet models that Paul would be looking at.Considering modern technology, the size of the screen seemed too small, so I have enlarged it... however, the four circular "control" knobs while kind of simple looking in 1984 actually now resemble the control wheel of an ipod, with the black central button and a gold "navigation ring".

Emperor's Palace on Kaitain

(click images for large view)

While essentially fairly simple structures (albeit with some ornate detailing), the alternating cube step areas were difficult to work out as the reference photos were fuzzy and did not show the detail clearly. The purpose of creating this model is to feature it in the new opening sequence where the guild ship lands next to the palace.

Emperor's Frigate and Steel Tent

I think this was the third model I started on after the Atreides Ornithopter and Frigate.
I ended up drawing all the detailed patterning on it in Adobe Illustrator and importing the line work into Lightwave and using that as the basis of the shapes. In fact, that is a process I have used for much of the detailed work as I find trying to create it directly in Lightwave is a huge hassle.
The steel tent posed a problem in modeling it, since I couldn't make one side and then clone it and taper it all since some of the shapes became distorted.
It was only while I was modeling the tent that I noticed there is a sort of "door" partway up the front face... presumably for aircraft?

Atreides Ornithopter

(Click on images for larger view. Click TITLE to link to animation on youtube)

Here's the one that started it all. Modeled in Lightwave 9.5.
I first modeled the 'thopter from the theatrical release using reference photos of a really good model kit that I found on the net.
Once I had made the original one I decided to adapt it into a new "flapping" version.
As I rather like the unique "U" shape of the Harkonnen 'thopter from the movie and because nearly all technologies end up having the same basic geometry (Look at jet airplanes for example... while each manufacturer makes them look different, the same components are all there in roughly the same places), I decided to make the Atreides thopter roughly have that same shape, although in this case its more of a "V" shape.
The wings themselves have been through numerous iterations, but are ultimately a sort of flexible "Spring" in a wing shape, with a section of aircraft wing in the middle for flaps and mounting things like sensors and weapons. The underside of each wing houses a small "foot" that extends when landed to support the tal heavy design.
As in the book, the 'thopter also features small booster rockets - and I am thinking of having some unfold at the back of the central hull for landing purposes.
The landing gear was a pain in the ass to model and rig to work as I have only two or three fuzzy images of what it is supposed to look like.

Spice Harvester

(Click image to see larger view)

Here is the incomplete model of the Spice Harvester I have been working on. It's based upon as many frame captures from the DVD and still images as I could locate and a couple of photos from the ever helpful Ron Miller, who had just sold his small filming model of the spice harvester on ebay. It's interesting to note that the cockpit area on the filming models is quite different between the small and hero scale models. I chose to go with the hero scale shape. Have never been able to find an adequate image that explains how the wheels attach to the body. There are three "arms" on the small models but they are not detailed.
I also noticed that the "arm" the cockpit sits along is mounted on a trackthat leads to a "well" in the main body that is not visible in most of the movie shots. It would appear that the cockpit retracts into this "well" - possibly during transport and also for the crew to enter the main body of the Harvester, so I have rigged that to animate if need be. Also have the wheels rigged so that when the body moves the wheels all rotate at the correct speed.

Atreides Frigate

(Click Images To View Full Size)

Here is My model of the Atreides Frigate modeled in Lightwave 9.5.
It's a fairly complicated design with lots of curving, tapered surfaces and intricate surface details that were tricky to model.
This is the older version, as I was able to contact Ron Miller the production artist on the movie, who was kind enough to supply Me with some of the original blueprints and several shots of the original filming models he had in his possession . Having studied those, I can see that I am going to have to make significant changes.