Beam Me Up Into HD, Scottie!

Star Trek, the Original Series Remastered, takes Max Gabl where no matte painter has gone before.

People always say it pays to be in the right place at the right time. Matte painter Max Gabl can confirm this. CBS Paramount’s visual effects group, CBS Digital, had been working on re-mastering the original Star Trek series when they decided it was time to bring a matte painter onto the team. Enter Max Gabl.

Gabl says, “After realizing that plans to release “Star Trek: The Original Series Re-mastered” (Star Trek TOS-R) in HD weren’t going to work because the production value of the 1960s-era show wouldn’t hold up in the high-definition format, [a decision was made to re-create most of the matte paintings]”. Using MAXON’s CINEMA 4D as his main tool, Gabl created 33 establishing shots and scene extensions, 49 planets and a handful of nebulae. “I figured out fast that the planets had to be 3D,” Gabl explains.

Although he occasionally worked with models built by other artists at CBS Digital, which he imported into CINEMA 4D to light, texture and render, Gabl created most of his matte paintings from scratch, taking them all the way from 3D to final paint concept to final render.

In addition Gabl, whose project files averaged around 350 MB, also made subtle changes to original shots by painting over them. He created buildings using CINEMA 4D, rendered them and painted over the renders in Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter before putting them into the shot.

Gabl, who uses a Mac, also used Photoshop and MAXON’s BodyPaint 3D to create some of the planets’ textures before importing them into CINEMA 4D for texture mapping. “I liked using BodyPaint 3D to put textures directly onto the planets because I could see how it was going to look right away rather than having to wait for them to render before I could use Photoshop,” he explains, adding that the planets rendered at 4000 x 4000 pixels. The ability to save time was one of the biggest reasons for buying BodyPaint 3D, says Gabl. “CINEMA 4D is made for visual artists like me,” he says. “It has a straightforward interface and I get the immediate results I need.”

As he worked on the nearly two-year project, Gabl built an extensive library of textures that he could modify as needed, allowing him to turn a blue ocean green or vegetation from green to brown.

While Gabl worked on planets and establishing shots, another team of modelers, animators and texture artists worked almost exclusively on all of the Starship Enterprise shots, including a new CGI version of the venerable star ship. Once the various elements were finished, CBS Digital’s team of compositors inserted everything into the footage for the finished look. Gabl said that he enjoyed working collaboratively and even becoming friends with some of the teammembers, while sharing the joys and miseries that went with working on a long-term project with tight deadlines.

For more Information

Matte painter Max Gabl:
http://www.maxgabl.com/

Production Pictures:
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/TOS/article/28095.html