Special Effects Update on the Official Site

POSTED BY: Novagrass
UPDATED: Saturday, June 15, 2002 17:14
VIEWED: 7453
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JONWES

Sunday, June 9, 2002 11:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
Hey, it's a scifi show with six shooters and horses. Maybe the ship runs on steam.

--- Joe

I think that's the most sensible thing I've read on this thread!

J

Monday, June 10, 2002 12:07 AM

Kind of off-topic, but why do I have to download Quicktime to view this stuff? I mean "bravo" for fighting the Microsoft monopoly but I'd appreciate alternate formats. Anyway - has anybody had their computer blow up due to Quicktime or is Quicktime really good for anything else or anything? I'd like to see it but I don't really feel like downloading more crap. Seems like I've already got 16 different media players of various kinds.

ZICSOFT

Monday, June 10, 2002 12:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:
The fact is you're making a lot of assumptions. You're assuming there's no new fuel. Did you read my post.You're assuming those are fans. You are assuming that it's a jet engine or similar to a jet engine. You're assuming that if you can't imagine a technology it can't exist.

Forgive me for not offering a point-by-point reply. Time consuming and I'd sort of feel like I was repeating myself. Let me just address your basic argument, which is about assumptions.

You're accussing me of making all kinds of assumptions. The only one I see myself making is this one: if the imaginary technology on the show is evolved out of current technology, as those "jet engines" appear to be, then it's subject to the same rules. Obviously this assumption doesn't apply to technology that's basically new -- like that glowing thing at the end of Serenity, which is presumably the main drive.

A lot bad science fiction gets written by people who push current technology in direction it won't go. Like Jules Verne and his giant space cannon. Or 1980s TV shows and movies, which had school kids doing serious AI software on their Apple IIs!

I know I can't be too nitpicky if I want a chance to be entertained. But I also want the show to avoid most of the silly mistakes that other SF shows make. That's the main reason I got so interested when I heard JW was making a space SF show -- he always shown an awareness of this kind of problem.

Actually, I have a theory about those engines that makes them technodweeb-compliant. But I think I'll keep it for another rant.

ZICSOFT

Monday, June 10, 2002 12:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by J:
Kind of off-topic, but why do I have to download Quicktime to view this stuff? I mean "bravo" for fighting the Microsoft monopoly but I'd appreciate alternate formats. Anyway - has anybody had their computer blow up due to Quicktime or is Quicktime really good for anything else or anything? I'd like to see it but I don't really feel like downloading more crap. Seems like I've already got 16 different media players of various kinds.

Quicktime doesn't cause a lot of problems. The worst issue I have with the Windows viewer is that it keeps nagging me to buy the "Professional" version.

I don't think Quicktime is about being anti-MS. In fact, Apple is often accussed of playing MS-style monopoly games with Quicktime technology. People who generate Quicktime do so because that's what their favorite (probably Mac-based) software does. People who want to stay vendor-neutral use MPEG.

It would be nice if all the competing vendors -- Apple, Microsoft, Real -- would just cross license their codecs, so that all the viewers could read all the formats. But the only reason to do that is to make life easier for the consumer, and that's not important. Far more important to maintain your "competitive edge"!

J

Monday, June 10, 2002 1:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
...People who want to stay vendor-neutral use MPEG.

It would be nice if all the competing vendors -- Apple, Microsoft, Real -- would just cross license their codecs, so that all the viewers could read all the formats. But the only reason to do that is to make life easier for the consumer, and that's not important. Far more important to maintain your "competitive edge"!

True - companies forget that screwing consumers to beat the other companies is a lot less effective than beating the other companies by making consumers happier. And FOX is doing it as well as MS/Apple (assuming some interlocking stuff doesn't mean FOX and Apple aren't basically the same company). They put the stuff up because it's supposed to encourage interest in the show. So, obviously, it would be helpful if people saw it. And obviously more people would see it if it wasn't in a proprietary format. So they should put it up in MPEG. But that makes too much sense.

MOJOECA

Monday, June 10, 2002 1:50 AM

Zicsoft -- I'll refer you to my own little rant on sci-fi "realism" in another topic.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=324&m=1500#1500

--- Joe

ZICSOFT

Monday, June 10, 2002 3:22 AM

I wouldn't make too much of the use Quicktime on the Fox site. It's a pretty popular format. And there are thinks to like about it. It streams well, and it's nice for doing VR-type stuff:

http://www.desertusa.com/qtvr/du_qtvr.html

The vendor I absolutely hate is Real. Their software is so buggy. It's always crashing and hanging, sometimes taking my system with it. Yet I can't get away from it. There's audio content, like NPR, that's only available in their format. And I own an MP3 player that I wish I hadn't bought, cause the only way I can download to it is with a RealJukebox plugin.

ZICSOFT

Monday, June 10, 2002 3:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
Hey, it's a scifi show with six shooters and horses. Maybe the ship runs on steam.

--- Joe

I'm reminded of that old RPG series, "Space 1899". Queen Victoria conquers the galaxy!

TINYTIMM

Friday, June 14, 2002 6:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Then why do the engines swivel at all? If they're only used to lift the ship for that first few feet, they only need to face down.

And I say again where's the bleeding fuel tanks? Don't spin fancy theories about 24th century tech and new kinds of fuel. Those engines work by combining something with huge masses of air. Either that or the fans at the front of the engines are just decorations. So we have something that's like a jet engine in that it swallows a lot of air, but unlike a jet engine in that it doesn't combine the air with anything. Hard to imagine what kind of technology works that way.

The ancient (1950's) technology proposed atomic ram jet did just that. You have to transfer energy to the air. Burning large quantities of fossil fuel is what we do now. In the future we may be able to cause low level fusion to occur in the combustion chambers, using the air itself as fuel. Just a thought.

Jeff Timm
Who notes the size / power output of jet engine technology graphs over the last 60 years or so.

TINYTIMM

Friday, June 14, 2002 6:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:
Hey, it's a scifi show with six shooters and horses. Maybe the ship runs on steam.

--- Joe

Horses produce more horses. A trick jeeps haven't developed yet.
As for revolvers, the USofA developed the Civil War Gatling Gun (invented 1861) for use on the Mach 2 (OK Maybe, over its own airfield when conditions were perfect) F-104 fighter in the 1950's.
Also in the USofA, in some localities, a copy of a Civil War Revolver is the only defensive system available due to legal considerations.

Jeff Timm
Who vagly remembers a SF story where the emissions system had to cool between shots, so a double action revolver was the leading edge of ordnance developement.

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