What you’re viewing in this clip is an assembly of visual effects footage in various states of completion. The opener to Act II with the Enterprise sailing through the debris field is complete but for a planned re-rendering of the planet killer–I tweaked the model’s textures after I released test footage last month, and now it doesn’t match the appearance of the Doomsday Machine in the following scene. Speaking of which… the next sequence where the planet killer cuts loose on the Enterprise is semi-complete; there are about 20,000 more asteroids and the glowy blue dust cloud that still need to be added, and I may re-render the planet killer itself to give a better angle on the antiproton beam effect (right now, it’s kind of hard to see all four of the beams that lance together into one unified antiproton beam).

The rest of the visual effects from that point forward are actually old shots from my March 2008 attempt to complete this episode. I haven’t shown this footage to hardly anyone until today, so I hope it’s of interest for–if nothing else–comparison purposes with the visual effects that will eventually replace them in 2010.

I’ll be online sporadically until after the new year, but I welcome your comments in the meantime–I promise I’ll try to respond as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Blessed Kwanza, Festive Festivus and Happy New Year, everyone!

Onward with Act II!

And yes, I plastered a permanent “watermark” copyright on all of the live action footage from 1967. My intent here (indeed, my intent all along) is not to steal from Paramount/CBS Video or deprive them of a DVD sale. The original footage is posted merely to present my revised effects in the context of the original episode–nothing more. Hopefully, the constant watermark won’t be too annoying, but I feel that it’s necessary. ‘Nuff said.

I have to admit, Vimeo’s unilateral action has spooked me a little. Even though I’ve superimposed Paramount and CBS Home Video copyright notices on the live action footage every couple of minutes, I’m now wondering whether even that is enough. Even though I’m not making a penny off this project and am doing it solely out of my fanatical love of all things Star Trek, I worry that someday I might attract some very unwanted legal attention. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly care for the thought of being sued… and don’t tell me that it’ll never happen.

For the moment, I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove the Teaser and Act I WMV (Windows Media Video) clips that I was hosting here on the site while I consider other options. One possibility would be to post only the effects footage at full 640×480 quality, and perhaps a downrezzed 320×240 edit of the entire episode for anyone who wants to see the whole thing integrated together. Dunno. Let me think about this. In the meantime… sorry.