1/29 - Ok, I have rough cut of the first version of the trailer.  The good news is that the final won't be any worse than this.  The bad news is there is no music, no animation, no green screen work, no scene patching, and the footage in the trailer may not be the footage I end up using in the movie.  Anyway, it's a 5 MB file so it might take a while to load (and that's with all sorts of compression).  Click here (this was deleted, version 2 is now up).

1/27 - Unfortunately I caught a bad case of the flu and was in bed pretty much the whole weekend with a temp of 103 F.  However, the team continued onward and here you will see a creation Ryan did for the Speck bridge screens.  Talk about COOL!

1/25 - I've been struggling with my new ATI card (I decided the Iomega Buz isn't going to hack it) but it looks like I have the problems resolved (thanks for the help, Ryan).  I'll run the final tests tonight and if it works, I'll capture and edit all the transporter room blooper footage so that Ryan can add the special effects.  Below left we see version 2 of the Speck Bridge from John.  COOL!  He's still working on it, but I *like* it!  Below right we see Thommy's version 4 of the Rafi ship.  Everyone seems to like this one a lot so I think he'll start the texturing now.  Don't you love the spikes!
 

1/21 - I was working on the teleporter scene when I came across this footage which I had promised to put up a while back.

1/20 - Well, it's about time *I* did something!  :-)  Below you will see the Speck Ship that I, yes, I Rick Dunbar, converted from Ryan's model.  It only took me about 12 hours.  (It probably took Ryan less than that to build the thing from scratch).  However, I should be able to do the next one a lot quicker.  This one still needs some mods I think, but I'll wait for comments from the team.

1/19 - Ok, now for something new.  We are testing videos, and if this works, you can see it too.  Click here to see an mpg of Ryan's version of beaming in the transporter room.  It looks pretty damn cool if you ask me!  Click here to see Don's second engineering room test.  Damn!  Now I have to go find my socks!  :-)  My favorite is the middle power pod so Don's going to work on that one.  (I'll try to get smaller, quicker loading movies shortly).

1/17 - I've had a number of people ask what the schedule is *really* looking like so here is the honest truth.  At this time, I'm still projecting a 7/1/02 release date.  We are running a little behind on the animations, but we seem to be picking up speed.  (I'm still on a steep learning curve but I think I can see the top of the hill ahead).  In addition, I might have overestimated the amount of time it will take to do *some* of the other things (editing, foley track, music, and final cut).  Because we (the animation team) must do this in our spare time, it's hard to estimate how long it will take.  (Everyone pray for snow  :-)  ).  It is *very* unlikely that it will take less time but only about a 50/50 chance it will take more.  I predict the chances of meeting the deadline are about 70% at this time.  The good news is that the animators are *very* talented and are producing very high quality work - far better and faster than I could have done by myself.  (Without them, I would estimate the schedule slip to be 1.5 years, maybe a little more).  :-)

1/16 - The Engineering room scene is coming along quite nicely (below left).  Don is working on a plasma effect for the energy pods which he promises will knock my socks off!  And I believe him!  Even though Glover's scenes are typically only a few seconds, Don says it will take days to render each scene!  Bo has provided a first cut at the shape of the Challenger and the animation team has been debating it ever since.  When looking at it from the side, it looks a little squat to me, but when looking at it in perspective, it looks perfect.  Weird!  Bo said he'd work on it and I'm confident whatever he comes up with, I'll like.  In the meantime Ryan is doing the final renders for the Morgan scenes.  Mark is working on the satellite and Thommy is working on another version of the Rafi ship.  John is starting on one of the bridge scenes.
 

1/12 - The chroma key problem is solved, just take a look at Glover (Phil Bolin) below and Admiral Morgan (Anna Stoner).  To the right is Admiral Morgan's office, supplied by the Movie Makers Team.  It looks fantastic!  Don't ya *love* the reflections in the window!  The window in the background will have a space scene in the final render which looks *really* cool.
 

1/7 - Ryan sent me information on John Trently, Jr. so he's also now on the Animators page.  John provided me with a bio which you can read here.  John is from Maryland and currently works for NASA.  He's been doing 3D modeling for about 5 years.

I've been struggling with After Effects and chroma keys for the last several days and the results have been a little disappointing (i.e., barely acceptable).  It turns out that AE is a whole lot better at blue screens than green screens.  Samples of the results of various keying methods are shown below.
 

Color Difference Key (CDK)	Color Key
Linear Color Key	Color Range

Note that in every case, Admiral Morgan's (Anna Stoner) hair has a slight green tint to the edges.  A spill suppressor was applied to all four methods.  Original picture is below.  (The actual originals are a little better as these have been compressed for quicker downloading).

1/4 - Ryan sent me a pic and a link for Don Murphy so he's now on the Animators page.  I've asked Ryan for some words of introduction for Don so we can know a little more about him.  Below are the first images of the Engineering Section.  The picture on the left is the Engineering Room and the one on the right is the base to the power pod.  Looking good guys!  I also have the layout for the Morgan scene but I don't want to put up a picture until I get a good chroma key on it.
 

1/1/02 - I got tired of having to rename the files so I've changed my file structure.  The name of the Production Status page (this page) will change every few months so you probably don't want to bookmark it.  However, you can bookmark the Dunbar Productions Home Page as I will keep the link there up to date.

Ryan has sent images of Deneb 3 and Outpost 38 (see below).  Nice job Ryan!
 

Deneb 3

Outpost 38

For the Status from November 1 through December 31, 2001, click here.

For the Status from September 20 through October 31, 2001, click here.

For the Status from June 2001 through September 19, 2001, click here.