ZOMBIE FORUMS :: View topic - Fantasy vs. Sci-fi: The impossible task of combining diametrically opposite genres

Sair wrote:

Ezelek wrote:

Sair wrote:

Star Wars is pure fucking fantasy. Move on.

No, it's Space Opera, like Buck Rogers. It's not really a hard concept to grasp.

Apparently it is, since you can't recognize I'm right.

I guess it's the overwhelming amount of sources you're bringing up to prove your argument.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the east corner, weighing in with mostly unfounded opinions and an unrivaled bitterness, Sair! And in the west corner, you're undefeated champion of sci-fi pop culture, Ezelek!! Oh my, what's this?!? A member of the audience has jumped the lurking barricades and entered the ring! He seems to be yelling random things to each of the fighters. Let me tell you, whatever he's saying has got the audience booing pretty loudly.

Bloody noobs. :bang:

That's right. I forgot I'm a n00b here. Amazing how that automatically invalidates my oppinon. :p

If you want comments on coloring and storytelling maybe you should post it over at gutterzombies

why the photo shops tough? why not just draw the characters?

Not having the characters drawn made it look a little surreal to me.

So anyway, I've tried to reach some semblence of balance between the two genres by having the sci-fiers not dwell too much on technical details, and by having a consistent set of rules for how and why magic works for the fantasy side. Additionally, the sci-fiers have some lore and the fantasy siders have some tech, just to bleed the two together a bit so the vs scenario isn't so jarring.

Author:	Kakashi [ Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:29 pm ]
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Ladies and gentlemen, in the east corner, weighing in with mostly unfounded opinions and an unrivaled bitterness, Sair! And in the west corner, you're undefeated champion of sci-fi pop culture, Ezelek!! Oh my, what's this?!? A member of the audience has jumped the lurking barricades and entered the ring! He seems to be yelling random things to each of the fighters. Let me tell you, whatever he's saying has got the audience booing pretty loudly. Bloody noobs.

Author:	Sair [ Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:41 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Opera#Film I hear Wikipedia is the best source ever!
Ezelek wrote: Sair wrote: Ezelek wrote: Sair wrote: Star Wars is pure fucking fantasy. Move on. No, it's Space Opera, like Buck Rogers. It's not really a hard concept to grasp. Apparently it is, since you can't recognize I'm right. I guess it's the overwhelming amount of sources you're bringing up to prove your argument. I'm all the source you need, boy.

Author:	Rusty [ Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:35 pm ]
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RETURN TO THE SOURCE, NEO! Etc.

Author:	Grimmy [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 7:44 am ]
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I like it. Blue Sun Missile

Author:	KazCheesyDoritoBomb [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:47 pm ]
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It was pretty good. I only did a quick scan of it as I'm about to do somthing else but I liked the aliens. Yeah I sound stupid, I'll comeback later and edit the post.

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Fantasy vs. Sci-fi: The impossible task of combining diametrically opposite genres http://forums.kyhm.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=10435	Page 2 of 3

Author:	Kest [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:15 pm ]
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Kakashi wrote: Ladies and gentlemen, in the east corner, weighing in with mostly unfounded opinions and an unrivaled bitterness, Sair! And in the west corner, you're undefeated champion of sci-fi pop culture, Ezelek!! Oh my, what's this?!? A member of the audience has jumped the lurking barricades and entered the ring! He seems to be yelling random things to each of the fighters. Let me tell you, whatever he's saying has got the audience booing pretty loudly. Bloody noobs. A+

Author:	Fuzzy Modem [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:22 pm ]
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That's right. I forgot I'm a n00b here. Amazing how that automatically invalidates my oppinon. :p

Author:	Kest [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:38 pm ]
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Oh, I was referring to the depictions of Ezelek and Sair.

Author:	Ezelek [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 7:53 pm ]
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Fuzzy Modem wrote: That's right. I forgot I'm a n00b here. Amazing how that automatically invalidates my oppinon. :p It does not. :( not being able to spell opinion might, though.

Author:	Spools [ Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:01 pm ]
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That seems a litlte better from what I remember last time. You seem to be taking time introducing the story, and I think it's helping. Please go easier on the filters, it's washing out all the detail and any sense of depth that the original shading would bring. If you want comments on coloring and storytelling maybe you should post it over at gutterzombies

Author:	Fuzzy Modem [ Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:14 am ]
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Spools wrote: If you want comments on coloring and storytelling maybe you should post it over at gutterzombies Good call. Thanks :)

Author:	arwing [ Sat Jun 30, 2007 9:28 am ]
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Quite nifty. The lighting is a bit weird. maybe if you figured out how to make it better you wouldn't have to filter the shit out of everything. Also the text is too small to read, but I assume these are scaled down for the sake of the forums.

Author:	Edible Corpse [ Sat Jun 30, 2007 5:59 pm ]
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pretty good. why the photo shops tough? why not just draw the characters?

Author:	Fuzzy Modem [ Sat Jun 30, 2007 6:40 pm ]
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Edible Corpse wrote: why the photo shops tough? why not just draw the characters? Because my skill with CGI far surpasses my drawing ablility, and because live action blends better with CGI.

Author:	Fuzzy Modem [ Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:54 pm ]
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KazCheesyDoritoBomb wrote: Not having the characters drawn made it look a little surreal to me. Yeah I've been getting alot of that. I'd never seen a photo comic before I started my own, and I find that people tend to have a negative predisposition to the idea. However, while first impressions have been a bit negative, people generally end up liking it, which is I suppose all I can hope for. Honestly I've never been much of a comic guy. I read comics as a kid naturally, but after junior high I turned into a giant movie buff. In a perfect world I'd be telling this story cinematically, and as it is the comic reads a lot like a story board, with composition arranged horizontally rather than panel to panel. I had a story I wanted to tell, and a working knowledge of computer graphics, though very poor ability when it came to CG character design, so photographing actors in costume was the natural choice. Still, I frequently get asked why I don't just draw it. I suppose the best answer is that it wouldn't look as good if I did, and I have alot more fun doing it this way. It's has it's disadvantages. I've been working on it now for three years, compiling photos and CG elements, creating everythign I'll need in advance, and I'm only about 1/3 of the way done, though I have enough to get started. The nice thing is that once I have say- a spaceship, fully modeled and textured, I can use it as many times as I want, show it from any angle, duplicate it a hundred times and fill the sky with them. Same thing for my soldiers. I'm coming up now on the first big battle, and having shot one actor in costume and created a digital double- now I have an army of hundreds. 's alot of fun :)

Author:	Fuzzy Modem [ Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:55 pm ]
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Oh! I almost forgot! The map-> Detail-> Detail-> So that's a bit of my doodleing ability. It's got the only hand drawn lines in the whole comic. We'll be using the google maps inteface once the site is finished with text bubles for each page showing it's location in the world.

Author:	madadric [ Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:32 am ]
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It's an interesting and unique effect that you've established with your work, and it is definitely not what many expect. I'll touch on the 'filter' effects briefly, and maybe wax philosophical about composite artstyles vs other styles before blabbering about the off-topic topic. For the most part, your compositing is qute good, and since you're using photo actors and such, i can tell you're definitely putting a lot of planning into this and it's not something you're throwing together because you're lazy. (although the skull in panel 1 of page 3 has some weird lightsource issues going on...i would have flipped it so the shadows were on the groundward side if possible...) I've messed around with Find Edges myself attemtping to get various outline effects, and have had varying degrees of success. The biggest problem in general with the effect is that it introduces such a large amount of unsaturated pure black to the image, and wipes out so much of the white, making the images dark and giving them a grainy, busy look, especially when contrasting with the highly saturated characters and backgrounds. It might be worth experimenting with using the Variations function in image>adjustments or painting colour into the find edges lines to get them to fit better with the image and get a more consistent pallette to each panel. There's another option, and this will seem like a lot of hard work, but it may be worth considering and experimenting with, and that paintover. After compositing the image and getting all your elements in place, you create a new layer and literally paint the images using a graphics tablet, this will make characters and backgrounds blend since you can use a more uniform pallette per panel, and have more uniform texture per panel too. It will increase the amount of time you spend on each page, of course. In the end, i can appreciate the time and effort you've put into your work, and there's some really interesting designs you have created for your various ships, characters, and bulidings/devices, but the style unfortunately doesn't captivate me as a viewer/reader. The problem i think is that because the composite nature is so clear in the discrepancy of colour and light value variation between a particular panel's elements, it doesn't cement the ideas you're expressing as solid, cohesive worlds. Another tool to consider for you to tell your stories is Flash. Since it has layers, you can design in a similar composite style, and add animation touches, and work within a 'movie frame' window, and have the narrative proceed via back and forward buttons. I'm <a href="http://oblimo.pbwiki.com/">working on a project with this philosophy and finding it quite fun to plot out.</a> As my flash skills are getting more advanced, i'm working in pans and fades to imply action and (i hope) enhance the storytelling. Hope something in my rambling helps! As to sci-fi VS fantasy, they're usually two different types of story. Science fiction is usually more cerebral than fantasy, more expressing "what if" themes and, if you wrote in the '70's, cautionary tales about the govornment becoming the thought police. Fantasy is high adventure, epic tales and derring do's. Most space operas are fantasy tales told in space, or other futuristic settings. In this sense, The Matrix is more a fantasy sotry than sci fi. Sure, it's got a lot of technological stuff in it, but it's just the futuristic setting for a basic fantasy tale. Likewise with Star Wars.

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Author:	KazCheesyDoritoBomb [ Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:27 pm ]
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Not having the characters drawn made it look a little surreal to me. Good pacing of information though. It was nice to have the little girl interrupt the monotomy of the information flow while providing more information.

Author:	Lindley [ Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:12 am ]
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Fuzzy Modem wrote: So anyway, I've tried to reach some semblence of balance between the two genres by having the sci-fiers not dwell too much on technical details, and by having a consistent set of rules for how and why magic works for the fantasy side. Additionally, the sci-fiers have some lore and the fantasy siders have some tech, just to bleed the two together a bit so the vs scenario isn't so jarring. Good call. To put aside the Star Wars debate for a moment, I'd say the universe of Buffy/Angel is a good one to demonstrate how SF and fantasy can be simultaneously very similar and yet very disjoint.