On the virtual sets/world side of things, we’ve been making good progress. Clay continues to work on refining the schematics for the Intrepid, and I continue to learn a lot about the overall 3D process.

We had a great working session on Sunday and pretty much laid out the entire bridge, including the captain’s office on the second level. We also ran through the episode one script to identify the flow of the action. I hope to get a rough model started soon, so that we can start testing those camera angles and movements, plan lighting rigs, and so on.

Speaking of lighting, I picked up Jeremy Birn’s [digital] Lighting & Rendering (2nd edition) and have been working through it slowly. I’ve read the first few chapters each several times now — once for the initial read, again after poking around Blender to compare the types of lights it offers to the general types described in the book, and once more after puttering around with lighting in some scenes. The book is very well written, explaining not just the ideas but also when/why you would choose one option or approach over another, and I expect it will significantly improve the way I think about the process. In fact, it’s making a lot of what I’d previously learned about (“real world”) video production much clearer as well. After all, the principles and concepts are the same….