Category Archives: Babylon 5

Tech the Tech: The Ships of the White Star Fleet

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I’ve been working on a model of the White Star from Babylon 5, and have gone down the rabbit hole of cataloging and recreating the sets (at least, the one that’s visible through the ship’s forward windows). I’ve already done a post on the celtic knot designs decorate the bridges of the White Stars in season 4 and 5, so this is an overview of the design variations on the bridge set overall.

I’ll be illustrating each variation with a cutaway CG model of the bridge. To be clear, this version of the bridge has been modified to fit within the exterior shape of the bridge module on the ship, so it isn’t intended to be a perfect match to the original sets. That’s another project.

White Star 1

Throughout season 3, we only see the bridge of the original prototype White Star.1The White Star Fleet was introduced three episodes before the end of the season in 3×20 “And the Rock Cried Out, ‘No Hiding Place,'” but while we saw the other White Stars on the outside, there were still only scenes set on the original ship in the subsequent episodes. The bridge evolves over the course of the season, settling on its final form in 3×18 “Walkabout.” As it is a prototype that’s being tested in use, it does make sense in-universe for the bridge to be constantly modified.

This diagram is circa 3×08 “Messages From Earth,” the ship’s third appearance, but is consistent with its layout for the rest of the season.
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References
↑1 The White Star Fleet was introduced three episodes before the end of the season in 3×20 “And the Rock Cried Out, ‘No Hiding Place,'” but while we saw the other White Stars on the outside, there were still only scenes set on the original ship in the subsequent episodes.

Babylon 5 2×01 Effects Update Supplemental- The Three-Edged Sword

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The surprise Babylon 5 HD remaster came out on Blu-Ray recently. Something I was curious about was how difficult it would be to combine the 4×3 Blu-Rays with the 16×9 DVDs to get a 16×9 pseudo-HD version of the show, with the edges upscaled but the center using real film.

I did a quick test on a frame from “Points of Departure,” and the answer is “not as easy as I hoped.” I’ve tried this technique before, matching and blending the same film from two different releases (and, apparently, two different digital scans), and I’ve also run into this problem of the film not scanning perfectly flat, and having some amount of distortion. I’d have to do further research to see if there are tools to address this that I have access to,1It feels like a combination of technologies should be able to solve this; I’ve got two slightly different sources of the same ground-truth. The HD frame shows exactly how 3/4th of the SD frame should look after it’s upscaled, so it should be possible to have a computer program compare the two, adjust the color, size, rotation, and proportion of the SD frame to match the HD one as closely as possible, apply some ML upscaling (ideally using the very shot that’s being upscaled as training data so the computer can extrapolate the lost detail at the sides of the frame from the existing detail in the middle), and blend the two sources. I know all these features exist independently, but I have no idea how to get them all into one tool. There might also be some complications with the DVDs needing to be detelecined and having scanline issues in the raw data. so this is just a quick test and comparison using Photoshop. The vertical framing of the DVD and Blu-Ray don’t match exactly, and the DVD’s colors are a little more contrasty, so I had to make some adjustments to match better.

First off, the test image merging the two sources. I upscaled the DVD frame using an AI tool, color-corrected it as described above, and added some grain, while softening the border between the HD frame and the widescreen one:

It could be worse!

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References
↑1 It feels like a combination of technologies should be able to solve this; I’ve got two slightly different sources of the same ground-truth. The HD frame shows exactly how 3/4th of the SD frame should look after it’s upscaled, so it should be possible to have a computer program compare the two, adjust the color, size, rotation, and proportion of the SD frame to match the HD one as closely as possible, apply some ML upscaling (ideally using the very shot that’s being upscaled as training data so the computer can extrapolate the lost detail at the sides of the frame from the existing detail in the middle), and blend the two sources. I know all these features exist independently, but I have no idea how to get them all into one tool. There might also be some complications with the DVDs needing to be detelecined and having scanline issues in the raw data.

Tech the Tech: White Star Insignia

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Revised August 10, 2024 with corrected insignia accounting (I initially thought A and E were the same one) and illustrations of each design.

While the White Star was introduced in the third season of Babylon 5, for most of it, only the prototype was seen. It wasn’t until season 4 that we began seeing scenes set on multiple different White Stars. The set for the White Star bridge was also redesigned and rearranged for the fourth season, and the new design seemed to take into account that there would be times when different characters would be seen on different (but identical) ships in the same episode.

From what I can tell, there were four main ways to redress the White Star bridge to represent different specific ships. There were lights in the supports for the railing around the command chair that were changed to different colors, the large light panels on the aft bulkhead had their color changed more subtly, three of the computer screens on the aft bulkhead were swapped out (with three different sets of screens, which alway appeared together, never mixed), and a lit plaque above the main door to the bridge would be changed. For now, I’ll just be going into that last one. More details on the overall distinctions between different White Stars are in this post.

Two different White Stars from the episode “Into the Fire” (4×06)
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100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 100

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cdcr-100-a_day_in_the_life_credits

Perhaps it’s appropriate that my final image would be an ambitious misfire. I’ve occasionally created accidental long-exposure-style images from time to time. I’ve wondered about doing a sci-fi long exposure since I saw one in the 2002 edition of the Ships of the Line calendar (which sadly doesn’t even have a thumbnail online I can link to). My big mistake was having it be a daylight image. The ships orbiting Babylon 5 are so underexposed you can hardly see them even if you know they’re supposed to be there. There were also some technical gambles I took with lens flares and antialiasing that didn’t pay off. I think the concept is worthy of a second attempt based on what I learned, though.

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100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 95

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Full-Sized Image

Another adaptation of a season 1-era Babylon 5 publicity shot. These would probably be easier to match if I knew the focal length used for these shots. Of course, it’s also unlikely that Ted’s model is a point-for-point match with the original model, especially since it’s based off of the remade model, which I’m certain has a few proportional differences.

Though I suppose I could’ve tried using Lightwave’s new-to-me camera-matching tools. It looks like there are fairly clear perpendicular lines for all three axes around the solar panels. I may revisit this in a week, when I have some free 3D-time.

100 Days, 100 Renders— Day 94

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Full-Sized Image

“It was an early Earth president, Abraham Lincoln, who best described our current situation; ‘The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial though which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, our last, best hope of Earth.’”