VFX Artists React 93: Star Wars X-Wing, The Polar Express

Thanks for watching my fan film! Glad you guys enjoyed it. I've been a fan of this series so it's quite a pleasure to show up on it.

The classic couch trio episodes deserve their own playlist

I was on the team that worked on the Verizon ad. It was so cool to hear you guys talk about it. I’m a huge fan!

i think its so important that you guys point out that the star wars film isn't just 'one guy in his bedroom' the feeling of 'we'll they're doing that, so what's the point of me starting now?' can be overwhelming and im glad you guys can vouch for the little one man projects while still appreciating the work that studios (or even small teams of friends) can put in to make something truly incredible

I always get to the end of Reacts episodes thinking, "wait it's over..?", and then realise nearly 20 mins has elapsed. An absolute classic YT series, lads

I like how Niko struggles to see the error while the others laugh at it, just like how the kid in the movie can’t hear the sleigh bells like everyone else until he b e l i e v e s.

You guys should look at Melies "A Trip to the Moon" (1902). It was the first movie to tell a story, use storyboards, as well as the first to use various visual and practical effects. This guy single-handedly created a generational leap in filmmaking

It isn't based on the X-wing game, but more based on the X-wing novels by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston. It follows the adventures of Rogue Squadron post-Return of the Jedi, where Wedge is having to rebuild the squadron from scratch in order for the Alliance to have its hero squadron again. It is, honestly, a really great book series, and the adventures that they go on are pretty nuts. They even figure out a way for the Rebel Alliance to bust through Coruscant's defenses (primarily taking down the planetary shield generators). The super star destroyer that rose out of the cityscape was actually a high-security prison ship, which was designed to be able to bug out like that if the planet was ever taken. Unfortunately, the buildings above it were... very much inhabited, and basically, everyone in the area just got completely wrecked. Really goes to show how much the Empire cares about its citizens, right?!?

"I think they probably saw that and were like, 'We gotta do that.'" Probably not, actually. X-Wing is a series of Star Wars books in addition to the game, and a plot point in one of them is a Super Star Destroyer, Lusankya, buried beneath the surface of Coruscant and used as a prison. In the climax, an X-wing pilot escapes from the prison, so the villain breaks through the city with Lusankya to get away before he can lead New Republic forces back to it.

The Star Wars fan film made me so insanely happy, just because it was so good. Also, the Super-Class SSD is the Lusankya, from the Michael Stackpole X-wing series.

Sam was killing it in this one. the cloud part was some crazy attention to detail.

Hey Corridor Crew! It really is just one guy who made all of the X-Wing film!! And he spent YEARS on it, working just from his own computer at home! (Though his friends did help with the acting. 😁)

2:03 Just as a bit of trivia, flying through the logo is almost certainly a reference to the original X-Wing flight sim from the early 90s, which did roughly the same thing with its logo.

The sliding elf def feels like an old bug I ran into during my thesis project in 07, and that's related to old school Maya 7 and below. I had something around 100 soldiers instanced i,n using at the time, the wonky instance import tool, and every so often during render, one soldier didn't take the animation that was imported, but all 99 or so others, just fine, despite on the dope sheet, and graph, showing that there was indeed data animation. Probably something related to Maya's way of handling memory and maths.

The X-Wing short is based, in part on the X-Wing novels by Michael Stackpole, in particular, when the New Republic captures Coruscant, and the SSD Luskanya launches and escapes.

My moment to shine has finally come, I actually found a glitch in Polar Express before this video came out! Okay so near the end of the movie when the elves are helping the kids out of Santa's sack, the shot pans back and they didn't render the kids in that shot so you just see elves miming the actions of helping someone out of the sack.

I'm so glad you guys covered Polar Express again😊 Ive been studying this movie for ages cos I find it so fascinating. There are actually quite a few glitches in Polar Express. Sometimes the characters "twitch" slightly as a result of noisy data being applied to the rigs/blending between performance capture beats. In the ice scene during the first closeup of the ice breaking, some of the ice particles remain static while the large chunks underneath move- most likely misjudged timing when that particular sim was baked. There's also a scene where the lonely boy finds his present. In the shot where the camera pans over to the label on it, the boy has no performance capture data applied to him, so he just sits still like a statue. Hope that helps🤟

I swear that Star Wars scene was based on the X-Wing novels. It looks like the Lusankya escaping Coruscant. I could be wrong though.

Warrior Nun has some awesome VFX! My favorite would be S2E1 the amazing Lilith fight!

X-Wing is perplexing. It's like the animator heard about this iconic scene from the X-Wing series from their friend but didn't read it themselves. There were only two star destroyers to defend the planet because they had unleashed a virus on the non-humans and planned on abandon it to the New Republic. The books makes it clear that you CANNOT jump to hyperspace from a gravity well, something that was ignored here and in recent Star Wars movies. Still an impressive work and I'd hope to see more like it.