Star Ship Polaris

[sojourner]

Oh, I like that! The big pipes are nice and you still manage to make it not look like a brewery. One suggestion maybe. Continue the overhead beam with the red lighting past the column and on into the core structure. It'll tie the live action area into the cgi backdrop better.


The bridge looks nice. Are those all lcd screens that we can see or are some of them static backlit plates?

[Patrickivan]

sojourner wrote:

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I haven't seen any pics of the bridge, but the physical console in the above pics looks very solidly TOS Trek to me with maybe a hint of ST:Ent.

Thought it was just me too. Including the command deck being very TOS and the uniforms having a 50's vibe.

It's funny though because the exterior of the ship just looks amazing and completely non-trek.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Oh yeah, I like the feeling of that design. Crowded.

The Command Deck set used a combination of LCDs and backlit graphics. The lighting guys spent some time getting the illumination balanced so that it's not so easy to pick out the difference at a glance. And then there are times when we replace a static graphic with an animation in post.

I definitely wanted an old-fashioned look to the set - physical buttons and switches, etc.

[USS Intrepid]

Nice work on the engineering deck. Certainly fits the feel of the thing, at least from my rather limited perspective.

[Vektor]

Another step closer. I'm starting to work on some depth cues and making the separate elements more cohesive.

[Vektor]

In case anyone is wondering, the gap above the console the middle crewman is working at is going to be filled with a flat-screen display, and there will be another on the back side of it facing toward the center of the engine room, which you'll be able to see on the far side just over his left shoulder. The display graphics from the previous concepts will be reused here, including the round monitors. I think we've captured the gritty mechanical ambiance, now it's time to tech it up a bit.

[Maurice]

Can you sketch over the console a bit? I'd like to see what you'd do if it were a blank slate.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Seconded.

[Vektor]

Okay, I'll see what I can do.

[Venardhi]

You might find this helpful in your texturing efforts: http://quixel.se/ddo/

[USS Mariner]

All this just makes me even more irritated that my new Wacom Bamboo Pen still doesn't play nice with my laptop. Grrr.

As for Vek's work, HNNNNNNNG.

BTW Maurice & Dennis, I'm still available for any VO work or bits you might need. I figured you have all the principal stuff done by now, but I'm still willing to lend a hand, erm, song.

[Maurice]

We have a lot of background chatter on the command deck coming through intercoms and stuff. We've already got Erik Braa (demo reel here) doing a lot of voice work, but he won't cover all of it, so I'll keep you in mind.

[Vektor]

More progress. I've omitted the foreground consoles for the moment because I'm in the process of redesigning them and I wanted to showcase the stuff in the background anyway.



This is getting pretty close to where I want it. Still have a fair amount of polishing to do and a number of details left to add, but I'm happy with the overall look.

Funny how this stuff works. Earlier this afternoon I was fussing with this thing, trying to balance the values and just make it look halfway decent, and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. I was getting downright discouraged in fact. Then somewhere along the line it just sort of came together, more or less. I think adding the floor texture really helped, made it seem more like a complete space.

Anyway, more to come before the weekend is out.

[Maurice]

Vektor wrote:

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Now that's the stuff!

We can imagine there's a big-old space boiler/reactor/whatever in the middle there, buried behind the consoles and other equipment. It feels like an engine room instead of a lava lamp.

I kinda want there to be a few ladders in there to let the engineers climb up and bang on the pipes and junk above.

re the consoles: When putting the buttons on the consoles I came up with certain rules to make them feel real and not a jumble of colored lights. As in the image below, we tended to make banks, rows and columns out of a single color. Sometimes we'd have two or three of one color with a single different color on the end, as if the identically colored ones are mode selectors and the differently colored end one is an activator switch (I've designed my fair share of user interfaces for games, so I have a good sense for what appears to be practical and designed).

Each station had three sections. The leftmost one, with the silvery boxes with the flip-up covers, were intended to be intercoms, with controls for the various monitors just below the silver boxes.

CLICK TO EMBIGGEN!

[Vektor]

The console buttons in the illustration above are actually lifted right from the set photos you guys have posted on Facebook, though I did partly rearrange them back when I was planning for this console to be manned by a single technician rather than two.

They're only temporary at the moment, though I will probably take advantage of that nice big image you just posted to steal some better quality versions for the final.