Star Ship Polaris

[Vektor]

Looks pretty clean to me, although there are a number of parts missing like the lander modules, the maneuvering thrusters and various greebles. I assume those were deliberately left out of the rendering for some reason. From what I can see, the panel lines appear to be smoothed coorectly. Did they come in that way or did you have to tweak them?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I worked that out based on our discussions here - very high smoothing for most surfaces, with low or no smoothing for the trenches.

It's a very efficient way of doing things, but frankly requires more detailed planning in the modeling process than I'm used to. Now that I know it, I have managed to put it to work on some of the new detailing for Saladin, though.

After converting it I'm surfacing and reassembling the model a few parts at a time. So there are many missing parts right now.

I'm working on getting a little "plasma" thing going for the drive spheres.

[Vektor]

You know what I thought would cool for those drive spheres, just a hint of a boiling water effect. If I recall Aridas' original concept correctly, there were supposed to be swarms of artificial singularities winking in and out of existence inside the spheres. I even thought of taking some video of a pot of boiling water to create an animated texture for them, probably combined with some plasma or energy streamer effects, but I never got around to it.

[Redfern]

Kind of a quantum lava lamp?

I know; I know. What you describe is far more energetic, but that was the thing thing that popped into my mind when reading your post.

Seriously, that would be a d*mn wicked effect if realized.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Vektor]

There's a scene in the script where the engineering section appears in the background of an on-screen communication, so I decided to see what I could come up with design-wise. With apologies to Aridas Sofia for once again diverging from his original design, here's my take on what the main engineering section might look like in cross-section:



There are several important things going on here:

I've located engineering further toward the aft end of the ship, closer to the main engines and the aft "toroidal loop interconnect." Early on I posited a large ring or loop within the saucer that intersects the connecting conduit between the drive spheres at two points. I had the vague idea that this loop is the main component of a toroidal fusion reactor for generating most of the ship's power, and that it is also connected directly to the FTL drive system. There would also be a power distribution manifold located dead center of the central sphere between the tips of the two lander modules, branching out at the four 45 degree angles as suggested by the details on the outer hull. And, of course, there would be another toroidal loop interconnect toward the front of the ship. All of this started from Aridas' original concepts and cross-sections, but I've taken some considerable creative license with it to try to reconcile all of the exterior modeling work.

I'm taking advantage of some of the space outside the central fuselage for various purposes. Engineering extends into the main engine pylons to port and starboard and also into the saucer area both ventral and dorsal. I've also modified the original concept of zero-gee transit tubes. Instead of two staggered shafts within the fuselage, I'm using four just outside the fuselage where it intersects with the saucer. Two of these tubes are elevator lifts and the other two are switchback gangways. Given that this ship has the ability to land on its tail on a planet's surface, I thought these made more sense. They would be easier to build and film as practical sets, should the opportunity ever arise. And they're no longer taking up valuable space within the fuselage.

This isn't absolutely final, but I'm fairly happy with the direction it's headed.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I like this, but I think I should send you a temp composite that Maurice did to give you a sense of how the shot's laid out and what we need to be going on in that angle.

[Vektor]

I actually have an email half-written asking for exactly that. I look forward to seeing it.

[Maurice]

Vektor wrote:

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I actually have an email half-written asking for exactly that. I look forward to seeing it.

Dennis: send an email to Vektor and me and I can send him reference for just about anything he needs.

As I recall, we discussed steering hard to port from anything that looked like a Star Trek type warp core/intermix/shaft.

[Vektor]

So I started working on some design ideas for the engineering section, using an actual greenscreen background plate (or foreground plate in this case) from the production. This was my first concept, derived from the earlier cross-sectional sketch, with a heavy dose of Trek warp core/intermix shaft thrown in:



As it turns out, the Trek overtones were not what Dennis and the gang wanted to go with for this, which was fine. I'm nothing if not adaptable. This morning I sat down and started working on round two, blending in some elements from an unused Forbidden Planet set they had been using as a temporary backdrop, and generally trying to get away from the central warp core look. I took screen shots throughout the day and thought I'd go ahead and post the progress so far for your viewing enjoyment. This design hasn't been approved yet so it's likely some changes will be in order, perhaps even another concept entirely, but it's going to make a good addition to my portfolio either way.








And finally, here's a version that's been cropped to something more like they would actually use for this particular shot:



Please note that this had only progressed to the underpainting stage with nearly all of the original linework still visible. To fully complete this, I would do a further paintover, removing the linework entirely and polishing the entire piece extensively. I think this is about as far as I'm taking it at the moment, however, until I get some official feedback.

[sojourner]

Is that a binary clock from Thinkgeek on that set piece?

Oh, great art as usual Vektor!

[Maurice]

sojourner wrote:

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Is that a binary clock from Thinkgeek on that set piece?

Oh, great art as usual Vektor!

It's a modified TIX clock. There's always been some plans to overpaint the console face and make some of those quickly-added plant-ons look more integrated. In fact, the metal pipes coming out of the console are paint-ins I did as a test.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yeah, I like this. This is basically it.

The monitor designs carrying over from the Command Deck set help sell it as stylistically similar to the rest of the ship.

[dayxday1000]

Is that a Star Trek: Enterprise communicator stuck on the console?

[Vektor]

I was struck by something in this image:



At first glance, you don't see the arch and the ceiling structure, making the room seem more open and expansive. I rather like that effect and I think I'm going to try to do something more with it. I'm not getting rid of the arch but I may try to widen it a little or possibly create openings in the spaces between the girders.

I'm also trying a different configuration for the hub control stations based on some email exchanges that have been going on. Instead of the floating flat screens in a wrap-around arrangement, I'm doing something more like the control stations on the bridge, but I'm keeping the round gauge displays.

More updates later today.

[Maurice]

I like seeing more of the ceiling.

Seeing how you've sketched in the portions of the figured out of camera range gives me an idea: why not have the kneeling guy NOT be kneeling, but have some open panels in the floor and he's standing down amongst all the pipes and crap under the floor (grillwork?) That way we could scale down the live action photography and see much more of the room. (This shot is our first look at this room, so it's a perfect place to go wider.)