Donny's TOS Enterprise Interiors
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
Night shift! So I experimented with some more dramatic lighting, keeping closely to what we see in "Elaan Of Troyius", and I think I'm digging it better than the fully-lit "day shift" lighting. Thoughts?
Also, finished up the Emergency Manual Monitor, including the wall we never get to see in the series (in true TOS fashion, made up of recycled set pieces)
Also, finished up the Emergency Manual Monitor, including the wall we never get to see in the series (in true TOS fashion, made up of recycled set pieces)
Always wondered where that latter went downstairs. Do you have that area modeled?
It's just an empty room currently
Sorry...meant ladder. Weird autocorrect error.
I mean no disrespect in saying this, because your modeling skills are phenomenal and your attention to the sets as designed is admirable. But having stood on the New Voyages/Phase II engineering set, I can say from first hand observation that the intentional distortions on the Engineering set they built are so apparent and bizarre that the whole space comes off as some kind of a weird, fun house creation. The distorted set was meant to give the impression of great size when filmed with a certain lens. I wouldn’t change a thing about this CGI model because it is of the set. But if someone were trying to build Engineering as a space to walk in versus one to film in, it would be significantly smaller in some parts (most notably the M/AM enclosure in the middle of the room), and bigger in other parts (the entire left side when facing the core). That was done to give the impression of added depth.
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I've been curious about something that I just remembered seeing these latest images. Your gumdrop-buttons have a glow set to them based on angle-of-incidence, so no matter the angle, the edge is always brighter and the center is always darker. I'd expect them to be set the other way around, since the lightbulb in the button would be in the middle of it. Unless you're thinking the buttons are backlit from a large single element and the center is where the switch goes, so that'd be blocking the light.
Also, I do love the dimmer, more colorful lighting.
Also, I do love the dimmer, more colorful lighting.
If you'll notice in this shot of the transporter console, you'll see that the jeweled resin buttons glow around the edges and are darker in their center. I was just replicating how things looked on the show. I surmise that this is because many were not lit individually, and groups of them were lit by a single light source inside their consoles.
I take it on a case-by-base basis though. If we see in the show that the opposite is true and a light is more lit in the center and dark around the edges, I'll make it look that way. It's just the resin buttons mostly looked this way. I take care to get all those little details right.
Since my respectful observation inspired such an erudite response from the members limited to memes as a form of expression, I will point out that I would not have wasted my time, as they have done, to type up a comment for anything other than a constructive purpose. The model is stunning. But as I noted, it is of a set that was built to give the impression of much greater size. If this is meant to reflect the set it is perfect. If it is meant to reflect what the set was designed to represent, the lenses that were used to film it would need to be taken into account. Doug Drexler told me what those lenses were but I don’t recall what he said.
I’ve followed the thread but I do not remember if you mentioned taking these things into account, Donny. If you did, great. If not, you may want to. In any event, if you want to avoid misunderstanding my intent, as the Meme Boys have done, take it as a high compliment sprinkled with whatever informed advice I can offer.
I didn't take offense at all, @aridas sofia! To be honest, as much as I am in love with the TOS sets, they are far from perfect in regards to many aspects of design. As I built my engine room set I became more aware than ever of it's flaws than I had as a starry-eyed boy seeing the set on the small screen and in random TOS-centric books at the library.
I appreciate your input, so thank you. However, my number one goal is to replicate the sets as close as possible to how they existed in the real-world and then filling in the blanks around where the walls didn't really exist, to give the illusion that they are on board a real starship.
If that’s your goal Donny, you may want to talk with Doug Drexler about what lens was used to film this set. It may be possible, using a knowledge of that lens, to work backwards to what size engine room they were trying to portray.
Speaking of those plans, here they are! I'd talked about this idea earlier, but I'm not going to dig up the exact post
I wanted to incorporate the wall-mounted pull-out blueprint cabinet we see in "The Devil In the Dark" into the wall of the chief engineer's office we see in "Elaan of Troyius". Here it is in "The Devil In the Dark":
And here's my rendition, added to the engineer's office. I've got Matt Jefferies original Enterprise blueprints on display here. I only have it set to pull this one blueprint out when interacted with, as I'm not about to throw together 36 different blueprints of the Enerprise and it's many components. Ha. I think this one will do for demonstration purposes. Maybe I'll add more later. I'll also add the little wall-mounted data-tape interface we see in the sickbay examination room (see screen below) next to the cabinet once I've modeled the interface. This will sell the idea that any of these hard-copy blueprints could be recorded onto a data tape and then pulled up on any terminal on the ship.
Oh, here's the wall-mounted data-card interface I plan on modeling tomorrow and adding near the blueprint cabinet. You can see it right below the display panel behind McCoy:
Hell, while you're at it, put the Galactica in there too. 
Serenity too.Hell, while you're at it, put the Galactica in there too.
