Indeed. And that's not even to begin to count the reused props, the uniforms and the like. Saving money? Thank you.
Those ships still look like they belong to the same Starfleet. Similar hull shading, similar nacelle design and colouring in most cases, registries in the same place with the same colour treatment, markings on the hull the same, escape pod colouring. Oh and that group didn't have the benefit of being designed by the same person. Unlike Discovery's Starfleet ships. Which is kind of important. One guy given the role of designing an entire new line of Federation starships, and he still can't get it right.
Those look like Akiras, anyone else see that? I can understand the models and meshes being twenty, thirty years old, but still. Just glean them as tribute from ST:O.
Well, seemingly one class with 2 or 3 different nacelle types. One wonders why they bothered doing that much for the short time they were onscreen. Admiral "Fucking" Clancy said squadron. If that's only a squadron, the fleet must be massive by now. It reminds me a little of the Franklin with a notch/shuttlebay.
As with most all of Picard, the Riker cavalry scene made me smile from ear to ear as it happened. Then about five minutes after the show ended I thought it was the stupidest thing I have ever seen. So Starfleet has a massive fleet in response range? They dont have any Flag officers, or active senior captains so they hand over fleet command to a guy who has been inactive for years...and wont know the tech at all? It’s a prime example of this series being a step away from fan fiction.
Defiant is an exception as she wasn't supposed to look like a traditional Starfleet ship (which you well know), and the background FC ships were low-poly space-fillers. They received exagerated textures the same way DS9's kitbashed background ships did, to better translate onscreen, and to be honest I'd say the Defiant-esque touches were there for a reason that doesn't take a genius to figure out. As for the Akira, its registry and overall aesthetic leaves it looking quite at ease next to other older designs such as the Pasteur, the Cheyenne, New Orleans, etc. How does it "not fit"? I have no idea where you got into your head that Voyager doesn't fit as an extrapolation of advancing TNG-era tech. Seems pretty disingenuous to claim it doesn't, when it was designed by the same guy that dealt with much of TNG's aesthetic. And you'll note that the Prometheus was also designed by Rick Sternbach, walking back from the Ent-E towards the Intrepid and thus eliminating some of Eaves' more ugly "design" cues while keeping various familiar elements. At the end of the day, this new fleet only fits in loosely even with some of the shoddier (and utterly non-canon) STO offerings. Both they and John Eaves really ought to learn that where SF ships are concerned, less is more. Clancy's squadron looking fuck-ugly is, sadly, no surprise...
Well, if the fire Eaves I'll hire him on. I like his work. I also like the ships that Riker led. Starfleet has such variety over the years so its nice to see them.
Okay.. I understand that with the plague going around that cgi people are working from there parents basement.. But.. I'd gladly wait an extra week for them to Finish the cgi to a good final finish.. That feddy ship is.. it's like.. They kinda finished the top of it.... And went meh on the bottom.. I'm guessing the did this in Maya.. I would have GLADLY have donated my aventine and Luna class models for them to use in a fleet shot.. ! That and the grim dark lighting and the the copper patina that looks like crap.. Owell.. I hope they go back and redo that fleet .. Ver 2.0 episode..
Well, I'm on the side of it's pretty ridiculous that the entire fleet is made up of the same ship, and it's the most advanced ship in Starfleet. It's obvious they ran out of time, money, or both. I'm also wondering if that's why we got two massive fleets staring at each other in a bland hondgepodge of CGI instead of a small number of high quality ships. We hardly even got a look at the new ships, which is pretty telling. Star Trek has never been shy about its starship porn. The bit of the design we did see looks reminiscent of the Vengeance to me.
Good for you. I started off by talking about a consistent design language. Something your examples all show. Unlike Eaves work. Very simple.
Unpopular opinion time (and I don't care if its wrong): One, I love the decrease level of starship porn in Picard. Yes, yes, I know-starships are a part of Star Trek-It's in the name fireproof! Right, but I'm not here for the starships. They are the icing on the cake. I'm here for characters, their changes and their development, including ones I don't like or don't agree with, like Picard. I have never liked Picard, so my being vested in him this season was surprising, to say the least. Furthering my unpopular opinion, no I don't consider the starships to be characters by themselves. The reason is very simple-they lack of personality that I find identifiable. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy them or find them beautiful. They are just not characters to me. Finally, as the icing on the unpopular cake, I like having diversity of starship design, even within Starfleet. I don't expect a 150+ member world group to have identical design aesthetics or even identical design language. I struggle with the fact that there is this need for sameness within a supposedly huge group. As always, mileage varies and probably does greatly here.
As a fan of ship porn I wish they had not used the in vogue darkness on the ships and bridges as I like to be able to see them but I dont understand people saying these dont fit into Fed design as to me they fit in fine with the designs we were starting to see around the launch of Soverign class ships
I would've hoped they might've bought some or all of the models Eaglemoss commissioned (assuming CBS doesn't have the rights to them automatically through Eaglemoss's Trek license). Even though most, if not all, of the Eaglemoss ships are done in Lightwave, and PIC's and DSC's CG is done in Maya, I'd think that they could convert two or three ready-made ships in the time it would take to model and texture one from scratch (indeed, many of the ships from the DSC pilot were originally built in Lightwave). Though, looking at that screencap, I might be overestimating how much time they'd take to build a ship from scratch. Well, hopefully they'll take advantage of the Eaglemoss library if they do a DS9 and/or VOY HD remaster. The CG for those shows was done in Lightwave, so it'd be a lot more straightforward to substitute in the more detailed models (and even introduce some more variety into the fleets by using ships they didn't have CG models of at the time, like the Ambassador, Oberth, or, hope of hopes, Constitution).
While those 3D models certainly leave something to be desired, it's interesting that once again Eaves essentially started off from an existing concept of his, from STO this time. The original concept is certainly more busy (and interesing IMO), but the general shape is identical. http://gaming.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/startrekonline/conceptart/concept18.jpg
Well some of the models are from Tobias Ricter, who dooes it in Maya.. He has a Enterprise d, a Luna class a probert Enterprise C.. A defiant, an excellcior.. Probably a nebula.. So many they could have used.. And yeah.. Eves loves to recycle his line art..