@Professor Moriarty The restoration has it as SPCR 48A MK 12B 80 5621 You can see the letters at 7:04 in the video below. I went and visited Space Center Houston a couple of years ago and unfortunately the shuttle was somewhere else
Also at 0:42 and 0:43 you can see the letters on the port side red panel under the port "wing". Nice find @BK613!
Awesome. Since the camera will be getting close enough to the Jefferies (the name I picked for the shuttle Matt Decker commandeers to his doom) that you’ll be able to read details like this, I didn’t want to use “joke signs” like there currently are on my Enterprise. Thanks guys!
Those have to be someone’s initials, surely. Perhaps the initials of the artisans who built the Galileo prop?
Interesting. Looking at the plate again, there are two letters at the bottom left corner that reads as AP.
Dunno. But given that it's practically not readable in any episode I think @Professor Moriarty is free to put anything there on the panel.
Given that it doesn't match this lengthwise, I think the new version somehow references the restoration team. But that is just my speculation... https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x16hd/thegalileosevenhd557.jpg
Well I'm glad that's settled. So I had a pleasant discovery last weekend! While unpacking crates that haven't been opened since I sold my house in 2017, I found an old flash drive I thought I'd lost forever: the flash drive with the backups for all of my LightWave models circa 2006-2013... including my shuttlecraft, my workbee, and my hangar deck virtual set. YIPPEE!! Shuttlecraft Jefferies (2013 version, rendered this evening using the LightWave 2019 render engine) Hangar Deck, Shuttlecraft, and workbee (all 2013 versions, rendered this evening with the poky LW 2019 render engine and its ugly Monte Carlo interpolated radiosity... apologies for the splotchies ) So that's the good news. The bad news is that I was reminded tonight why I gave up this project in frustration back in 2013--even with my high-powered workstation that I built less than two years ago, LightWave is still pig-slow when rendering images with radiosity. That single 1080p frame of the hangar deck took nearly 42 minutes for LightWave to render, and it's still an ugly, blotchy mess. God that thing sucks. Easy enough to fix, though; I'll just reskin the hangar deck and workbee models with Octane-compatible materials and they should render lightning-fast (and without LightWave's swirling blotches and fireflies that drove me insane eight years ago). Shuttlecraft Jefferies is a different story, though; I'd forgotten how inaccurate the model was. And I'm not talking about the texturing (although the materials are definitely off). Nope, there are basic geometry problems all over the place: The port and aft "shell" sides of the hull are the same thickness at all points, which is wrong. The life-size prop (and the visual effects miniature) has a thicker hull at the "waistline" at the aft end of the hull vs. the width of the shell at the top and bottom (where the shell curls inward). The trailing edge of each winglet (the stubby protuberances above each warp nacelle) should be flush with the aft end of the hull. On my 2013 model, the winglets end approximately 10 cm forward of that point, which is wrong. The winglets themselves are thicker at the aft end where they meet the hull and taper down in thickness at the rear. On my 2013 model, the winglets are the same thickness fore to aft and outboard to inboard. The forward strut that connects each warp nacelle to its winglet should be flush with the leading edge of the winglet, and the aft strut's trailing edge should be flush with the trailing edge of the winglet. Neither are on my 2013 model. The corrugated cowling at the aft end of each warp nacelle should be corrugated both outside and inside the cowling. On my 2013 model, only the outside of each cowling is corrugated; the inside of each assembly is smooth, which is wrong. The forward landing gear pads (just aft of the domes at the front end of each warp nacelle) are completely incorrect shape-wise. The metal part of the aft center landing gear pad is the wrong shape; it should be an X-shaped assembly (on my 2013 model it's more like a capital letter I having a three-way with two capital L's). Also, the pad is oriented in the wrong direction; it's about the right size but it should be turned 90˚. The top of the impulse engine should be flush with the top of the hull and slightly inset from the port and starboard inboard sides of the hull "shell", but it should look like it's part of the hull. On my 2013 model, the impulse engine was a completely separate assembly; there are large gaps on the left and right sides and a visible gap between the top of the hull and the start of the impulse engine. (I probably did it that way because it was easier to model.) The two bends in the aft hull should have a smaller radius than they do on my 2013 model. The "decals" for the shuttle's name, its registry, the red pennants, etc. all stick up from the surface way too far. The model has no interior. Whew! That's way too much to salvage, so I've decided to chuck it and start over. But to deal with all of those curves and bends and joints, I've also decided to try tackling this as my first completely sub-D'ed model. Not a model where I create parts that need to have curvy bits that I then "freeze", mind you... I'm keeping the entire model at its simple original polygon level, and will let OctaneRender do the subdividing on the fly at render time (Catmull-Clark algorithm). So far in test animations, I've been able to get away with only 1 level of subdivision unless I get really close to the hull, so the thing renders bloody fast. Shuttlecraft Jefferies W.I.P. (2021 model that uses Catmull-Clark subdivision surface modeling) I should have learned how to do this years ago. Before subdividing: 9,765 polygons Catmull-Clark subdivided wireframe preview mode in Modeler Wireframe of the aft landing gear pad (now with the correct X-shape) prior to activating sub-D preview Same view as above, but with sub-D preview turned on and Texture view. Love those gorgeous silky-smooth bevels, chamfers, and fillets! Once you get the hang of it it's not that hard, but there are definitely some weird things you have to do with the geometry to make things look good when subdivided that you'd NEVER do if you were doing a straight hard surface model. Simple example: triangles are the devil's pitchforks when you're sub-D modeling, especially with the Catmull-Clark algorithm and anything that will be a curved surface. Look at the curved edge of the landing pad in the wireframe closeup. I had to do something called "fixing poles" -- basically, I had to create a loop of triangles around the vertex formed by the inside radius of the edge of the landing pad, and then combine pairs of tri's to make quads. This ensures that when subdivided that all of the edges and vertices "flow" correctly. It definitely takes some practice and trial-and-error, but I'm getting there. I'm even learning how to create organic models with this technique, which is going to be useful for modeling the Doomsday Machine I've designed. Hopefully, when you see my take on the planet killer, you'll agree with poor Matt Decker: Right out of hell I SAW it!
Thanks ICYMI, here’s my workbee in TMP colors. This video was created in 2013 and is not the Octane version; I haven’t started reskinning this model yet.
Looks great @Professor Moriarty ! I agree about the LW native renderer. It was so unproductive waiting for the native engine to finish rendering so I'm very thankful that there are options like Octane. Good start on the sub-d modeling too