Matte versus Maquette

[WAMTNG]

Note: ignore 'maquette' in title... this should say 'model'.

Hailing frequencies open!
I am wondering if anyone can help me solve a mystery that has been perplexing me since I started writing WAMTNG.

As you may know, I'm putting out a weekly Substack newsletter focussing on the Words (W), Acting Roles (A), and Models (M) of TNG (everyone's welcome, and all 178 WAMs will be free, so please do subscribe! End shameless plug). As part of this process I have to examine some of the shots and the production history of the show in order to draw some conclusions.

Broadly speaking, I conclude that this image from "Code of Honor" was composited using a flat matte painting of the planet:

Now in "Home Soil", we see a planetary model as part of the prop set for the terraforming lab:

Firstly, does anyone know if this is the model used to shoot the opening orbital shots of this episode (presumably tinted red in post-production)?

And if so, when does the season one production team switch from using planetary matte paintings to models...?

Relatedly, where are these mattes and studio miniatures now? Why do we see so few behind the scenes images of these production materials...?

If the orbital shots from mid-season one onwards are shot with models, did they end up repainting the same model to save on costs (explaining why we don't see these props - they were being repurposed)...?

And if they were matte paintings, why do we never see these matte paintings today...?

There's a mystery here I haven't been able to solve on my own, so I wanted to put out a distress call and see if there were any starships in the area who can help.

Thanks in advance for any information (or speculation) on this topic!

WAMTNG

Updated 16/7/2022 to reflect Scotpens observation that I had misused the term 'maquette'.

 

[Christopher]

I have the impression that most TNG planets were flat paintings distorted to look spherical with a video effect, which is why they had to redo them for the HD release. I'm going from memory, though, so I can't confirm it.

Another technique that I think may have been used in some Trek productions (again, not certain of my memory) was to project flat paintings onto a white hemisphere. A similar technique was used in the film Starman to create the effect of the Barringer Meteor Crater reflecting off the mirrored sphere of the alien ship in the climax.

 

[scotpens]

Technically, a maquette is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture. In film and TV production, the term maquette generally means a preliminary scale model of a studio set. The planet model is a filming miniature.

 

[WAMTNG]

Technically, a maquette is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture. In film and TV production, the term maquette generally means a preliminary scale model of a studio set. The planet model is a filming miniature.

I did wonder about what the correct VFX terminology would be for something like this... I understood 'maquette' to refer to scale models of locations, whereas 'studio miniature' would refer more commonly to a vehicle or some such, where the scale is known. But the case of the planet struck me as ambiguous - if it is a model, it simply need not be a scale model because the size of the planet is ambiguous (which is not true for, say, a starship). Hence I thought 'maquette' might apply here because of the techniques used to build it were closer to building a scale model of a set. Although your implication is that you would never use maquette in the context of something that appeared on screen... which was not my previous understanding.

Thanks for clearing this up!

Although a lot of my questions remain, you just have to replace 'model' for 'maquette' in the piece above (I've edited it to say this):

Questions:
1. When does the season one production team switch from using planetary matte paintings to models...?
2. Where are these mattes and studio miniatures now? Why do we see so few behind the scenes images of these production materials...?
3. If the orbital shots from mid-season one onwards are shot with models, did they end up repainting the same model to save on costs (explaining why we don't see these props - they were being repurposed)...?
4. And if they were matte paintings, why do we never see these matte paintings today...?

 

[WAMTNG]

I have the impression that most TNG planets were flat paintings distorted to look spherical with a video effect, which is why they had to redo them for the HD release. I'm going from memory, though, so I can't confirm it. Another technique that I think may have been used in some Trek productions (again, not certain of my memory) was to project flat paintings onto a white hemisphere. A similar technique was used in the film Starman to create the effect of the Barringer Meteor Crater reflecting off the mirrored sphere of the alien ship in the climax.

This is one of the things I was wondering about... but then I saw the model in "Home Soil" and began to wonder if I was wrong. But again: if these were flat paintings distorted to look spherical, why no traces of the paintings now...? I'd expect them to survive as artefacts. Wouldn't you?

 

[WAMTNG]

I have the impression that most TNG planets were flat paintings distorted to look spherical with a video effect, which is why they had to redo them for the HD release. I'm going from memory, though, so I can't confirm it.

This image from the end of "Home Soil" lends weight to your claim that it's a video effect, as it goes wrong in this shot. This is clearly not a studio miniature in my view...