The Roddenberry Archive / OTOY
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
No, not yet.
I’ve been trying to understand the VR element. At the moment the preview videos just show the user viewing the environments through a virtual 2D screen, which seems to defeat the purpose of strapping a $3500 computer to your face. I think you can also view them in the so-called “spacial video” mode, but you’re just standing in a 3D box with no movement or interaction as I understand it.
The “killer app” for OTOY would be the ability to walk around and explore fully immersive virtual environments, but it seems like the technology just isn’t there yet?
I can see the obvious potential here - it won’t be that long before it becomes possible. But right now Apple are massively overhyping what the technology can do, and it’s very much a 1st gen product. It seems like other headsets can do the same thing at a much lower cost to the consumer, but the Roddenberry app will be locked into the Apple ecosystem.
So for now I think the standard desktop screen experience is definitely the way to go!
The “killer app” for OTOY would be the ability to walk around and explore fully immersive virtual environments, but it seems like the technology just isn’t there yet?
I can see the obvious potential here - it won’t be that long before it becomes possible. But right now Apple are massively overhyping what the technology can do, and it’s very much a 1st gen product. It seems like other headsets can do the same thing at a much lower cost to the consumer, but the Roddenberry app will be locked into the Apple ecosystem.
So for now I think the standard desktop screen experience is definitely the way to go!
There is a locally downloadable volume that gives you the best of both worlds - but we only finished it for the disco enterprise bridge:
https://x.com/julesurbach/status/1753480671975411970
We have 100 more of these to generate, but when finished, like this one sample you can try today in the app, they will give you 4k 90 fps navigable volume you can explore at doll house scale or as a 1:1 environment you can walk inside of. Vision pro doesn’t let you move in a full immersive mode more than 3 meters x 3 meters before fading out to real world. These light field cubes are made to fit exactly in this boundary.
That’s great, thanks Jules. The possibilities are quite exciting as the tech improves!
Are there programs a new designer can purchase to start their journey into graphic model design?
Assuming you are asking about the specific apps that were used in doing the virtual set recreations and ship models for this project: If I’m not mistaken @Donny is working in 3ds Max by Autodesk while both @Rekkert and @Serin117 use Blender. The former comes at a rather steep price point, while the latter is completely free to download and use. Both apps take a good amount of time to get decent at, but they are incredibly powerful and there’s dedicated, helpful communities and numerous tutorials for both.
Feel free to start a thread dedicated to your questions about these, should you have more, so as to not derail this one.
(* Hope I didn’t forget to mention one of our esteemed Trek BBS allumni who have been hired for this.)
I'm sure @Jules / OTOY would think it quite important that we remember a couple other key software packages, specifically, Octane, a cross-platform render engine, which can be used to create the final images in a variety of 3D programs, including the Unreal game engine, which is what the final, walk-around-and-interact version of the archive is implemented in. A big part of this project is demonstrating Octane, and it does a pretty good job of it.
Oh, definitely! And I’m sure the complete list of tools used is even longer than that. It just seemed to me like @STEPhon IT was specifically asking about which programs were used to design the 3D models.
Here is a recently released aid you can use for existing AI images:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/...nd-style-changes-for-ai-generated-images.html
The guys at sci-fi-meshes do it the hard way…but that’s for the best.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/...nd-style-changes-for-ai-generated-images.html
The guys at sci-fi-meshes do it the hard way…but that’s for the best.
Isn’t Apple’s Vision Pro more AR (or Mixed Reality) than VR? It wouldn’t necessarily be optimized for purely virtual immersion, would it? It might still work better than other VR headsets, but I don’t think that’s its primary purpose.
They like to claim it's AR, but all the reviewers say the reality is it's a VR headset.
You aren't seeing the actual world with your own eyes with displays overlaid. The whole thing is a virtual environment, albeit one that can closely mimic reality.
I wonder what will be next if there is next (a few I'd like to see):
TMP / TWOK Enterprise interiors such as engineering, sickbay, transporter room, etc. Maybe a TVH variation if what it might have looked like if they hadn't done that extensive reworking for TNG.
Enterprise-D sickbay
Enterprise-D battle bridge from "The Arsenal of Freedom." It's not totally the same as the pilot version; there are a few differences.
Enterprise-D cargo holds
Enterprise-D battle bridge from "Best of Both Worlds Part II."
TMP / TWOK Enterprise interiors such as engineering, sickbay, transporter room, etc. Maybe a TVH variation if what it might have looked like if they hadn't done that extensive reworking for TNG.
Enterprise-D sickbay
Enterprise-D battle bridge from "The Arsenal of Freedom." It's not totally the same as the pilot version; there are a few differences.
Enterprise-D cargo holds
Enterprise-D battle bridge from "Best of Both Worlds Part II."
^I'd definitely like to see some TMP and TWOK interiors. Also the Enterprise-D bridge from GEN, engineering for the Enterprise-E, the bridge and spore lab from Discovery, and the Defiant bridge we're more familiar with (how it appeared beginning with "Equilibrium"). One bit of added interactivity I'd love to see on the interiors is being able to go to Red Alert; I know this would mean extra work creating new animated displays on many of the sets, but for TOS and TNG sets it would (from my layman's perspective) be a bit simpler.
One thing I'm curious about, and maybe @Donny and/or @Rekkert can answer this for me...
I love the verisimilitude of having bridges where they used CRTs for the animated displays (the TWOK, TSFS, TFF, and TUC Enterprises, Reliant, Grissom, Excelsior, Enterprise-B, and Defiant) look like actual CRTs complete with the scan lines and curved screen surface. I'm curious why those bridges got the CRT treatment, but Voyager and the FC and INS Enterprise-E bridges don't look that way? What was the artistic decision-making process there?
I love the verisimilitude of having bridges where they used CRTs for the animated displays (the TWOK, TSFS, TFF, and TUC Enterprises, Reliant, Grissom, Excelsior, Enterprise-B, and Defiant) look like actual CRTs complete with the scan lines and curved screen surface. I'm curious why those bridges got the CRT treatment, but Voyager and the FC and INS Enterprise-E bridges don't look that way? What was the artistic decision-making process there?
I’m with you in that I love the realism the CRT monitors add to the set recreations. I think if you make them look more idealized and less imperfect it ends up not really feeling like the places these are supposed to represent. I feel the same about including the light falloff on the edges of okudagrams or the painted plywood texture that you see when you step close to the walls.
My suspicion for why we see different approaches on different virtual sets is that these were made by different artists, in some cases well before they were brought on board for the OTOY project and each one having a slightly different approach and sensibility. For example: as far as I’m aware, the Voyager set in the archive is based on the work by Daniel @brainbox, which he’s been working on for years. From watching his videos I get the impression he’s more interested in making the ship feel like a real, functioning place as opposed to recreating the sets. He’s obviously doing both, but there’s definitely an effort to fudge some details to make it all fit together better. So I guess that’s why he decided to have the screens look a little more perfect.
Speaking of CRTs, I love that whoever created the Promenade went to the effort of recreating the looping travel agency animation we see on the monitors. I have no idea how accurate they are to what they really had on the show, but they look pretty convincing.
Also, the wall graphics look fantastic and super accurate to me. Like this one that’s in an article @Jules / OTOY shared …
I'd really love to see the GEN Ent-D bridge. I need more reference materials of the changes they made, and there's so very precious little out there.
I'm having a weird bug with static noise being heard in the background while exploring the bridges. Any idea what this could be?
