Yes, another TOS Constitution reboot

[Professor Moriarty]

I do like a metallic looking hull, but SNW hull paneling looks way to uneven in my opinion, making it look dirty and amateurly built:

It’s the one thing that I really detest about the SNW-E. When La’An and Una walked the hull in “Spock Amok”, I kept thinking aaaaahgghhh as I saw how deeply segmented and uneven the hull surface was. To my eye it doesn’t read as “realistic”… it reads as “Starfleet used the lowest bidder for welding those hull panels ”

 

[Tom Servo]

Ha, so it's funny, I was the compositor and did the look development of those shots of the SNW Enterprise in the orbit of Kiley, including the example in Hunter-G's last post, and I can tell you that the SNW Enterprise CG model can be pretty sensitive to having its paneling be....overly contrasty...for the lack of a better term. I was fighting it the whole time doing during the development of those shots. Its a metallic shader (and honestly a really lovely model up close) that if it isn't perfectly dialed in can have the individual panels pop a bit too much.

The studio that did Episode 10 of SNW Season 1, (the Balance of Terror Redux), I believe they are called Storm Studios, they got the model in a place where I think it looks the best. Every studio has to go through its own ingest and shader network build to match to the clients baseline lookdev of the model, and you naturally just ends up with slight variations...especially if you're building for different render engine. I'm not sure if they were told to match closer to the TOS Enterprise hull in that episode since its supposed to be the TOS setting. It's still metallic, but they got the balance right. Also keep in mind that they do a fair amount of color correction on these shots after the VFX is done on them, so when I was doing my work setting it up, she doesn't have quite such contrasty paneling as she does in the final shot. But that is the look that the VFX heads of the newer shows like, so we need to match to that.

This is the Storm Studios reel. They did some really great work. The shot of the Enterprise in the Comets tail is particularly nice.

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[Tosk]

I can tell you that the SNW Enterprise CG model can be pretty sensitive to having its paneling be....overly contrasty...for the lack of a better term.

That's pretty much my only complaint about the SNW Ent, so I for one immensely appreciate your efforts to mitigate it.

 

[Macintosh]

I do like a metallic looking hull, but SNW hull paneling looks way to uneven in my opinion, making it look dirty and amateurly built:

It’s the one thing that I really detest about the SNW-E. When La’An and Una walked the hull in “Spock Amok”, I kept thinking aaaaahgghhh as I saw how deeply segmented and uneven the hull surface was. To my eye it doesn’t read as “realistic”… it reads as “Starfleet used the lowest bidder for welding those hull panels ”

The heavy hull panelling on the 4ft Enterprise-D model had the same issue. Given the enormous size of the Galaxy-class some of these panels must be several inches out of alignment to be this obvious.

I remember first noticing this as a kid watching "Yesterday's Enterprise" and thinking it was some clever decals that had been applied to the shooting model to suggest extra armour plating in the alternative timeline. Alas...

 

[publiusr]

We’ll call that the Dominion War upgrade

 

[Kaelef]

I appreciate the comments guys!

I absolutely love the Kubrick-2001-remincient material (colors? tone?) of this Enterprise, but I'm curious if you ever tried giving it that pearlescent paint job of the TNP Enterprise. Not sure it would work, but I'm kind of hungry for a whole set of Starfleet vessels done in that style. (We never got to see the Reliant with that look since they'd given up on that paint job by the time of TWoK.)

 

[137th Gebirg]

Such an amazing piece of artwork. A shame ILM "adjusted" the paint job for filming on TWOK.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

The heavy hull panelling on the 4ft Enterprise-D model had the same issue. Given the enormous size of the Galaxy-class some of these panels must be several inches out of alignment to be this obvious.

I remember first noticing this as a kid watching "Yesterday's Enterprise" and thinking it was some clever decals that had been applied to the shooting model to suggest extra armour plating in the alternative timeline. Alas...

I remember reading an interview in Starlog magazine where the modelers said they added the exaggerated panel detailing so that it’d be more visible on the low-rez TV sets of the early 90s. They um… overdid it a tidge.

Oh and BTW those TMP refit photos are Daren Dochterman’s superlative LightWave Enterprise.

 

[blssdwlf]

Oh and BTW those TMP refit photos are Daren Dochterman’s superlative LightWave Enterprise.

I thought the bottom picture of the TMP Enterprise is the filming model?

 

[Tallguy]

I thought the bottom picture of the TMP Enterprise is the filming model?

It's the TMP model with the original bridge. (I forget the whole story there.)

 

[Macintosh]

I remember reading an interview in Starlog magazine where the modelers said they added the exaggerated panel detailing so that it’d be more visible on the low-rez TV sets of the early 90s. They um… overdid it a tidge.

This is why the one true Galaxy-class will now and forever be the 6ft model... but that's a whole other argument for a whole other thread!