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Favourite Warp Effect...

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^ Of course no one can say for sure. But I seem to recall reading somewhere that there was some actual scientific thought put into the warp display from TMP. Of course it was designed to be visually impressive and to showcase the fact that the visual effects were exponentially better than TOS. But, at the same time, I recall that each part of the "light show" had a specific rationale.

Now if only I could remember where I read that. The Okuda text commentary for TMP:DE perhaps? Anyone know?
 
You might want to dig through old issues of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS magazine. There are a couple that have concept art by the original (fired) VFX team on TMP. Their concept for the warp effect involved a sustained ripple between the inboard grills of the two nacelles, plus a sort of bubble around the ship that manifested primarily as a distortion of the star background.

It sounded both complex and subtle, and would have required shooting two differently sized Enterprises (one of them a black miniature with fiber optics strung between the engines) lined up in perfect synch to get the inboard effect to matte itself as the ship moved through the shot, but if they'd pulled it off it might have been awesome.

Are there concept drawings/renderings of this somewhere? I would love to see this idea realized. Just to see it.
 
You might want to dig through old issues of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS magazine. There are a couple that have concept art by the original (fired) VFX team on TMP. Their concept for the warp effect involved a sustained ripple between the inboard grills of the two nacelles, plus a sort of bubble around the ship that manifested primarily as a distortion of the star background.

It sounded both complex and subtle, and would have required shooting two differently sized Enterprises (one of them a black miniature with fiber optics strung between the engines) lined up in perfect synch to get the inboard effect to matte itself as the ship moved through the shot, but if they'd pulled it off it might have been awesome.

Are there concept drawings/renderings of this somewhere? I would love to see this idea realized. Just to see it.

I've never seen them online, just in the mag, which I cut up over 20 years ago to illustrate a book proposal. The artist is identified differently in each issue, as either Dick Friesen or Dick Crewson, and the source for the comments is Andy Probert and/or that Paul Hewitt guy who did all the trailblazing for improving AMT models.
 
it doesn't look like what you think a realistic warp field might look like.

For some reason, this sentence just blows my mind! :lol:

Ok, I admit that didn't come out right :lol:

Let's just say if warp drive technology was actually created and you could see a ship go into warp, would we see a light show like in TMP, or would be more like in NU Trek or TNG?

I'm pretty sure THE LAST STARFIGHTER's starcar going FTL is as close to the scientific projection as we've seen thus far. Ron Cobb worked very specifically from scientific extrapolation (funny, given the movie has no science behind it at all except in how he engineered the gunstar with proper center of gravity and all that.)
 
I've actually always thought that the most "realistic" warp effect would be a ship simply entering a pitch black tunnel with a small dot of light at one end (it's origin point) and a small dot of light at the other (it's destination point). It's not very dramatic or visually interesting, but I think a ship moving faster-than-light or through subspace would actually be moving through a totally empty zone.
 
You might want to dig through old issues of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS magazine. There are a couple that have concept art by the original (fired) VFX team on TMP. Their concept for the warp effect involved a sustained ripple between the inboard grills of the two nacelles, plus a sort of bubble around the ship that manifested primarily as a distortion of the star background.

It sounded both complex and subtle, and would have required shooting two differently sized Enterprises (one of them a black miniature with fiber optics strung between the engines) lined up in perfect synch to get the inboard effect to matte itself as the ship moved through the shot, but if they'd pulled it off it might have been awesome.

Are there concept drawings/renderings of this somewhere? I would love to see this idea realized. Just to see it.
There's this TMP concept art, from The Art of Star Trek:
warp_energy_arc.jpg
 
That is the coolest looking lounge.

And it's view of the nacelles looks sweet. It would have been cool to see what all of that would have looked like.


I'm trying to find a clip of the warp from the Last Starfighter to see what it compared.

I think Star Wars's hyperspace jump looks cool and realistic if you had to imagine what it would like. The problem is, it looks cool from the cockpit, but boring from the outside.


28safba.jpg
 
You might want to dig through old issues of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS magazine. There are a couple that have concept art by the original (fired) VFX team on TMP. Their concept for the warp effect involved a sustained ripple between the inboard grills of the two nacelles, plus a sort of bubble around the ship that manifested primarily as a distortion of the star background.

I would have liked to have seen that.
 
You might want to dig through old issues of ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS magazine. There are a couple that have concept art by the original (fired) VFX team on TMP. Their concept for the warp effect involved a sustained ripple between the inboard grills of the two nacelles, plus a sort of bubble around the ship that manifested primarily as a distortion of the star background.

It sounded both complex and subtle, and would have required shooting two differently sized Enterprises (one of them a black miniature with fiber optics strung between the engines) lined up in perfect synch to get the inboard effect to matte itself as the ship moved through the shot, but if they'd pulled it off it might have been awesome.

Are there concept drawings/renderings of this somewhere? I would love to see this idea realized. Just to see it.
There's this TMP concept art, from The Art of Star Trek:
warp_energy_arc.jpg

Which had they been able to do the scene mighta looked a bit like this...

1835215658_cc8e0beb59_o.jpg
 
I've said before that the Abrams warp "tunnel" is reminiscent of quantum slipstream and similar drives in Voyager, and I've no problem with that. The tunnel is growing on me. But after rewatching the movies, it just dawned upon me...

1. Let's assume, for the sake of the question, that the alt. universe uses the same warp scales as Voyager (more or less, as long as it takes decades to return to the Federation at high warp)

2. At such scales and given stardates and times between episodes, it's not uncommon for Voyager to be at warp for days or even weeks non-stop

3. There are whole scenes on the nuEnterprise bridge where, while the ship is at warp, the bridge lights dim, the whitish-blue hue from the warp tunnel fills the bridge, there's an audible hum, and the viewscreen/windshield constantly shows the hypnotic tunnel passing by

3. Seriously, that tunnel can get really hypnotic

So question: could you imagine if Voyager spent days or weeks in that warp tunnel, with the crew looking at the tunnel the entire time? How long would they look before shutting off the viewscreen for their own sanity? What about the rest of the ship?
 
I think I like the Abrams ones best for the raw power of the jump to warp (I don't even mind the pixie dust) - but I have a lot of nostalgia love for the TMP effect because it was such an unexpected "holy shit" moment watching that for the first time in a theater in 1979.
 
The coolest thing about the 2009 and 2013 warp effect is that it's actually pretty old-school in that they're digitally emulating a "trombone"/Vertigo shot where the camera is moved at the same time a zoom lens is operated. Seriously, you could have done the "stretch" part on TOS.
 
I've said before that the Abrams warp "tunnel" is reminiscent of quantum slipstream and similar drives in Voyager, and I've no problem with that. The tunnel is growing on me. But after rewatching the movies, it just dawned upon me...

1. Let's assume, for the sake of the question, that the alt. universe uses the same warp scales as Voyager (more or less, as long as it takes decades to return to the Federation at high warp)

2. At such scales and given stardates and times between episodes, it's not uncommon for Voyager to be at warp for days or even weeks non-stop

3. There are whole scenes on the nuEnterprise bridge where, while the ship is at warp, the bridge lights dim, the whitish-blue hue from the warp tunnel fills the bridge, there's an audible hum, and the viewscreen/windshield constantly shows the hypnotic tunnel passing by

3. Seriously, that tunnel can get really hypnotic

So question: could you imagine if Voyager spent days or weeks in that warp tunnel, with the crew looking at the tunnel the entire time? How long would they look before shutting off the viewscreen for their own sanity? What about the rest of the ship?
The way TNG-era warp acceleration looks from inside, with a tunnel-like blue blur, flash and then cut to streaking stars, I've wondered if maybe it "really" looks as it does in the new movies and the streaking stars is a holographic illusion, something easier on the eyes.


Then again, he Destiny in Stargate Universe had a similar warp effect going on 90% of the time, and they kept mostly sane.
 
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