It has been quite a while since I contributed a thread to this board, so here we go. I have long had a deep appreciation for Albert Whitlock's wonderful Star Trek matte paintings. My favorite is the Rigel Fortress, which has enchanted me since I was a boy. One of the things about it that has always caused me to wonder is this: What is the actual shape of the fortress depicted? Whitlock worked quickly, since his ST paintings were done on a television budget. There is no denying the emotional impact that the composition elicits in the viewer. But there are some very odd geometries incorporated into this structure. For one thing, we are obviously looking at it from a diagonal viewpoint; yet both gates depicted are oriented directly toward the viewer. The tower lined wall at the left visually extends along the shore, but it is also obviously in the foreground of the fortress structure, and as such, doesn't extend very far along the seaward (or lake-ward) side of the fortress. I decided to reconstruct the visible elements with 3D primitives to get an idea of exactly what this magical place would look like from other angles. This would also allow me to imagine what the rest of the structure might look like. Here is what I came up with. First, the original. I overlaid a clear scan of the initial sketch that Whitlock began with because it depicts the structure more clearly, without the added weathering of the final version. This I aligned over a more complete image of the actual finished painting so I could include all of the structure he depicted: Here is my reconstruction: One point to note right away is that the foreground is not all on one level. The lane that Pike and Vina run down is lower than the land to the right on the other side of the rocks. This is visible in the different left and right gate levels. In my reconstruction, I placed a higher plane on the right side of the image. It is only detectible, given the lighting in my render, in the split level of the structure between the gates. In the painting the middle row of rocks acts as something of a retaining wall. Now let's take a look at an overhead view: This is pretty much all of the structure that is visible in the painting. Notice that both gates are placed at a 45 degree angle from the cardinal lines of the fort. There is also the matter of the odd projecting area between them. I tried pretty hard to avoid this feature but it reflects what is visible in the painting. What is not visible are the two sides of the projecting walls, which are hidden by the taller and shorter towers at the corners. After thinking about this odd feature, a function suggested itself: The gates could be defended by the projecting wall, which would allow archers to shoot attackers in the back if they were attempting to break down the gates. There may also be a smaller, solid door in each central wall which opens into a guard room within this projection. Much safer to admit visitors in small numbers into an enclosed room where they can be searched and disarmed, rather than opening the main gates. Food for thought... Another interesting feature that popped out when making this model was that the tall central tower cannot be a square or rectangular shape. I began with this being a square tower, but I found that if I put a dome of the proper size on the top of it, the dome overhung the flat sides by quite a large amount. In order to have a dome wide enough to get as close to the corners of the tower when viewed diagonally, it was too large to fit the flat sides. Either the dome must be smaller than depicted, or the tower must be some other shape. Here is a version with a square tower, with a full sized dome. As you can see, it breaks out of the tower at the flat sides: The solution is an unorthodox one; although we must keep in mind this is an alien structure. By beveling the two sides seen in profile, the tower can be made large enough to support the depicted dome, while presenting the same visible width left to right. The bevels are undetectable from the matte viewpoint, since they are "around the corners" due to the perspective. Here is a close up showing this compromise, along with a matching bevel I added to the surrounding wall just to make it match: That is about as far as I got so far. Now to imagine the rest of the fortress. One rule I will try to follow: No additional structure added to what appears here must be visible from the matte painting viewpoint. M.
Fascinating. One thing: I'm surprised by how close the four spires on the left wall are. I get the impression that it's meant to have a similar spacing to the spires on the right-hand wall and to stretch further back; just eyeballing it, it looks like the far end of the shore wall is meant to be about as far back as the rear wall of the big tower. Is there a way to represent that in the 3-D model without changing the image perspective? You'd have to angle the wall inward, so it would converge toward the inner structure's wall rather than running parallel to it, but that could be justified as shaping the wall to fit the landscape. Also, in the gap between the shore wall and the tower, just in front of the moon and directly above the left-hand edge of the live-action gateway, I can see what looks like a bit of the top of a rear wall. That could help guide where to place it. I suppose the backlot location used for the interior of the fortress should be taken into account as well -- is there a way to integrate it into this structure? Hmm... I never noticed before, but there are rocky outcroppings inside the outer wall. So the area within the walls isn't level ground; the fortress is built on very uneven, hilly terrain, like a number of the buildings I know from the University of Cincinnati. It looks like the ground level on the far right side of the fortress is several stories higher than the ground level at the main gateway.
The spires on the left must be much closer together as per @MGagen's model. If you draw out lines to figure out the vanishing points that becomes really apparent. The artists don't spend a lot of time working all this stuff out to be architecturally consistent. I suspect the most one can usefully gleen from the Arab Village set is the entrance.
Hmm, yeah, I guess I see that with the height of the towers along the wall -- they don't diminish much in apparent size from front to back, so they can't be that far apart. Unless... maybe it's a zoom lens flattening the perspective? Although I guess you could assess the lens type from the footage of Pike and Vina. I was thinking of the interior scene where Pike fought the Kalar. Maybe I'm rushing ahead of the process, but once the exterior is worked out, the next step would be figuring out how to reconcile the interior with it. Although now that I look at the screencaps, it looks like that sequence was shot with tighter angles than I remembered, so there might not be a clear overview of the space and its geometry. Unless one could pinpoint it on the backlot and get photos or maps of that area.
Great work on an amazingly new topic of analysis. I hope for more matte scene analyses in the future. Missing items I noticed: the door and stair well coming down from the wall directly below the central square tower is missing. The stairs looks like they might take a 90 degree turn to get down to ground level since we can't see it through the open arch on ground level. There also seems to be missing a short wall extension between the right-most two round towers.
You can find the real thing on Google Maps or Google Earth easily enough, so it should be possible to plot it out in 3D. However, it wouldn't correspond to the geography of any of the fictional locations it was used to represent. I was there once, and the first time I saw "Arena" afterward, I could tell how much they faked the geography, shooting the same area from different angles to make it look like a larger area. If you mapped out what was presented onscreen as a character's continuous movement over the terrain, it would be multiple discontinuous segments jumping around the park, changing direction, and so forth. (The live-action The Flinstones movie with John Goodman did much the same. It built Fred's Bedrock neighborhood under the Vasquez cliff, and the opening scene where Fred and Barney are driving in a straight line for several minutes is actually going back and forth along the main road several times, and you can see the big cliff approaching and receding several different times during the sequence.)
I am surprised no one thought to “mirror image” the uplift—so as to make a pyramid with different layers of rock.
Thanks for all the comments. Yes, several details (like the stairs) are missing. This is just a rough layout with primitives as placeholders. My main objective was merely to aid myself in visualizing what the shape of the fortress depicted actually is. I don't know that I'll go so far as to completely model it. For one thing, I don't have a suitable terrain program. As has been pointed out, the rocky outcroppings not only surround the site, they are within the walls as well. As for the closeness of the spires on the left, their positions are dictated by the perspective. This project is easy to tackle because Whitlock opted for simple two point perspective. And he didn't get cute with odd angles. Everything fell out pretty much at 90 and 45 degrees. This is to be expected when working fast. I have begun trying to continue the enclosure without having it peak out around the details Whitlock depicted. Not an easy thing to do. The seaward (or lake-ward) wall has to fall back in stages to extend further without being seen from this viewpoint. and there can't be any spires on it, or they'd stick up into view. Regarding the body of water: I always thought of it as a sea, but upon recent consideration, I think it must be a lake. Only a smaller body of water could avoid huge tidal variations with that enormous moon so close. The water looks too placid for a sea. Also, the fortress is so close to it that unless this image depicts the absolute limit of high tide, the structure would have long ago succumbed to the water. And in that case, at low tide, the coastline would likely be a mile or so distant. I prefer my Rigel Fortresses to have a placid pool always near at hand. M. P.S.: I already have another matte analysis underway. The mountain-side installation of Starbase 11. This may be expanded to include the installation on the plain as well. I'm not sure if I can harmonize both views of the lower facility. They share many features, but seem to be from different time periods. (Structures added or altered.) I always love a challenge. Stay tuned for details.
Don't know how much of the Arab Village appears but the Batman66 episode "Holy Rat Race" (with Malachi Throne as False-Face) uses the 40 Acres backlot as the film studio the final chase takes place in. http://www.66batman.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=907
This is great work, and I love the attention to detail, much of which I'd never even thought about before. The only thing that jumps out at me is the following. (I apologize that I have to describe with words instead of pictures, as I lack the ability to make and post images on this computer.) There is a tower in this image that is rendered as a cylinder that is standing alone and detached from all other structures. I question whether that tower was represented in the painting above as so detached, because there is what appears to be a small section of wall behind it and to the right of it that does not appear to be represented in the 3D model. In the painting, you can see blue decoration on it, like that that runs near the top of almost all of the other walls. That small section of wall appears to be absent in this reconstruction: --- Anyway, great work!
@Coronacopia I agree with your assessment about the missing wall. @MGagen Now that my attention is on that freestanding tower, I notice that the wall immediately to the left and behind is too tall. You have it rising to the level of the middle dome but it does not go that high.
Coronacopia, you are correct that the tower is connected; and also that the one section of wall is too high. I got interested in the main tower dome problem and left the far right part of the construction unfinished. The lone tower is in the right spot, but I believe it is connected to the next tower over by the wall segment you pointed out. It also likely joins to the lower wall which surrounds the main tower. I will revise the model to make these changes and make new renders which will also include the extra shore wall extensions (which are only visible from overhead. M.
An amazing project. Maybe it's just because I'm a Trekkie, but this is one of the greatest mattes of all time. Is the Delta Vega station in the future?
Greatest in which way? Design? Because it's not a terribly convincing illusion. IMHO it's not to the standard of this Syd Dutton piece from Spaceballs:, with its beautiful use of lighting and atmosphere. ...or this... YMMV. Plenty of really tremendous—and terrible—matte shots on NZ Pete's blog (link)
It's a bit ungenerous to compare work done on a TV budget for 60s-era broadcast resolution to work done for widescreen cinematic features. If you want to compare Whitlock's best work to these, I wouldn't complain... The site you linked is indeed a great tribute to matte artists. I have spent much time browsing there. In answer to Tallguy, yes, I believe I will publish a study of Delta Vega. M.
Tallguy is the one who said it was "one of the greatest mattes of all time" without qualifying it "for TV". It's a DRAMATIIC shot. It's just not very real looking.
Here is an updated look at the Rigel Fortress model. It appears that the lone tower is still freestanding. The wall that appears to link it to the tower on the right is actually the same wall that connects to the other tower to its left. Once I had lowered the level and checked the angle, I realized it was the same wall. I adjusted the position of the towers a bit to make sure this connecting wall would be 45 degrees. The visual effect matches the painting pretty well. In this top view, you can see the complete wall extending diagonally from one tower to the other. The lone tower is unattached in front of it. Keep in mind that the lone tower is not as tall as it looks. It appears to merge into the rocks that the fort is built on about halfway down its currently visible length. I suspect it is entered from a tunnel below, cut into the rock. Perhaps it serves some special function that requires it to be separate from the rest of the structure. The overhead shot also shows the extra wall I have added in along the coast. It has to fall back in stages like this to keep out of sight from the matte viewpoint. Finally, here is a new angle on the fortress as in its current unfinished state. Obviously there is more structure to add on both ends, but this gives you the idea of how the main keep would look when approached from the water. A view like this is the real reason to go through this exercise. It makes it all the more real when you can "walk around" to another side of it. M.