Donny's Late TNG Era Interiors

Not very. Although it's a great game and the efforts of Raven Software and Ritual Entertainment to bring to life the interiors of Voyager and Enterprise-E, respectively, inspired me to pursue my career, it's a simple fact that the game modeling technology of 20 years ago just didn't allow for the accuracy artists are able to achieve with today's tools. I was going to do some comparison screenshots of the EF2 bridge with my models once I'm done.

 

Finished up the 20-second loop animation of the MSD today!

Check it out! Follow the turbolifts moving across the ship! Feast your eyes on the dazzling bussard collector animation! Watch the warp core pulse with excitement!

This was really fun. Basically, I created a video in After Effects of all the animated elements and then overlayed that on top of the static MSD graphic in Unreal. I used the short 6 second closeup of the MSD in First Contact (when Worf was explaining to Picard that they lost contact with Deck 16) for reference. The little blinking shapes are all approximations, as we never see the MSD super up-close so I did my best. I'm sure the display does other things than what I've depicted in this 20 second loop, but this is more than enough to look like a busy display for the purposes of my virtual Enterprise-E bridge. Enjoy!

 

What they did back then was surprisingly good, I thought.
Maybe you can use their conference room and engineering as a starting point.

 

You're right, it was good back then. I was awestruck when I first played EF2. But frankly it doesn't hold up to the standards of today nor the standards of accuracy I've set with my work.

I appreciate the suggestion, but that's unnecessary. I'll get by just fine with my usual workflow

 

Looking at those EF2 screenshots, it holds up much better than I recall. Though it's nothing compared with your efforts Donny - that MSD looks stunning!

I played EF1 into the ground - it's a brilliant game, and really feels like it fits into the Voyager series.

I never played EF2 quite as much, mainly because I always played EF1 with the female Alex Monroe, and they took off that option in the sequel.

 

That MSD is such fun to watch! I love all the little turbolifts zipping around

 

Everybody do yourself a favor (if you can): Fire that baby up on a big screen TV. It's gorgeous.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. I just did so on the 75 inch in my living room and was blown away myself

 

Amazing job Donny. Love the ambient sound mix. Is that the TOS sound of the view screen lights I hear in that mix? Was that actually part of the sound mix used for the Ent-E bridge, or did you sneak that in there?

 

I kinda wondered that as well. I know it's in the Enterprise B mix in Generations.

 

I've spent the last few nights modeling, texturing, and creating the graphics for the Enterprise-E turbolift, since I want my eventual bridge tour video to start out in one of the turbolifts.

This turbolift was a redressed version of the turbolift built for TMP, which was also redressed and used in TFF and TUC as the Enterprise-A turbolift, and GEN as the Enterprise-B turbolift.

We get to see an early version of the turbolift display graphic briefly in FC...

...but it was given an upgrade and featured heavily, and dynamically, in Insurrection. We get to see videos play on the screen of the turbolifts moving through a schematic of the ship, which was a slightly modified version of Doug's MSD.

I've decided (at least for now) to forgo creating the FC version in favor of the more elaborate version we see in INS (Note: I'm not going to do separate FC and INS versions of every set, the turbolift being one of those not making the cut. I'm reserving doing separate versions of just the bridge and, eventually, engineering. I may change my mind about the turbolift later...we'll see).

And here are some screenshots of the finished turbolift:


The turbolift features a working red alert indicator above the main display...

...and a directory you can cycle through (text is placeholder for now)

We get to see the very top portion of this directory in INS:

My guess it was created to cover the hole where this oddly retro computer monitor was in TFF...

The game Elite Force 2 featured the directory as well, albeit with a few extra "decks" per page than I could fit on the dimensions I came up with:


Annnnnd (trumpet sound) I've created a demonstration of the animation of the lift going from the bow of the ship to the bridge, which I will use in the eventual bridge tour video. You can see it below here, albeit without sound:

Later, once I flesh out more "decks", I plan on making the turbolift interactive, complete with proper videos of the turbolift moving through the schematic on the display.

 

Now I'm intriqued to see the Senior Officer's Mess, and the Officer's Mess!

 

That carpet texture is really convincing!

So no versions of the Ready Room and Obs Lounge?

 

Didn't realize just how MUCH they borrowed from the Ent-A bridge sets. Nice catch on the turbolift. Hadn't really given it a hard look before.

 

Waste not you have more money for paying stars.

 

up until now I thought in nemesis they redressed the turbolift from Enterprise. But now I see how they did not.

Looks good!

 

I'd never noticed the monitor before, and now I can't believe it!

 

To be fair, it was 1989. To be equally fair, yeah, they should have covered it up with smoked glass or something.