• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

DertyNerdy's LCARS Graphics

DertyNerdy

Lieutenant
Red Shirt
Hello all!

Newbie here...well not really. I used to have an account but lost it years ago when this site looked a little different. Since then i've poped in occasionally to see what's new.

Anyway, i actually wanted to share something i've been working on since 2010. You know how these art projects go...you start them, leave them unfinshed for months and sometimes years, get back to them again, break away again. Well i've started digging into this one again for past couple of months.

Well I've always been fascinated by the visualness of Star Trek, the look of Starfleet...how everything looks so functional and technical but yet comfortable and inviting at the same time. I think the talents of the production designers and scenic artists are hugely unstated. I always loved the LCARS graphics in particluar, the simplicity of them, the colours and how they connect with each scene in an episode. This has always made them very pleasing to look at.

So i started taking it upon myself to recreate some of them. I've always enjoyed art and creativity so it's never been a chore really...well for the most part. I'm quite perfectionist when it comes to my artwork so i can annoy myself with constant setbacks and that when i think things don't look quite right.

Ok so enough of my rambling. Here's the first one...It's the 'Vessel Status' graphic from Star Trek: Voyager.
I acutally posted this on the Okuda's Facebook page year ago to which they were impressed. It was taken from the book 'A Vision of the Future' by Stephen Edward Poe. I scanned the graphic and recreated it. It was a heavy copy and paste job. The colours come from the Captain's Chair pc game. Enjoy! I'll be posting more soon.

vs081358.jpg
 
What software did you use to make this?

MGI Photosuite

It's a very old photo editing program for Windows 95....similar to the old Paint Shop Pro

I also use MSpaint to colourize it

Since the graphic is simply made up of pixels, no over advanced program is needed to create it...just the ability to draw, copy and paste
 
I've been working on the Red Alert version of the Auxiliary Systems Monitor for the past year or so. Once finished, this will be the animation you usually see on VOY and DS9. This one has been rather labour-intensive and took alot of research, screen caps, frame grabs, colour correcting and episode watching to complete...but it's paid off! I'm really happy with it so far.

To break it down, the animation is a total of 294 frames. I've cut it down to 7 segments of 42 frames to make it easier to work on and i will post the first completed segment in a gif format so you can see how it looks. Eventually once all the segments are complete, the frames will all be added together to complete a full flash animation.

Here's one of the frames

asm128red018.jpg
 
Very cool. This must have taken you ages. Based on the frames you did. Have you considered using flash to make them? You don't need to to it frame by frame and the lines and curves will come out in vector lossless colours
 
Very cool. This must have taken you ages. Based on the frames you did. Have you considered using flash to make them? You don't need to to it frame by frame and the lines and curves will come out in vector lossless colours

I only know the basics of Flash. I know how to compile all the frames together, edit it around and make the swf file for the animation but that's about it. I made the GIF just for the purpose of posting the preview here. Photoshop...illustrator...flash...i have no idea how to use the advanced features of these programs but hey, im learning :)
 
Wow this animation is amazing., can't wait for the full version. Keep up the good work man.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top