Design the Next Enterprise

[Maverisms]

the nose on the secondary hull, side view is kind of daft, but i very much like the split tail.

This.

That the team was really excited about that paint-over makes me sad in ways I find it difficult to convey. I'm hoping all of the discussion about how they looked to mold that design into something elegant and strong means the final model will have better lines. Unfortunately, in trying to replicate Adam's perspective shot, they used a perspective camera (you'd think that would be the way to go, but given the lines of Adam's picture, an orthographic camera would be the better choice*), so it's impossible to tell what they really did with it.

*this does assume they had an ortho camera function to work with.

 

[sojourner]

That 4 view sucks. Hope the final design looks more like the 3d model pictured at the end of the article.

 

[JES]

As an idea, it looks okay, for starters, but it still has a long way to go.

I'm not sure about the inverted curve for the tail end. My first impression is that it reminds me a Jem Hadar bug ship (though I guess it looks more like the nose of a Ferengi cruiser). But I think I like the, you know, convex curved tail better. It is just a simple, elegant design element, one that isn't easily replaced.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

As an idea, it looks okay, for starters, but it still has a long way to go.

I'm not sure about the inverted curve for the tail end. My first impression is that it reminds me a Jem Hadar bug ship (though I guess it looks more like the nose of a Ferengi cruiser). But I think I like the, you know, convex curved tail better. It is just a simple, elegant design element, one that isn't easily replaced.

Well, judging by what was said in the lower half of the article -- along with the 3D model -- I'd say they're disregarding that initial first mock-up on the page.

 

[Maverisms]

There isn't enough data to speculate on that. The test render shows a lot of elements of the paintover, where it shows anything at all. On the one hand, they clearly ditched the ugly deflector design for one more reflective of Adam's work.

(As an aside, the paint over design is full of elements I love, taken from modern styling. Too full. The result is incredibly ugly, as if someone took all of the coolest elements from today's supercars and blended them on a tug boat.)

On another hand, one can see that much of the gross styling of the saucer seems to have been preserved.

But if we take the render at face value, we also have to assume they broke one of the cardinal rules of Federation Starships... The bridge seems really far forward. That is; not in the center of the saucer. I'd call foul, except you can see the aggressiveness of the perspective camera in the way the nacelle seems to be pointed off an an odd angle. I doubt it is, and that means you can't say anything definitive about the shapes of the ship (which is why I was pining for an ortho camera above. It would have shown more).

 

[Vektor]

Overall, not bad. The paintover five-view shows promise, though there are definitely some details I don't care for. The final clay render looks a lot better and I am eager to see it from some different angles.

I like the way they've done the necks, especially that they didn't try to match them to the curvature of the saucer rim, at least not entirely. I don't much care for the way they connect to the secondary hull in the five-view but the clay render looks good. I also note that some of the saucer lines look an awful lot like my Magellanic class entry, so perhaps a little piece of my design made it into the final version after all.

The nacelle struts are thinner and more spindly than I would prefer. I don't like the tail end of the secondary hull in the five-view; looks kinda like it got rear-ended by a Ferengi shuttle. I also think the five-view deflector dish was much improved upon in the clay render.

It'll be interesting to see where it goes from here.

 

[backstept]

I'm interested to see the difference between the 'hero' F, and the inevitable player version of the ship with all the customization options

 

[Saul]

The top of the saucer looks too much like the E, specially that triangle on it. Hope it will change further down the line.

 

[JES]

I don't like the tail end of the secondary hull in the five-view; looks kinda like it got rear-ended by a Ferengi shuttle.

My thoughts exactly. I omitted it myself in my last post to avoid being rude, but it does indeed look like a Ferengi shuttle collided with the tail end while backing up, or vice versa, and the Enterprise rear ended a Ferengi shuttle with it's tail end.

Yep, I think I still prefer the established tail end.

 

[Santaman]

Looks like the "F" also has its impulse engines aimed straight at the nacelle pylons/nacelles.. I wished they'd stop doing that..

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Looks like the "F" also has its impulse engines aimed straight at the nacelle pylons/nacelles.. I wished they'd stop doing that..

I'm not seeing that from the only images I've seen so far... the ones found here... or the ones found on this thread.

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2466

Is there another updated version out there?

 

[largo]

Looks like the "F" also has its impulse engines aimed straight at the nacelle pylons/nacelles.. I wished they'd stop doing that..

apparently, it's an important part of the co2 isolation and sequestration system.

 

[Santaman]

Looks like the "F" also has its impulse engines aimed straight at the nacelle pylons/nacelles.. I wished they'd stop doing that..

I'm not seeing that from the only images I've seen so far... the ones found here... or the ones found on this thread.

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2466

Is there another updated version out there?

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2492
^^ thats where I found it, the 'paint over clay "model bit.

 

[backstept]

Looks like the "F" also has its impulse engines aimed straight at the nacelle pylons/nacelles.. I wished they'd stop doing that..

I'm not seeing that from the only images I've seen so far... the ones found here... or the ones found on this thread.

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2466

Is there another updated version out there?

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/2492
^^ thats where I found it, the 'paint over clay "model bit.

nope, there's plenty of room it seems
note how the nacelles aren't lined up with the impulse engines, and the pylons run underneath the impulse engines

 

[sojourner]

Yep, not even close.

 

[krithargus]

That's because it looks more like a Romulan gunship

 

[Captain_Amasov]

There's been a few more tidbits mentioned about the Enterprise-F:

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3613524#post3613524

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3613525#post3613525

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3613608#post3613608

http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?p=3613640#post3613640

 

[B.J.]

^Interesting discussion there. Couple of things I pulled out:

Yes, regretfully Adam Ihle hadn't originally conceived the warp-ring until after he'd already won the contest, and by the time I ever heard of the concept, we were very far in to the development process and would have lost about 3 weeks of modeling and concepting. This bummed me out. Also, there were legal complications with consulting Adam after the contest had been completed that I was advised not to entangle in. I guess that's just the nature of things when you get in to intellectual property things, millions of dollar contracts, CBS, etc. You just don't get to make decisions like that without involving like a billion people and half a million lawyers.

Sounds like he liked the warp ring concept, but didn't have the authority to change it at that point.

As of right now, the pincer tail isn't there anymore, a shuttle bay is.

 

[JES]

^Interesting discussion there. Couple of things I pulled out:

Yes, regretfully Adam Ihle hadn't originally conceived the warp-ring until after he'd already won the contest, and by the time I ever heard of the concept, we were very far in to the development process and would have lost about 3 weeks of modeling and concepting. This bummed me out. Also, there were legal complications with consulting Adam after the contest had been completed that I was advised not to entangle in. I guess that's just the nature of things when you get in to intellectual property things, millions of dollar contracts, CBS, etc. You just don't get to make decisions like that without involving like a billion people and half a million lawyers.

Sounds like he liked the warp ring concept, but didn't have the authority to change it at that point.

As of right now, the pincer tail isn't there anymore, a shuttle bay is.

It is times like these that makes me wish that they would just cooperate with one another for the sake of the fans and the customers. I mean she IS the Enterprise, and she deserves the very best. If that means taking a few more weeks to make her even better, I don't know, is that not worth it? The more time that is taken to work her out, the better she might look on screen, and hopefully, the sooner and more likely that she might appear in a television series.

Glad to hear that the earwig tail isn't there any more. Perhaps it might be worth experimenting with for an individual starship, but the Enterprise is one of those ships that it is often better to just go with the most elegant solutions.

 

[sojourner]

^If you read through those links he said there were also legal issues that prevented him from working more closely with Adam.