Donny's Late TNG Era Interiors

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I'm at a point now where I'm taking it easy after finishing up the FC bridge before taking on a new, big project (which will most likely be the Observation Lounge). I've still got a couple little things to do before I can call the INS bridge complete, but I thought I'd take the down-time to model some of the detailing I left remaining for the corridors, starting with those odd pipe clusters that no one seems to like There are other corridor details to tackle after this one, which I'll probably continue doing as a little "mini-break" from the INS bridge, just to recharge batteries on that a bit.

Those remind me of the traffic flow guardrails I saw in some parts of the London Underground.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Ah yes - the bizarre path dividers! I mean, yes, the E-E's corridors were just as wide as the E-D's, but with those slanted walls, people needed to walk closer to the middle in both directions to get past each other. Putting those things smack-dab down the middle of the corridor, while somewhat visually interesting, never made a lick of practical sense (at least, to me).

But they're funny to look at and I'm very glad Donny got around to working on them.

 

[Mytran]

Yeah those railings are pretty silly but at least Donny makes them look good!

Ah yes - the bizarre path dividers! I mean, yes, the E-E's corridors were just as wide as the E-D's, but with those slanted walls, people needed to walk closer to the middle in both directions to get past each other. Putting those things smack-dab down the middle of the corridor, while somewhat visually interesting, never made a lick of practical sense (at least, to me).

But they're funny to look at and I'm very glad Donny got around to working on them.

In fact the "horseshoe arch" corridors were 50% wider than the Ent-D ones! This difference can be seen mostly clearly in ST9 when they try and redress the VOY standing sets to look like those on the Ent-E.
ST8 did feature a short section of 8' wide corridors, those more rectangular ones (Picard walks down one towards the engine room near the end of the film)

 

[Donny]

Got some more housekeeping work done on the corridor set tonight.

In three different scenes in First Contact, we see a corridor wall plug that has a large display panel on it. It's unlit, but we do see the familiar brushed gold "LCARS frames" we see on almost every display in the film. We first see it at the end of the "conduit" corridor at the far right of the frame, with a free-standing console I have yet to model:


We see it again as part of the evacuation corridor set, also on the far right of the frame, without a console and the wall painted metallic instead of the earlier tan:


And later, JLP passes the wall plug again on his way to his showdown with the Borg Queen. Here we get the most complete look, but it's unfortunately very blurry:


Some comparative analysis indicates that this brushed gold framing is almost identical to that of the Science station on the bridge. It's a little more fragmented, and bits and pieces' positions have been adjusted somewhat. In order to bring this display to life, I've decided to borrow the bridge science station graphics I've already made and also "de-fragment" the brushed gold framing to appear more cohesive and complete, and also added animated monitor displays where they obviously would be had this set-piece ever been lit.


This weekend, I'll probably get around to modeling that free-standing console.

 

[cardinal biggles]

This weekend, I'll probably get around to modeling that free-standing console.

So I thought this was interesting — this item from the Christie's auction says in its description that it was "first used in the engineering corridor on the Enterprise-E in Star Trek: First Contact." The style looks right, but it looks too short compared to the console Picard walks past in your last screenshot. I'm thinking it's more likely it was one of these from It's a Wrap (1, 2). Looks like they changed all the bases from those twin straight pipes to angled stands like on the Enterprise-D transporter console.

 

[Michael]

You know @Donny, we've reached a point where you can post an actual screencap of the movie and for the first couple of seconds I'm absolutely convinced it's one of your renderings.

 

[QuinnTV]

So I thought this was interesting — this item from the Christie's auction says in its description that it was "first used in the engineering corridor on the Enterprise-E in Star Trek: First Contact." The style looks right, but it looks too short compared to the console Picard walks past in your last screenshot. I'm thinking it's more likely it was one of these from It's a Wrap (1, 2). Looks like they changed all the bases from those twin straight pipes to angled stands like on the Enterprise-D transporter console.

Was this the console from the Lily "window" scene?

 

[cardinal biggles]

It was, but that was a generic console style made for First Contact in the same way that the style of console used in the TNG transporter room also showed up on the battle bridge, in the cargo/shuttle bay, all over the place...

These consoles had bases that were made of a pair of round pipes attached to a flat metal plate, and appeared in First Contact. For Insurrection, the consoles received new bases that were reminiscent of the angled ones used on TNG. (I originally thought it was Nemesis when they got new bases, and I stand corrected.) The LCARS displays would have then been updated to the Nemesis color scheme, and it's these final versions of the consoles that went to auction.

 

[Donny]

Was this the console from the Lily "window" scene?

I haven’t seen the “shorter” console @cardinal biggles referred to in any of the reference gathering I’ve done. But then again I may be overlooking it. The console in the scene with Lily is the standard longer console, and the console in the corridor is also the longer version.

 

[MGagen]

I have hated the "horseshoe arch" corridors ever since they made their debut in TMP. They make no sense.

As 137th Gebirg says, it forces folks to walk close to the center of the corridors.

But on those frequent occasions, when the ship is suddenly shaken, they go careening toward a wall for support, they're bound to hit their heads, rendering themselves unconscious instead. Maybe it was designed this way to ramp up the "drama."

Maybe all starships have to have a certain number of badly designed safety issues. When they raised the knee level handrails around the center of the bridge to a safe level, they were obligated to make the corridors less safe to compensate...

 

[StarCruiser]

It was done for "style" but yeah, it never made much sense...

Give me a clean vertical wall any day.

 

[Mytran]

I have hated the "horseshoe arch" corridors ever since they made their debut in TMP. They make no sense.

As 137th Gebirg says, it forces folks to walk close to the center of the corridors.

But on those frequent occasions, when the ship is suddenly shaken, they go careening toward a wall for support, they're bound to hit their heads, rendering themselves unconscious instead. Maybe it was designed this way to ramp up the "drama."

Maybe all starships have to have a certain number of badly designed safety issues. When they raised the knee level handrails around the center of the bridge to a safe level, they were obligated to make the corridors less safe to compensate...

I've never heard the corridors arches from TMP referred to as horseshoes before. To my eyes, the corridor arches in TMP are more like octagons, albeit slightly stretched in the middle.

The ones on the Ent-E were literally inspired by a horseshoe (or so I've read) which is why I used that term upthread.

As to everything else you said, I cannot disagree
The issue could have been avoided if only they'd kept the Phase 2 corridor designs, but that's not "cinematic" enough...

 

[Lt. Washburn]

Hmm, I for one am a really big fan of the hexagonal corridors from TMP and on. In fact, it's a bit of a cliché, that I'm not into, to make Sci-Fi corridors hexagonal, but they did it with interesting proportions and the actual details of the bulkheads and panels making a strong effect that they're probably my favorite Sci-FI corridors.

 

[ashleytinger]

The TMP corridors make sense when you consider there's emergency equipment behind curved in walls

 

[Tallguy]

The TMP corridors make sense when you consider there's emergency equipment behind curved in walls

My first thought, too. But then I thought, that leaves space (at the widest part of the corridor) that can neither be used for walking OR for storage. (Let's not even get into the curved corridors of the JJ.)

 

[Mytran]

The TMP corridors make sense when you consider there's emergency equipment behind curved in walls

Voyager's flat walled corridors seemed to have no trouble housing storage space behind the panels - sometimes enough to fit a whole person into!

P.S. Yes I know that "tech stuff" rather than equipment is shown in those examples, but the cavities are certainly deep enough to storage emergency kit in other areas of the wall.

 

[David cgc]

Shh, if we keep talking like this, someone will see and Trek will get rid of interestingly-shaped corridors altogether. Remember what happened to the saucer undercut?

 

[Tallguy]

The

Shh, if we keep talking like this, someone will see and Trek will get rid of interestingly-shaped corridors altogether. Remember what happened to the saucer undercut?

The undercut makes sense since it is essential to warp flow dynamics!

 

[Firebird]

Shh, if we keep talking like this, someone will see and Trek will get rid of interestingly-shaped corridors altogether. Remember what happened to the saucer undercut?

Won't somebody think of the childre - er... corridors?!

 

[BK613]

It's funny because I long ago asked myself if Starfleet uniforms included steel-toed* shoes because of all the damn trip hazards in the corridors.

*(duranium-toed?)