That's the panel I've seen showing the sharpness of that greeble. There's another angle that makes them look even sharper. Whatwhatwhat?!? How did you even catch that?!? At the time I just had a circle modeled into the panel with a self-illuminated material on it. Of course, at that time self-illuminated materials did not actually cast light, but it was a decent enough effect at the time. If you'll notice, I'm using Arial, too. I had no idea what Helvetica was at the time and Arial was all I could find that was even similar (well, it IS Microsoft's answer to Helvetica). Lee Cole clued me in when I talked to her, though she was not online at the time so has never actually seen the work I did on my version. Sorry to throw a wrench into the works. Not sure I ever even noticed the red in the negative position on the Reliant. My memory of those times is fuzzy. Nor did I notice the round screen on the targeting computer! What's wrong with me?!? It wasn't round in TMP. Was this a Reliant-only mod, or was it that way on the Enterprise in TWOK, too?
I think you did! Incredible. I'll have to measure these bellows against my model and see how similar they are to confirm. I'm betting those are indeed bellows cast in resin. The curvature of the bellow edges seems to match that of the Trek prop, but the resin cast would probably make them look/feel sharper as a result. The resin cast would also explain the rectangular "bottom" of the Trek pieces. That looks very possible as well!! The viewscreen was flat in the Enterprise scenes of TWOK. The elliptical viescreen was added for the Reliant scenes, possibly to showcase the great "Phasers locked on Enterprise" animation. In TSFS Enterprise, this monitor retains its elliptical configuration. This suggests that the Reliant scenes were filmed AFTER the Enterprise scenes in TWOK, and was simply not reconfigured back to its flat appearance for TSFS. Is it indeed Helvetica? I'm currently using a font called FreeSans because it has a more accurate "R" than Arial. I'll have to see if I have Helvetica on my machine at home. I think I purchased it not too long ago.
Ah, perhaps. Ah, didn't pay much attention to the weapons station in TSFS when getting my screen caps. Thanks! Yes. Helvetica was all the rage at the time and vaguely "futuristic" even if it was over a decade old at the time (closer to two!!!). I'm pretty sure she mentioned to me something about Helvetica transfers (rub-off or stickers). The "R" is what tipped me off at the time, too. I tried to modify the Arial R, but not very well. Helvetica Medium, I believe, but don't quote me on that.
I did see on the text commentary for TWOK on the Director's Edition DVD that the scenes on the Reliant were filmed after they were used for Enterprise. One interesting thing on the TSFS bridge is that the Environmental Enginnering and Damage and Repair staitons are flipped from where they were in TWOK. The main reasoning for that is that those were the positions they were on the Reliant. As with Lee Cole's controls, those were well thought out to quite a bit of an extent. The accordion buttons were quite funky, not to mention there was a reason why they used 'em.
IIRC, they weren’t buttons, but rollers. I vaguely recall Robin Curtis using them like that at the science station on the Grissom bridge in her scene with David, when he said “this is where the fun begins”, and she replies “just like your father - so human”. As she starts scanning Genesis, that’s where she uses them. If I were to associate a real-world analogue, I would say it’s similar to a mouse scroll wheel.
Actually, the environment station on the Reliant was moved BACK to it's TMP position, to the opposite side of the bridge, sandwhiched between the weapon's console and the engineering station (which now inhabits the spot where the communications station was on the Enterprise. See this image here). The damage & repair station was then moved to the right one spot, adjacent to the science console. So, when they reconfigured the bridge for TSFS, they accidentally moved the environment station to where the damage &repair station was in TWOK, essentially swapping the two. I get it. Those two station are pretty similar so if it was a mistake (and not just a time saver), I'll give them a pass. Robin Curtis does indeed use these like scroll wheels, however the Enterprise Flight Manual (Phase II) describes them as lighting up in sync with voices coming over intercoms, or with the computer's voice. This unfortunately was never seen in action on the films. We just see them continuously lighting up at random.
Yeah, the Environmental station was moved back to where it was in TMP. Again, I'd like to see your take on some of the Enterprise's sister ships with these set pieces you're doing.
Finished the (animated!) console panels of the Communications console tonight. Here it is on the Grissom: And another angle, on the TMP Enterprise: Note that the viewscreens are placeholder. Thank god for the Enterprise Flight Manual. [EDIT] Woops! A row of flat, circular buttons on the center panel was left off the render somehow! Excuse the mistake
Ok, I'm tired of saying this, but that first Grissom shot looks like a screen grab. EDIT: I have noticed that TWOK and TSFS cinematography lends itself more to the Unreal Engine look than TMP does. I was talking to someone about how in CG you can make the TMP bridge look like they probably wanted to because you don't have to balance the set lighting with not washing out the monitors.
In TMP, they didn't use video screens; they used filmloop projectors for the monitor displays (mentioned in the text commentary); this resulted in having to some tricks with the cameras due to the lighting. From TWOK onward, they used video screens.
Only took Trek around 18 years to catch up. Doctor Who used true video displays since its debut in 1963!
Plus, they had to be retreaded to match continuity among shots. True, a videotape feed also had to be rewound, but it was supposedly faster.
I have no problem with the final look of the film loops in TMP vs. the screens in TWOK-onward even if the rear-projected film was a bit washed out and dim onscreen. The screens are particularly bad in TSFS, IMO. Not the brightness, but the resolution. They made the graphics seen on the screens appear to go backward in technological terms.
Oh, that was an error. I was copying replies and pasting them into my previous post (which I was editing), and must've left that bit in my "draft". I plan on mimicking the look of the projector monitor screens for the TMP version, and will be using a scanline monitor material for the TWOK-onward verisons. Can't wait to do that! Just gotta knock out all these consoles first! I think I had my field of view set too wide for that TMP shot (it was late when I took it and was scrambling to get all this done before before bed), I think that may be lending to the fact that it's not a great shot. Plus, the Grissom bridge is the most brightly-lit of the 4 bridges I've currently got constructed so it tends to "photograph" better. I agree. I wonder what was up with that? You don't see any of the wonderful monitor graphics of the previous bridge on the TSFS bridge. And the new screens had so many chunky pixels! It's one of the reasons I haven't made a TSFS bridge a priority yet. It's my least favorite look of the Refit Enterprise bridges. However, I'll probably do it anyway
I do agree, those video animations in TSFS were especially crude. One of the big offenses was also the "Security Alert" screen on the Enterprise, which showed an overhead view of the ORIGINAL Enterprise instead of the refit, and very dated. Also the Transwarp monitor in the Excelsior. Perhaps you can do them the way you think they should be. Perhaps introduce some graphical stuff that was seen in DSC for those.