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Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)

I'd love to add that little lounge, but in reality there just isn't room behind the control booth before hitting the concentric corridor walls behind it (there's even less room back there than MSGTTE shows) and I don't want to move the transporter room up in the corridor at all since we clearly see its location in relation to those concentric corridors in TMP.
Put in a toilet. Landing party duty is nerve wracking and nobody wants to have to use a Klingon or Tamarian toilet...
 
Great work!

I have to say it's probably my least favourite set on that ship. The TMP set just looks completely at odds with the rest of the set design. Even main engineering doesn't have that kind of exposed machinery, just the magical, swirling main shaft.
It's like a set from an Alien movie. It's cool, but it's not very Star Trek. I liked it better in TFF and TUC.
I agree. It contrasts heavily with what we see of the rest of the ship. I'd have to say, my favorite iteration of this transporter room set is probably the Voyager transporter, but a close second would be the TUC transporter.

Keeping in mind that my knowledge of 3D modeling is, well, non-existent, is the grating modeled so there are holes where the empty spaces would be, or is there some kind of translucence going on so you can still see the machinery through the grating?
When it comes to games, most grating materials use opacity maps which dictate which pixels are transparent and which are opaque, or anywhere in between. My floor grating material seen above employs the following textures:
1) a diffuse map (base color)
2) a normal map (faking lighting and details that aren't actually modeled into the geometry)
3) a metallic map (how metallic the pixels should be)
4) a roughness map (how rough/smooth the pixels should be)
5) an ambient occlusion map (ambient light shadowing)
6) an opacity map (how transparent the pixels should be)
7) a displacement map (controls how raised or lowered the pixels should be off the source geometry)

All of these maps are put into a set of instructions (which is the material itself) which tells the game engine how to render the textures. FYI, most of my materials employ the first 5 of those. It's only in special cases that I have to generate opacity or displacement maps.

Just incredible work, Donny. I wish I had the time to devote to my art the way you do yours. :)

Are you using HDRs at all in your lighting? Global illumination, or something else?

Lastly, have you considered doing tutorials for any of your pieces? Like, maybe ,oh, I don't know, the Galileo shuttlecraft? ; )

I use global illumination with all my renders. Unreal's global illumination is "baked" onto the surfaces through their method called lightmass . However, the newest version of the Unreal engine supports raytracing, which would therefore allow real-time global illumination, but I have yet to tinker with that. As far as other things like HDR, Unreal employs an entire host of lighting techniques, and I usually use several of them in any given situation. If you want more info, you can peruse this wiki: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows

As far as tutorials go? Making tutorials would be yet another timesink involved in making these projects, and I think I'd just rather use the time to keep building environments rather than taking the extra time to set up tutorials. Maybe one day I'll do a tutorial on making a small prop, but an entire environment or ship in which I usually spend a month or more on wouldn't be feasible. I'm also not the best as explaining my processes, to be honest. I dunno. I'll think about it :)
 
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However, the newest version of the Unreal engine supports raytracing, which would therefore allow real-time global illumination, but I have yet to tinker with that.
I've got an RTX card so I've played around with it a bit. At the moment it's really good for shadows and reflections. In some cases, it's much faster than the traditional methods and looks so good. However, it's not so good for indirect lighting just yet. Hopefully, by 4.23 it will be a more polished implementation.
 
I've got an RTX card so I've played around with it a bit. At the moment it's really good for shadows and reflections. In some cases, it's much faster than the traditional methods and looks so good. However, it's not so good for indirect lighting just yet. Hopefully, by 4.23 it will be a more polished implementation.
Yeah, I need to buy a new card first. I'm actually thinking of doing so this weekend. Hmmm....
 
Update: I took the plunge and purchased a RTX card so I can mess around with Unreal’s new raytracing effects. I’m looking forward to seeing the quality bump, especially in terms of lighting and real-time reflections. Oh boy.
 
Anyway, got the floor grating in tonight. It employs a displacement map so that the grating actually appears three-dimensional, even thought it's just a flat plane. Lighting is still very very WIP

I gotta say, I appreciate TMP's gesture here of making the Transporter into something mysterious, intense, and possibly dangerous. It comes a bit late given how we've seen it used frequently in TOS, but this is an interesting statement contrary to commonly accepted semantics of Trek. I do wonder what the series would have been like if Transporters were as fatal as McCoy feared they could be.

Also Donny, I continue to love the work you do for giving us glimpses of sets that no longer exist... and likely never will again. I'm still waiting in anticipation for the Trek 4 sets to imagine the Enterprise if the TOS movies had really kept going instead of being sidestepped by TNG. The future that could have been.

Still wishing you could share these with the rest of us so we can take our own shots and walk around these sets without pestering you for shots. Alas...
 
Update: I took the plunge and purchased a RTX card so I can mess around with Unreal’s new raytracing effects. I’m looking forward to seeing the quality bump, especially in terms of lighting and real-time reflections. Oh boy.
You absolutely rock! But don't burn yourself out!
 
Also Donny, I continue to love the work you do for giving us glimpses of sets that no longer exist... and likely never will again. I'm still waiting in anticipation for the Trek 4 sets to imagine the Enterprise if the TOS movies had really kept going instead of being sidestepped by TNG. The future that could have been.
Still planning on it! Actually, having real time reflections in the corridors with my new RTX card is going to make me want to revisit those soon. Perhaps I can do a TVH Enterprise-A rendition of the corridors as a testbed? ;)

Still wishing you could share these with the rest of us so we can take our own shots and walk around these sets without pestering you for shots. Alas...
:( It's not that I don't want to. I'm just being careful at the moment.
 
Still planning on it! Actually, having real time reflections in the corridors with my new RTX card is going to make me want to revisit those soon. Perhaps I can do a TVH Enterprise-A rendition of the corridors as a testbed? ;)

Oh, Please do, Donny!!! It would be the most anticipated brainstorm for me. Let us see your rendition; it would probably as bright as the Enterprise white Bridge?
 
Oh, Please do, Donny!!! It would be the most anticipated brainstorm for me. Let us see your rendition; it would probably as bright as the Enterprise white Bridge?

Lots of love for that TVH Enterprise around this board. Add me to the list of those who would love to see what might have been.

Looking at that old Gene Roddenberry intro to The Cage really gives an interesting look at the state of some of the sets circa 1986. The transporter room seems a little worse for wear - with some of the covers missing and some of the pads’ lights out and possibly no longer working.

Without the special studio lighting that transporter room looks pretty bland. Makes me wonder at when those “patio tile” covers for the transporter pads were removed. I don’t think we get a good look of at them after TWOK - for all we know they were missing by TSFS. Makes me wonder now if they pulled them off to use for the Regular I / Old City Station transporter room. It did have a strange combination of circular and rectangle pads. Maybe the circular ones we originally from the E’s transporter room set and were never replaced?
 
You absolutely rock! But don't burn yourself out!

Sorry for the double post but I felt it was worth supporting Jedman’s comment (and I lack the dexterity to link thes both in one message from my mobile device right now)

As much as we love seeing this and want to see more, self care is very important. We will all be here whenever you’re ready to take it on Donny.
 
Everything is still there in TWOK -- there's a clear shot of the pad with all the patio covers visible. But depending on the sequence of filming, this scene could have been shot before the Regula I material.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok-dc-hd/chapter16/st2-twok-dc-2182.jpg

In TSFS, the ceiling covers seem to all be there, but notice Nimoy intentionally frames the shot so that the actors are only visible from the waist up.

Kirk & co. beam out: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd1226.jpg
Klingons beam in: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd1238.jpg

Was this done to hide the missing floor covers, or just another example of the sub-par TV-style cinematography that plagued this movie?

Here's Roddenberry standing in the set in his intro to "The Cage":

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x01/thecgaeintro01_009.jpg

It's all upper covers that are missing; all the lower ones seem to be in place. So who knows.
 
Besides all the visible machinery, the other thing that made it look dangerous was the crewmen that Rand fried. Just sayin'. :)

Those images above show the part lines on those honeycomb panels nicely. Does anyone know the real-world source of either these panels or the pad covers? Were either/both found or made for production?

Also, with all the random stuff that gets licensed, is there a reason why the STO people wouldn't want to do a licensed VR experience? Seen as a conflict the STO product?
 
Everything is still there in TWOK -- there's a clear shot of the pad with all the patio covers visible. But depending on the sequence of filming, this scene could have been shot before the Regula I material.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok-dc-hd/chapter16/st2-twok-dc-2182.jpg

In TSFS, the ceiling covers seem to all be there, but notice Nimoy intentionally frames the shot so that the actors are only visible from the waist up.

Kirk & co. beam out: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd1226.jpg
Klingons beam in: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd1238.jpg

Was this done to hide the missing floor covers, or just another example of the sub-par TV-style cinematography that plagued this movie?

Here's Roddenberry standing in the set in his intro to "The Cage":

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x01/thecgaeintro01_009.jpg

It's all upper covers that are missing; all the lower ones seem to be in place. So who knows.


Very interesting. I had misremembered that shot in TSFS. I looked at screen caps to compare the upper and lower covers in an attempt to determine if they were interchangeable. Some pics mad it look like the uppers have an extra lip where it joins the ceiling, while others don’t not.

Interestingly you can get a good look at the ceiling here in TMP. It looks like the black ceiling is covered with sheets of Mylar. You can see the seams in the picture.
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=63546&fullsize=1
Another good shot of the ceiling:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=63543&fullsize=1
 
Everything is still there in TWOK -- there's a clear shot of the pad with all the patio covers visible. But depending on the sequence of filming, this scene could have been shot before the Regula I material.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twok-dc-hd/chapter16/st2-twok-dc-2182.jpg

In TSFS, the ceiling covers seem to all be there, but notice Nimoy intentionally frames the shot so that the actors are only visible from the waist up.

Kirk & co. beam out: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd1226.jpg
Klingons beam in: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tsfshd/tsfshd1238.jpg

Was this done to hide the missing floor covers, or just another example of the sub-par TV-style cinematography that plagued this movie?

Here's Roddenberry standing in the set in his intro to "The Cage":

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/0x01/thecgaeintro01_009.jpg

It's all upper covers that are missing; all the lower ones seem to be in place. So who knows.
Looks like those missing transporter pads were more likely moved to the Klingon BoP transporter in TVH:

It's been a while since I've studied TVH's sets, but this shot makes it clear that this transporter room was built into the Enterprise corridor set, as evidenced by the unmistakable K-beams framing this shot and the engineering doors. Wow.

Also, with all the random stuff that gets licensed, is there a reason why the STO people wouldn't want to do a licensed VR experience? Seen as a conflict the STO product?

I don't want to go too much into it, because I don't want to speak for Cryptic or say anything that would jeopardize my position on the team. So I think it's best if I just leave that question alone. As far as I'm concerned, I enjoy my job at Cryptic on STO and I enjoy getting to go home and working on this passion project, but I have always and will always treat them as separate things. One is a 9-5 job, the other is a hobby, both satisfying me in different ways. If there was ever a day in which I was able to legally bring this project to the public, I would take it. But given recent events with similar projects, I really don't want to discuss my passion project as an actual product. It's simply a way for me to have fun, add to my portfolio, hone my skills, and bring you guys some great renders while we revel in celebration of some of our favorite Trek environments. I apologize if I can't answer your question more directly.

Oh, Please do, Donny!!! It would be the most anticipated brainstorm for me. Let us see your rendition; it would probably as bright as the Enterprise white Bridge?
I imagine the corridors would be brighter and whiter in appearance than their previous counterparts, with added TVH control screens placed about, less greebles, and possibly carpeted rather than the ribbed rubber flooring. I see that some TVH Ent-A interiors are in high demand, and I'll keep this in mind as I choose whatever sub-project after I finish the transporter rooms. :techman:

UPDATE REGARDING RAY-TRACING:
So, I bought a RTX graphics card last night and got to fool around with real-time ray-tracing, and I must say that the experience was not as smooth as I'd hoped. Ray-tracing in Unreal is in its infancy, and the performance hit on my environments when I switched to the new renderer was immense. I was running at over 100 frames a second (fps) without it activated and then down to 15 fps with it. Granted, my environments were not built with ray-tracing in mind and were not optimized for that type of rendering. Therefore, at this point I am simply going to continue building this project with the methods and techniques I've been using for the past 4-5 years, since I know I can get excellent results with it. And in the meantime, now that I have access to the hardware, I will continue checking out the improvements to real-time ray-tracing as Unreal continues to develop it.
 
So, I bought a RTX graphics card last night and got to fool around with real-time ray-tracing, and I must say that the experience was not as smooth as I'd hoped. Ray-tracing in Unreal is in its infancy, and the performance hit on my environments when I switched to the new renderer was immense. I was running at over 100 frames a second (fps) without it activated and then down to 15 fps with it.
From what I've heard it's going to improve in 4.23. They don't have an actual interface for most option yet, it's all just done with console commands. I think the idea anyway, is that you'll use it sparingly where it's going to have the biggest visual impact. So if your shadows are static it won't do a whole lot there, but it could make reflections look so much nicer.
 
From what I've heard it's going to improve in 4.23. They don't have an actual interface for most option yet, it's all just done with console commands. I think the idea anyway, is that you'll use it sparingly where it's going to have the biggest visual impact. So if your shadows are static it won't do a whole lot there, but it could make reflections look so much nicer.
Hmm. Have you downloaded 4.22.1 yet? A lot of the ray tracing options are now controlled in the post process volume settings. There are additional commands for the command line but the basics have been moved to post process for ease of access.

And yes, lookin like I will have to use it sparingly if so. But activating ray traced reflections in my refit corridors was no bueno. Too many angled reflective surfaces to cast rays off of. Performance there was abysmal, and honestly screen space and reflection captures looked far better.

Anyway, I’ll keep doing some tests here and there. I’m also excited to try the GPU lightmass plugin sometime soon to see if I can get lighting compile time down while getting better quality.
 
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Hmm. Have you downloaded 4.22.1 yet? A lot of the ray tracing options are now controlled in the post process volume settings. There are additional commands for the command line but the basics have been moved to post process for ease of access.
I'm still on 4.22.0. I should be getting fibre internet soon which will make keeping up to date much easier.
 
Looks like those missing transporter pads were more likely moved to the Klingon BoP transporter in TVH:

It's been a while since I've studied TVH's sets, but this shot makes it clear that this transporter room was built into the Enterprise corridor set, as evidenced by the unmistakable K-beams framing this shot and the engineering doors. Wow.
So wait, does this mean they built the Bird of Prey engineering/cargo area on the Main Engineering set? I guess that would kind of make sense, considering all the bits they cannibalized
 
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