Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)

[Donny]

Everyone ready for some Starfleet Small Craft Porn? I don't think I've ever gotten this detailed with anything. There were over 200 decals on the filming model, I had to digitally hand place every single one! The small decal text are all conjecture by the way, as none of them were legible. I just tried to nail the "spirit" of each decal as best I could.

I've finished the exterior. Will start on the interior soon! Happy Memorial Day!

 

[cardinal biggles]

 

[K1productions]

Holy crap...

Everyone ready for some Starfleet Small Craft Porn? I don't think I've ever gotten this detailed with anything. There were over 200 decals on the filming model, I had to digitally hand place every single one! The small decal text are all conjecture by the way, as none of them were legible. I just tried to nail the "spirit" of each decal as best I could.

I've finished the exterior. Will start on the interior soon! Happy Memorial Day!

when you said hundreds of little decals, you weren't kidding. I had no idea there were that many small details on this model. I am legitimately impressed

 

[Tallguy]

Breathtaking. As always, you're pointing out things about a ship that I've been staring at for OVER FORTY YEARS! I never realized that the doors were recessed that much.

I am questioning how pronounced the details on the upper port side are.

But really, wow. And also a very under-done model. Great to see it.

 

[Donny]

I am questioning how pronounced the details on the upper port side are.

Yeah, now that I'm looking at it again, it's possible I extruded those upper port and starboard panels out a bit too much. Not worth the effort required to go back and modify it at this point. If it really bugs me, I'll take care of it after the interior.

Just took a look at the Eaglemoss renders, and looks like they extruded every panel on the model. Heh. On the filming miniature, most panels were flush with the hull, as I've respected. I guess it's all up to interpretation.

 

[Maurice]

Always bugged me that they didn't put any little spot emitters for the spots on side of the pod. It just feels like what it is: lights somewhere else pointing at the model.

 

[Donny]

Always bugged me that they didn't put any little spot emitters for the lights on the pod. It just feels like what it is: lights somewhere else pointing at the model.

Yeahhhh. I almost didn’t add those lights (and indeed, I didn’t add the spot lights that cover the “headlights”) but it did look more complete with the port, starboard, and front bottom registry spotlights.

 

[Donny]

Well. Here's the next wrench to be thrown in the machine. The interior set is far shorter than the exterior model, matching everything up with the docking ring. I was hoping I wouldn't have to fudge things this time around (like my TOS shuttle required). Hmm....

 

[K1productions]

Well. Here's the next wrench to be thrown in the machine. The interior set is far shorter than the exterior model, matching everything up with the docking ring. I was hoping I wouldn't have to fudge things this time around (like my TOS shuttle required). Hmm....

This may be a relatively simple fix. Looking at it, the side wall details are just segments that line up pretty well. So you should simply be able to add a couple more segments, and boom, problem solved. We never actually get a side view of the inside of the pod, so one could simply say it was obscured by the camera view. Just a thought

 

[Nightowl1701]

First they build a shuttlecraft you can't fit the interior in, now a travel pod that's smaller on the inside.

Well, at least you've got room for a transporter pad in the extended TVH version of it now...

 

[SCE2Aux]

Yep, that gif about sums it up!
Edit - I'm going to try and put into words why I like stuff like this, so bear with me if I ramble... The more I look at TMP, the more I feel like the people behind making those visuals really understood how to create believable yet fantastical machinery. Today's scifi productions can create incredibly impressive things, but looking at TMP, 2001, Silent Running, Alien etc, it seems like we've lost sight of these ships being pieces of constructed hardware. The process of making things in CGI often results in work practices that encourage us to create ships/interiors that look more like sculptures than machines.

For example, there are weird protrusions in the side of the engineering set of Discovery that look like they might serve as a kind if structural member, but don't seem logically shaped for the task. Compare it to the shuttlebay of the TMP Enterprise, which features many examples of framework that clearly take their inspiration from real-life construction techniques.
Things like this Travel Pod (and your brilliant recreation of it!) should remind us that unless you're creating something truly fantastical and completely removed from our everyday world (like, for example, Farscape's Moya,) scifi design should try more often to be more believable.

That way, when something crazy happens in the plot; like an energy cloud 2 AUs in diameter starts heading towards Earth, we can suspend disbelief a lot more readily.

What I'm trying to say I suppose is that I think these models that you're recreating in CGI are not just great in their own right, but also really useful for reminding CG artists like myself that pushing for ever increasing levels of pointlessly elaborate detail is often counterproductive when trying to make a science fiction ship or environment.

 

[Donny]

Yep, that gif about sums it up!
Edit - I'm going to try and put into words why I like stuff like this, so bear with me if I ramble... The more I look at TMP, the more I feel like the people behind making those visuals really understood how to create believable yet fantastical machinery. Today's scifi productions can create incredibly impressive things, but looking at TMP, 2001, Silent Running, Alien etc, it seems like we've lost sight of these ships being pieces of constructed hardware. The process of making things in CGI often results in work practices that encourage us to create ships/interiors that look more like sculptures than machines.

For example, there are weird protrusions in the side of the engineering set of Discovery that look like they might serve as a kind if structural member, but don't seem logically shaped for the task. Compare it to the shuttlebay of the TMP Enterprise, which features many examples of framework that clearly take their inspiration from real-life construction techniques.
Things like this Travel Pod (and your brilliant recreation of it!) should remind us that unless you're creating something truly fantastical and completely removed from our everyday world (like, for example, Farscape's Moya,) scifi design should try more often to be more believable.

That way, when something crazy happens in the plot; like an energy cloud 2 AUs in diameter starts heading towards Earth, we can suspend disbelief a lot more readily.

What I'm trying to say I suppose is that I think these models that you're recreating in CGI are not just great in their own right, but also really useful for reminding CG artists like myself that pushing for ever increasing levels of pointlessly elaborate detail is often counterproductive when trying to make a science fiction ship or environment.

Well said. This is something I think about often.

 

[TOMFAN]

WOW!

 

[Mytran]

Great renders, but a bummer about the interior set! After all the care and attention that went into the scaling of the Enterprise for TMP, I wonder how this could have happened?

Could be related to the fact that the pod interior was build on top of a "stock bed"?

 

[Christopher]

After all the care and attention that went into the scaling of the Enterprise for TMP, I wonder how this could have happened?

You mean the same care and attention that resulted in the rec deck being too tall to fit in the saucer, and the impossible forced-perspective corridor stretching forward from engineering? Or the retractable flooring in the cargo bay matte painting that had nowhere to retract to because the bay extended the entire width of the hull?

 

[BK613]

OMG, @Donny wow, just wow.

 

[Mytran]

You mean the same care and attention that resulted in the rec deck being too tall to fit in the saucer, and the impossible forced-perspective corridor stretching forward from engineering? Or the retractable flooring in the cargo bay matte painting that had nowhere to retract to because the bay extended the entire width of the hull?

The airlocks matched though, have you no compassion at all?
Hmm, maybe I was being a bit too kind after all. How about we just stick to Probert's design of what he intended and pretend that was what ended up on screen...

 

[Tallguy]

Yep, that gif about sums it up!
Edit - I'm going to try and put into words why I like stuff like this, so bear with me if I ramble...

Alien looks cool but it's pretty preposterous.

 

[BK613]

Well. Here's the next wrench to be thrown in the machine. The interior set is far shorter than the exterior model, matching everything up with the docking ring. I was hoping I wouldn't have to fudge things this time around (like my TOS shuttle required). Hmm....

Hmm I wonder if you have that right. Screenshots show that the top of the door is the same height as the top of the long panel with the "finish as dir..." label in it. And the lights are above the door.
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=578&pid=63326#top_display_media

 

[137th Gebirg]

I can't seem to find it, but there was some concept art for the T'pau from TNG: Reunification that looked like a vulcanized miranda-class with those same nacelles. A pity that consistency couldn't be held on to, I guess the Enterprise makers really wanted the ring ships.

Might this be what you're referring to?

Or possibly this?


These were schematics I made (I think it was me, at least, I honestly can't remember, but it looks like my drawing style) many years ago based on these sketches by Rick Sternbach, which I first found in "Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission" by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (1997 - page 153):


He later repurposed them into this concept for USS Voyager (bottom sketch), adding less Vulcan and more Miranda and Runabout-like design queues to the shape:


Whether or not the TMP Shuttle was initially intended to be of specific Vulcan origin/construction is unknown to me, but it's become a generally accepted head-canon among a majority of the fanbase, including Sternbach himself, particularly due to the engine design aesthetic that kept getting used for other definitively Vulcan ship concepts. As far as I'm concerned, yeah, they're all Vulcan, when they wanted to experiment with something other than ringships and embrace a more nacelle-based architecture, more compatible with the rest of their Federation colleagues - probably for the purposes of future integration and construction modularity.