It has been quite a while since I contributed a thread to this board, so here we go.
I have long had a deep appreciation for Albert Whitlock's wonderful Star Trek matte paintings. My favorite is the Rigel Fortress, which has enchanted me since I was a boy.
One of the things about it that has always caused me to wonder is this: What is the actual shape of the fortress depicted? Whitlock worked quickly, since his ST paintings were done on a television budget. There is no denying the emotional impact that the composition elicits in the viewer. But there are some very odd geometries incorporated into this structure. For one thing, we are obviously looking at it from a diagonal viewpoint; yet both gates depicted are oriented directly toward the viewer. The tower lined wall at the left visually extends along the shore, but it is also obviously in the foreground of the fortress structure, and as such, doesn't extend very far along the seaward (or lake-ward) side of the fortress.
I decided to reconstruct the visible elements with 3D primitives to get an idea of exactly what this magical place would look like from other angles. This would also allow me to imagine what the rest of the structure might look like.
Here is what I came up with. First, the original. I overlaid a clear scan of the initial sketch that Whitlock began with because it depicts the structure more clearly, without the added weathering of the final version. This I aligned over a more complete image of the actual finished painting so I could include all of the structure he depicted:
Here is my reconstruction:
One point to note right away is that the foreground is not all on one level. The lane that Pike and Vina run down is lower than the land to the right on the other side of the rocks. This is visible in the different left and right gate levels. In my reconstruction, I placed a higher plane on the right side of the image. It is only detectible, given the lighting in my render, in the split level of the structure between the gates. In the painting the middle row of rocks acts as something of a retaining wall.
Now let's take a look at an overhead view:
This is pretty much all of the structure that is visible in the painting. Notice that both gates are placed at a 45 degree angle from the cardinal lines of the fort. There is also the matter of the odd projecting area between them. I tried pretty hard to avoid this feature but it reflects what is visible in the painting. What is not visible are the two sides of the projecting walls, which are hidden by the taller and shorter towers at the corners.
After thinking about this odd feature, a function suggested itself: The gates could be defended by the projecting wall, which would allow archers to shoot attackers in the back if they were attempting to break down the gates. There may also be a smaller, solid door in each central wall which opens into a guard room within this projection. Much safer to admit visitors in small numbers into an enclosed room where they can be searched and disarmed, rather than opening the main gates. Food for thought...
Another interesting feature that popped out when making this model was that the tall central tower cannot be a square or rectangular shape. I began with this being a square tower, but I found that if I put a dome of the proper size on the top of it, the dome overhung the flat sides by quite a large amount. In order to have a dome wide enough to get as close to the corners of the tower when viewed diagonally, it was too large to fit the flat sides. Either the dome must be smaller than depicted, or the tower must be some other shape. Here is a version with a square tower, with a full sized dome. As you can see, it breaks out of the tower at the flat sides:
The solution is an unorthodox one; although we must keep in mind this is an alien structure. By beveling the two sides seen in profile, the tower can be made large enough to support the depicted dome, while presenting the same visible width left to right. The bevels are undetectable from the matte viewpoint, since they are "around the corners" due to the perspective. Here is a close up showing this compromise, along with a matching bevel I added to the surrounding wall just to make it match:
That is about as far as I got so far. Now to imagine the rest of the fortress. One rule I will try to follow: No additional structure added to what appears here must be visible from the matte painting viewpoint.
M.
I have long had a deep appreciation for Albert Whitlock's wonderful Star Trek matte paintings. My favorite is the Rigel Fortress, which has enchanted me since I was a boy.
One of the things about it that has always caused me to wonder is this: What is the actual shape of the fortress depicted? Whitlock worked quickly, since his ST paintings were done on a television budget. There is no denying the emotional impact that the composition elicits in the viewer. But there are some very odd geometries incorporated into this structure. For one thing, we are obviously looking at it from a diagonal viewpoint; yet both gates depicted are oriented directly toward the viewer. The tower lined wall at the left visually extends along the shore, but it is also obviously in the foreground of the fortress structure, and as such, doesn't extend very far along the seaward (or lake-ward) side of the fortress.
I decided to reconstruct the visible elements with 3D primitives to get an idea of exactly what this magical place would look like from other angles. This would also allow me to imagine what the rest of the structure might look like.
Here is what I came up with. First, the original. I overlaid a clear scan of the initial sketch that Whitlock began with because it depicts the structure more clearly, without the added weathering of the final version. This I aligned over a more complete image of the actual finished painting so I could include all of the structure he depicted:
Here is my reconstruction:
One point to note right away is that the foreground is not all on one level. The lane that Pike and Vina run down is lower than the land to the right on the other side of the rocks. This is visible in the different left and right gate levels. In my reconstruction, I placed a higher plane on the right side of the image. It is only detectible, given the lighting in my render, in the split level of the structure between the gates. In the painting the middle row of rocks acts as something of a retaining wall.
Now let's take a look at an overhead view:
This is pretty much all of the structure that is visible in the painting. Notice that both gates are placed at a 45 degree angle from the cardinal lines of the fort. There is also the matter of the odd projecting area between them. I tried pretty hard to avoid this feature but it reflects what is visible in the painting. What is not visible are the two sides of the projecting walls, which are hidden by the taller and shorter towers at the corners.
After thinking about this odd feature, a function suggested itself: The gates could be defended by the projecting wall, which would allow archers to shoot attackers in the back if they were attempting to break down the gates. There may also be a smaller, solid door in each central wall which opens into a guard room within this projection. Much safer to admit visitors in small numbers into an enclosed room where they can be searched and disarmed, rather than opening the main gates. Food for thought...
Another interesting feature that popped out when making this model was that the tall central tower cannot be a square or rectangular shape. I began with this being a square tower, but I found that if I put a dome of the proper size on the top of it, the dome overhung the flat sides by quite a large amount. In order to have a dome wide enough to get as close to the corners of the tower when viewed diagonally, it was too large to fit the flat sides. Either the dome must be smaller than depicted, or the tower must be some other shape. Here is a version with a square tower, with a full sized dome. As you can see, it breaks out of the tower at the flat sides:
The solution is an unorthodox one; although we must keep in mind this is an alien structure. By beveling the two sides seen in profile, the tower can be made large enough to support the depicted dome, while presenting the same visible width left to right. The bevels are undetectable from the matte viewpoint, since they are "around the corners" due to the perspective. Here is a close up showing this compromise, along with a matching bevel I added to the surrounding wall just to make it match:
That is about as far as I got so far. Now to imagine the rest of the fortress. One rule I will try to follow: No additional structure added to what appears here must be visible from the matte painting viewpoint.
M.
