I like the new windows a lot, both the placement and the indentation. The shape, too.
Star Ship Polaris
- Thread starter aridas sofia
- Start date
Just for giggles and grins, howzabout another side-by-side with the Enterprise?
Because it would otherwise be upside-down if the thing ever landed on it's tail, as proposed?
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I don't follow? If you take the current text you're reading and turn it clock-wise 90degrees, then when you turn your monitor 90degrees counter clock-wise (to simulate the ship landing on it's tail), the text will be horizontal again. Now, the nose art on Vektor's latest posting is at an angle, but not enough to result in it being upside down???
I like the current orientation and layout of the ship's name.
Yeah, the current orientation probably works best for the majority of the VFX shots. It'd really only be sideways on the ground, where it doesn't serve much of a practical purpose anyways. If you can't find your ship because of a sideways name, you don't deserve to be in space.
I think the point junxon was getting at, rightly so, is that the name will appear partially upside down when the ship is landed. Right now the text runs at an angle of around 30 degrees off the fuselage centerline, so the solution would be to rotate it clockwise by double that. Basically mirror the angle so it slopes downward from left to right and appears at least partially right-side-up whether it's cruising through space or standing on its tail. Of course, the name on the opposite side would need to slope upward from left to right for the same reasons.
I'll make the change on the next iteration so everyone can see what it looks like.
I'll make the change on the next iteration so everyone can see what it looks like.
I know Vektor is going to kill me on this one, but why wouldn't a ship that changes its direction as Polaris does have markings that do the same? Maybe it isn't really "paint" in the way we think of it. Just some food for thought. YMMV.
Howzabout another "Polaris" along the bottom edge?
Realistically, the whole concept of "right-side-up" is meaningless in outer space. A long-established sci-fi convention is to relate it to the orientation of a vessel's internal gravity, if it has gravity, in order to satisfy the expectations of an audience who's terrestrially evolved brains want to put things in a proper and consistent orientation, even when there is no objectively defined up or down.
But what do you do with a ship like Polaris whose internal gravity is parallel to the direction of travel rather than perpendicular? For the crew of Polaris, up and down are effectively the same thing as front and back. That means what would normally be considered top and bottom as well as left and right are purely arbitrary notions from the perspective of the people on board. It's been decided that "right-side-up" for Polaris is the way I've been showing it in all these renderings and sketches, but that really isn't meaningful in any way other than how an external observer, i.e. the camera, chooses to view it.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the entire concept of right-side-up in space was left at least somewhat ambiguous in this production. I like it when the camera is not locked-off in the horizontal plane or otherwise forced to pretend that up-and-down is a universal constant. I'm not talking about flipping and rolling the camera all over the place, I'm talking about something as simple as a slow roll in an otherwise fairly static shot, just enough to suggest the camera is really out there in three-dimensional space and the action is not all confined to two-dimensions.
As far as the markings on the ship are concerned, I think my main concern would be that they shouldn't appear obviously upside-down in any of the shots where the camera lingers long enough to get a clear look at them. That brings us back to the default orientation shown in all these renderings and illustrations. For everything we're likely to do in this production, the name and registry as shown would probably work fine, though I do think it would be helpful to put the opposite slope on the name just because I know that, from the perspective of a person standing on a planet's surface looking up at the ship while landed, the name as currently shown would appear to be rotated past vertical and partially upside-down. That sort of thing just kind of bugs me.
Another alternative I still haven't ruled out--though Dennis might have--is to eliminate the sloped text altogether and go back to having it aligned with the fuselage, probably using block letters instead of script and probably just above the orange stripe instead of superimposed on it.
However it's done, all of that will probably be textured, not modeled, so it's not something that really has to be locked-down at this stage.
But what do you do with a ship like Polaris whose internal gravity is parallel to the direction of travel rather than perpendicular? For the crew of Polaris, up and down are effectively the same thing as front and back. That means what would normally be considered top and bottom as well as left and right are purely arbitrary notions from the perspective of the people on board. It's been decided that "right-side-up" for Polaris is the way I've been showing it in all these renderings and sketches, but that really isn't meaningful in any way other than how an external observer, i.e. the camera, chooses to view it.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the entire concept of right-side-up in space was left at least somewhat ambiguous in this production. I like it when the camera is not locked-off in the horizontal plane or otherwise forced to pretend that up-and-down is a universal constant. I'm not talking about flipping and rolling the camera all over the place, I'm talking about something as simple as a slow roll in an otherwise fairly static shot, just enough to suggest the camera is really out there in three-dimensional space and the action is not all confined to two-dimensions.
As far as the markings on the ship are concerned, I think my main concern would be that they shouldn't appear obviously upside-down in any of the shots where the camera lingers long enough to get a clear look at them. That brings us back to the default orientation shown in all these renderings and illustrations. For everything we're likely to do in this production, the name and registry as shown would probably work fine, though I do think it would be helpful to put the opposite slope on the name just because I know that, from the perspective of a person standing on a planet's surface looking up at the ship while landed, the name as currently shown would appear to be rotated past vertical and partially upside-down. That sort of thing just kind of bugs me.
Another alternative I still haven't ruled out--though Dennis might have--is to eliminate the sloped text altogether and go back to having it aligned with the fuselage, probably using block letters instead of script and probably just above the orange stripe instead of superimposed on it.
However it's done, all of that will probably be textured, not modeled, so it's not something that really has to be locked-down at this stage.
I like the very WW II "nose-art" look of the name as it is now. That it's oriented on the fuselage pretty much as it would be on a propeller-driven bomber of the era enhances that resemblance.
C
Christian123
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Hi all,
very Interesting!
just keep posting and sharing guys...
very Interesting!
just keep posting and sharing guys...
So, there was concern that the previous grill detailing on the main engine housings could create unsightly moire patterns at DVD resolution. Consequently, I have gone back and created something entirely different to give that area of the hull some visual interest:
I really liked the grills but I find that I like this, too, especially the way it suggests some massive structural bracing between the engine and the fuselage.
By the way, this didn't come easy. I think I've tried literally a couple hundred different designs over the past week, just sketching different things in as rapidly as possible. This is where the 2D paintover approach really shows its advantages.
I really liked the grills but I find that I like this, too, especially the way it suggests some massive structural bracing between the engine and the fuselage.
By the way, this didn't come easy. I think I've tried literally a couple hundred different designs over the past week, just sketching different things in as rapidly as possible. This is where the 2D paintover approach really shows its advantages.
Moire patterns ARE a problem. We ran into it on set, where some grooved material used on the consoles went moire crazy on the monitor. We ended up blacking out some of the console lighting to prevent it, which got rid of that problem but ultimately made parts of the backgrounder darker than I'd have liked.
Markings / up is down:
Vektor, I think you've made a pretty compelling case that the only way the markings make sense is if they are meant to be read when the ship is landed. Otherwise, who is going to read it? (Caution signs and such are a separate matter of course.)
My humble .02, naturally.
Vektor, I think you've made a pretty compelling case that the only way the markings make sense is if they are meant to be read when the ship is landed. Otherwise, who is going to read it? (Caution signs and such are a separate matter of course.)
My humble .02, naturally.
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