Virtual Tour : USS Enterprise (1701-D) Deck 1-4 (WIP)

[Lee Enfield]

Hi there!

This is a Work In Progress and supposed to be walkable in realtime at the end. The title pretty much says what you should be able to walkthrough - though, if there is enough interest in the project we (one guy for Design, one for Technology) might even extend the project and build the next decks, when we're finished with D1-4. But our primary concern is it to build the first four decks for a continuous representation as it would have been in the latest season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I will use the Sternbach AND the Whitefire Blueprints, various screenshots hosted at trekcore, related interviews with the original film crew ( Okuda, Sternbach, Whitefire, Probert et al. ), many episodes and a lot of other stuff... puh ...research, sorting and aligning everything as close to as we see it on screen is one of the most time consuming tasks, even with all the available resources.
The reason for using the 2 blueprints is that they both contain mistakes, but either contain good ideas where the other one fails to present usable layouts for the finale design. Which brings me to the point we all know: the blueprints, the tv screencaps and so forth don't line up. So, I will set priorities when it comes to drifts in the finale designs and I will have to create designs for rooms we haven't seen onscreen.

As a general rule:
What we see onscreen of the ships interiors outweights what we see onscreen of the exterior, which again outweights the schematics ( drawings, non-canon related material and so forth ). The final design decisions outweight everything.

Motivation.
I saw many cg-recreations of Trek related things, wether it may be ships, equipment or whole sets. And I think we saw alot of good stuff in that department on the internet and around here. But even one of the few recreations on the Enterprise D (also featured in this forum) - although beautiful - is non-continuous and done with old technology. Even if we look beyond continuous realtime approaches it's hard to find an accurate representation of... for instance the bridge, let alone Data/Worfs/LaForges Room ( Deck 2 ) anywhere (though there is still plenty of good work on that matter to find) ... and above all that, there seems to be no active attempt at an unintermitted walkthrough ( playable in realtime ).

This is definitively inspired by the Star Trek: The Experience and the 90's technichal manual CD-Rom which featured a "walkthrough" of the Enterprise D. Though there never was a walkthrough... They had panoramic pictures which were done from certain point of views. But I admit : I think it was cool for that time. Not really being able to walk around the ship certainly was a disappointment, but I definitively remember that, when I was a child, I spend some hours on the CD-Rom instead of the book.
Unfortunately, though supported by people from the series and good cg artists, they seem to have done another publication that does the panoramic thing again. So,... those weren't even from the real sets and not done for a practical realtime application ( design and technology have to be different ). And to recreate all the 42 Decks would have been too intense anyway. Which is ... sad.
I don't need to mention that walking around in realtime and use (some of) the devices always was a dream of some of us. And even if I will just be able to work on a fraction of the ship we still want to try and deliver a convincing experience from a "tour-perspective", but without the limitation we have seen before and then, of course, giving it away as a free download. We'll see how far we get.

The idea isn't new. Still, from time to time I will need to talk about one or the other matter - for your understanding - to clarifiy where we want to head and how decision come about.


So, here we go.

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)
​

This first post will fiddle with discrepancies in the rescources and some of the changes I have to do to the design. I possess alot of references and blueprints, but i will primarily show just a few for comparisons or to give you a certain understanding of the process.

Let's take a look at the surface and the volume of the structure to build. This is a rough rendering layout of Deck 1-4. It was build based on the Sternbach Blueprints ( abbr.: SternBbt ).

This layout helped a lot with setting up some of the design specifics required for building the interior. Though you should note that this is a layout and, although helpful for visualizing the mass, it does not represent the final models.

Use this layout to understand the design challenge presented by the structure. The main shuttle bay has to be designed, organised and connected all the way to Deck 2 by staircases, apartment, lounges, the sensor phalanx, turbolift shafts ...
Many things. Still, it's much like a little bunker. Some parts have to be consideres connected, others can be treated separately. - This has a great influence on the design tactics.


Bridge Reference Part 1 - Alignable Shematics

Since we start at the bridge we will look at some of the research material first. I looked a lot around to find good references, but I am ultimately limited by what is floating around on the internet and books I already have or that are made available for me. Needless to say I have to separate the wheat from the chaff ( canon from fanon ).

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)


Plans like these helped a lot with realizing where evrything is for instance on the bridge. On the other hand, the plans don't line up perfectly to each other, and they lack a lot of information anyway. - But because some of them are done by the original designers, or others because they showed a good amount of thoughtful detailing, they are very usable as a start - while the episodes screenshot will still be a prioritized reference.


Bridge Reference Part 2 - Schematical Chaos

I had prepared a couple of paragraphes that would go more into detail with all the mistakes a lot of the references possess ( like the Star Trek The Experience Bridge somewhat kitbashes the TNG bridge designs changes over time and other stuff... ) but that way I would extend the scope unnecessarily.

The Sternbach and Whitefire Blueprints are a special case. I will use them throughout the project. But they don't essentielly make sense considering all we know from the interior of the ship. Nevertheless. There was put some thought into either of them aligning them with their respective model( Sternbach : 4ft, Whitefire : 6ft ) and following a certain philosophy that was informed by the original film crew ( or were part of it ).
But this does not mean I could just take one of them and build the structure from there. It would'nt work. I will have to make the most sense out of the two blueprints. I will talk about the problems of their schematics when they arise/ are interesting to talk about, but have to say that it helps to have plans that make more or less sense in itself.

Just a sample: the interconnection between Deck 1 and 2

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)

Look closer and see the problems with their depiction. Sternbach draws ramp downs that lead to Lower Deck 1 ( just present in SternBpt ) right behind the bridge, where Whitfire has a ramp down directly to deck 2. The general idea of the Whitfire plans ( abbr.: WhiteBpt ) is it to have the module Sternbach describes as Lower Deck 1 on Deck 1 itself...
I actually already stop here, since there are too many things to compare. But it is important for me to understand what can be included in the final design ( or its respective draft ) and what not.

So, here are just some of the conclusions I made concerning Deck 1 and 2:

- Deck 1 : going with the WhitBpt isn't possible: Picard couldn't watch out of his window
- the ramp downs have to be where Sternbach draws them
-( layout observations ) the actual slope that is needed for the ramps prohibit for what Sternbach draws for Lower Deck 1
- there will be a Lower Deck 1, but it will lean more towards the WhiteBpt.

Bridge Reference - Part 3 - New Designs

Now, those are hybrid-plans I've made out of my conclusions. Please note, that the Lower Deck 1 configuration isn't set in stone yet. You will notice that the ramp downs are asymmetrical. That is due to asymmetrical properties of the nearby rooms. I tried to keep the Computer Core Data Trunk and made it accessible for personnel. Internal Communications has shrunk and has been put together with the Duty Officers Waiting Room - yes, it's an invention by me, but it's plausible - or where do you think the little officers come from (those who release the main staff at there station, when our heros head for a space adventure?). I have put the staircases in the center. SternBpt + WhiteBpt have an intirely differnt approaches on the staircases, which ultimately causes some promblems with the necessary changes I have to make.
One of my priorities would be to actually being able to walk from Lower Deck 1 to Deck 2. But there are other reasons, like redundant details in the SternBpt which has to be substituted by plausible rooms and inventory. I must conclude the WhitBpt do not have detailed graphics, but more thought was put into finding a plausible use for the space availabe.

In the following image you see the yellow marked area. It contains whatI concluded should be in there - though the arrangement may change. If you have thoughts on this, just tell me in this thread. But consider, that there are two turboliftshafts, staircases and other stuff that already occupies a certain space!

This red marked area will most likely contain the Whitefire-variant. The SternBpt content, although graphically detailed, is redundant with no helpful information. This btw is not the sensor grid. That's above the ceiling of Deck 2 and the rooms beneath it give you access to the grid.

So, actually ... that's it, for now...


...I'd have a ton more to talk about, but I don't want to waste to much of your time and preparing this actually occupies time that would go to the actual builing process otherwise . The next post will talk briefly about secondary structures like the corridors, targeted polygon counts and it will contain more test and traget renderings of actual models. Stay tuned!

 

[Albertese]

I'm a bigger fan of the TOS ship and I am following those various projects with rapt attention, yet, I have to say, your take on the TNG ship is making me very excited. Just what you have here is making me eager for more! Please keep it coming, this could be a fascinating project, indeed!

--Alex

 

[The Librarian]

It'll be interesting to see how well things work in 3d. I started on my own version of the plans in 2d, but I could never really be sure around the edges where the deck height and the hull started getting too low.

 

[B.J.]

Nice work! I like that you're also using the Whitefire blueprints. There were certain features in his, like the multi-deck open areas, that I really liked, even though they were never seen on screen.

Maybe I missed it, but what's the final format of this going to be?

 

[Jadin]

WOW

 

[Lee Enfield]

First:

Q: Maybe I missed it, but what's the final format of this going to be?
A: It's going to be a walkable area with access to the ship devices in realtime. We will (most likely) use the CryEngine3.

( Raytraced Image )


Test Render vs. Screenshot

I have to make a certain distinction on the visual quality of the pictures I present to you.

Most of the images I show to you are test renders(!) of the models I use for research or plan to use in a game engine later on. It means they are raytraced. So, what does that mean? It means a (potentially) higher rendering quality when it comes to light, shadows, materials,... all physical effects concerning light. It comes at a much higher rendering time cost. They still show the same models I want to use in the game engine, but since it takes some effort to bring the models in the game engine ( CryEngine3 - no integrated fbx-scene support, many restrictions on the properties of the models, only 16 bit data handling... ) I'll wait for it till the actual models have reached a state of completeness. It would mean too much unecessary work, to bring models of various stages in the game engine, without significant knowledge acquisition.
The test renders will vary in quality for time reasons.

Just when it comes to presenting you the lighting, the materials(textures), the FX, I will show screenshots(!) of the actual game engine. Those are things that have to be managed with the engine tools and present a different step in the development. To give a glimpse of what that could look like: there is a screenshot(CryEngine3) of models at the end of this post.

But to prevent potential confusion, I mark each image with a note, wether it is test render ( Raytraced Image ) or a screenshot from within the game engine ( Realtime Engine resp. CryEngine3 ). But for now and the coming posts you accompany me at various stages of the modelling process anyway. So it will be test renders, from here on.



Corridors - The Polygonial Force of Deck 2

Actually, Deck 2 has one of the lowest corridor counts of all decks. But since the other decks have a larger amount, I will not want to hold all the corridors objects at once in the rendering of the game engine anyway ( it would waste performance ) , I will concentrate on a partial approach.

The following pictures are part of my research. I made various version of the same model concerning the corridor for screen accuracy vs. resolution vs. polygon count reasons. So there is a continous development of the objects and expect them to change over time. Though, at one point, when I start on setting up materials/merge the parts asf in the engine, I'll consider the geometry of the object as more or less determined.

This is an assembly shot of various corridor models.

( Raytraced Image )


For instance, I am not satisfied with the yellow objects in this image.

( Raytraced Image )


Take a closer look. They aren't very screen accurate. And we would feel it in the end.

( Raytraced Image )


Here is an image of a newer type of this object. Better. But I think, I already got a better version floating around.

( Raytraced Image )



The next one is an example of a corridor assembly with placing markers on top of them.

( Raytraced Image )


In a lot of situations I want to know how much I can approach the limits of my set up or collect behaviorial data of the engine. It was the case here. So, I build a corridor out of it. It is important to understand that the polycount of the heaviest object in the scene doesn't go over 2000 polygons. But I deem it to much, if those objects get used on a greater scale. How they would perform in the game engine under a lot of stress would be declarative.

( Raytraced Image )

( Raytraced Image )


Research like this helps me to make certain performance gains by maintaining the same or better quality. It's time consuming, as well.

The next image shows an example geometry of the corridor framework. I treat it as a high-resoloution object (still under 2000 polygons), because having it on a greater scale in the scene would waste performance.

( Raytraced Image )


Thats's why I will most likely use LoDs here. What's a LoD ( Level of Detail )? Usually it describes a game asset that represents the actual game asset that gets loaded on a predefined distance, but with a lower polygon count. The problem with LoDs is, that they plop in the background, when they are loaded. So, making their visual appearance identical on their respective distances, to minimize this effect, is the key here.

The next one shows high-poly objects in the foreground, mid-poly further away and low-polys in the bakground. Mid an Low have a polycount of about half of their respective predecessor. The point of this picture is, that ther should be no visible difference.

( Raytraced Image )


And that's the promised screenshot done in the CryEngine3 with a lot of objects ( that currently are behind the corridor ), many(!) individual (cranked up, overlapping) light sources and other stuff. Performance was good, though no LoDs were used in this test scene.
Btw there are no texture coordinates, and just rough materials except for some objects. Everything still looks far away. But, then, it was a performance test.

( CryEngine 3 )




(P.S. There seems to be a problem with the image links of the first post. I'll correct that as soon a moderator sees my message)

 

[Donny]

Can't wait to see more! I dabbled with the Enterprise D a couple years ago when I worked with the Quake III engine. (Was going to eventually try again now that I've moved over to working with UDK) Will be interesting to see what you guys and CryEngine can do for Trek!

 

[Lee Enfield]

Yes, I know! Your build was awsome (especially considering you used Quake3), like the one you're doing for the TOSprise with UDK. I thought about using UDK, too. But the dynamic lighting, deffered materials and deff. rendering won me over. But, honestly, sometimes I miss the ability to bake a detailed lighting solution into the scene...

 

[Albertese]

Wow.

Just seriously... wow.

--Alex

 

[QuinnTV]

Oh my.

 

[blssdwlf]

Very impressive renders!

 

[Squiggy]

I'm going to fap so much to this.

 

[Lee Enfield]

Because I haven't been contacted yet, I re-post the first post with the new links until the problem is solved.

Hi there!

This is a Work In Progress and supposed to be walkable in realtime at the end. The title pretty much says what you should be able to walkthrough - though, if there is enough interest in the project we (one guy for Design, one for Technology) might even extend the project and build the next decks, when we're finished with D1-4. But our primary concern is it to build the first four decks for a continuous representation as it would have been in the latest season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I will use the Sternbach AND the Whitefire Blueprints, various screenshots hosted at trekcore, related interviews with the original film crew ( Okuda, Sternbach, Whitefire, Probert et al. ), many episodes and a lot of other stuff... puh ...research, sorting and aligning everything as close to as we see it on screen is one of the most time consuming tasks, even with all the available resources.
The reason for using the 2 blueprints is that they both contain mistakes, but either contain good ideas where the other one fails to present usable layouts for the finale design. Which brings me to the point we all know: the blueprints, the tv screencaps and so forth don't line up. So, I will set priorities when it comes to drifts in the finale designs and I will have to create designs for rooms we haven't seen onscreen.

As a general rule:
What we see onscreen of the ships interiors outweights what we see onscreen of the exterior, which again outweights the schematics ( drawings, non-canon related material and so forth ). The final design decisions outweight everything.

Motivation.
I saw many cg-recreations of Trek related things, wether it may be ships, equipment or whole sets. And I think we saw alot of good stuff in that department on the internet and around here. But even one of the few recreations on the Enterprise D (also featured in this forum) - although beautiful - is non-continuous and done with old technology. Even if we look beyond continuous realtime approaches it's hard to find an accurate representation of... for instance the bridge, let alone Data/Worfs/LaForges Room ( Deck 2 ) anywhere (though there is still plenty of good work on that matter to find) ... and above all that, there seems to be no active attempt at an unintermitted walkthrough ( playable in realtime ).

This is definitively inspired by the Star Trek: The Experience and the 90's technichal manual CD-Rom which featured a "walkthrough" of the Enterprise D. Though there never was a walkthrough... They had panoramic pictures which were done from certain point of views. But I admit : I think it was cool for that time. Not really being able to walk around the ship certainly was a disappointment, but I definitively remember that, when I was a child, I spend some hours on the CD-Rom instead of the book.
Unfortunately, though supported by people from the series and good cg artists, they seem to have done another publication that does the panoramic thing again. So,... those weren't even from the real sets and not done for a practical realtime application ( design and technology have to be different ). And to recreate all the 42 Decks would have been too intense anyway. Which is ... sad.
I don't need to mention that walking around in realtime and use (some of) the devices always was a dream of some of us. And even if I will just be able to work on a fraction of the ship we still want to try and deliver a convincing experience from a "tour-perspective", but without the limitation we have seen before and then, of course, giving it away as a free download. We'll see how far we get.

The idea isn't new. Still, from time to time I will need to talk about one or the other matter - for your understanding - to clarifiy where we want to head and how decision come about.


So, here we go.

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)
​

This first post will fiddle with discrepancies in the rescources and some of the changes I have to do to the design. I possess alot of references and blueprints, but i will primarily show just a few for comparisons or to give you a certain understanding of the process.

Let's take a look at the surface and the volume of the structure to build. This is a rough rendering layout of Deck 1-4. It was build based on the Sternbach Blueprints ( abbr.: SternBbt ).

This layout helped a lot with setting up some of the design specifics required for building the interior. Though you should note that this is a layout and, although helpful for visualizing the mass, it does not represent the final models.

Use this layout to understand the design challenge presented by the structure. The main shuttle bay has to be designed, organised and connected all the way to Deck 2 by staircases, apartment, lounges, the sensor phalanx, turbolift shafts ...
Many things. Still, it's much like a little bunker. Some parts have to be consideres connected, others can be treated separately. - This has a great influence on the design tactics.


Bridge Reference Part 1 - Alignable Shematics

Since we start at the bridge we will look at some of the research material first. I looked a lot around to find good references, but I am ultimately limited by what is floating around on the internet and books I already have or that are made available for me. Needless to say I have to separate the wheat from the chaff ( canon from fanon ).

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)


Plans like these helped a lot with realizing where evrything is for instance on the bridge. On the other hand, the plans don't line up perfectly to each other, and they lack a lot of information anyway. - But because some of them are done by the original designers, or others because they showed a good amount of thoughtful detailing, they are very usable as a start - while the episodes screenshot will still be a prioritized reference.


Bridge Reference Part 2 - Schematical Chaos

I had prepared a couple of paragraphes that would go more into detail with all the mistakes a lot of the references possess ( like the Star Trek The Experience Bridge somewhat kitbashes the TNG bridge designs changes over time and other stuff... ) but that way I would extend the scope unnecessarily.

The Sternbach and Whitefire Blueprints are a special case. I will use them throughout the project. But they don't essentielly make sense considering all we know from the interior of the ship. Nevertheless. There was put some thought into either of them aligning them with their respective model( Sternbach : 4ft, Whitefire : 6ft ) and following a certain philosophy that was informed by the original film crew ( or were part of it ).
But this does not mean I could just take one of them and build the structure from there. It would'nt work. I will have to make the most sense out of the two blueprints. I will talk about the problems of their schematics when they arise/ are interesting to talk about, but have to say that it helps to have plans that make more or less sense in itself.

Just a sample: the interconnection between Deck 1 and 2

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)

(STAR TREK and all related marks, logos and characters are owned by CBS Studios Inc. or the respective artist.)

Look closer and see the problems with their depiction. Sternbach draws ramp downs that lead to Lower Deck 1 ( just present in SternBpt ) right behind the bridge, where Whitfire has a ramp down directly to deck 2. The general idea of the Whitfire plans ( abbr.: WhiteBpt ) is it to have the module Sternbach describes as Lower Deck 1 on Deck 1 itself...
I actually already stop here, since there are too many things to compare. But it is important for me to understand what can be included in the final design ( or its respective draft ) and what not.

So, here are just some of the conclusions I made concerning Deck 1 and 2:

- Deck 1 : going with the WhitBpt isn't possible: Picard couldn't watch out of his window
- the ramp downs have to be where Sternbach draws them
-( layout observations ) the actual slope that is needed for the ramps prohibit for what Sternbach draws for Lower Deck 1
- there will be a Lower Deck 1, but it will lean more towards the WhiteBpt.

Bridge Reference - Part 3 - New Designs

Now, those are hybrid-plans I've made out of my conclusions. Please note, that the Lower Deck 1 configuration isn't set in stone yet. You will notice that the ramp downs are asymmetrical. That is due to asymmetrical properties of the nearby rooms. I tried to keep the Computer Core Data Trunk and made it accessible for personnel. Internal Communications has shrunk and has been put together with the Duty Officers Waiting Room - yes, it's an invention by me, but it's plausible - or where do you think the little officers come from (those who release the main staff at there station, when our heros head for a space adventure?). I have put the staircases in the center. SternBpt + WhiteBpt have an intirely differnt approaches on the staircases, which ultimately causes some promblems with the necessary changes I have to make.
One of my priorities would be to actually being able to walk from Lower Deck 1 to Deck 2. But there are other reasons, like redundant details in the SternBpt which has to be substituted by plausible rooms and inventory. I must conclude the WhitBpt do not have detailed graphics, but more thought was put into finding a plausible use for the space availabe.

In the following image you see the yellow marked area. It contains whatI concluded should be in there - though the arrangement may change. If you have thoughts on this, just tell me in this thread. But consider, that there are two turboliftshafts, staircases and other stuff that already occupies a certain space!

This red marked area will most likely contain the Whitefire-variant. The SternBpt content, although graphically detailed, is redundant with no helpful information. This btw is not the sensor grid. That's above the ceiling of Deck 2 and the rooms beneath it give you access to the grid.

So, actually ... that's it, for now...


...I'd have a ton more to talk about, but I don't want to waste to much of your time and preparing this actually occupies time that would go to the actual builing process otherwise . The next post will talk briefly about secondary structures like the corridors, targeted polygon counts and it will contain more test and traget renderings of actual models. Stay tuned!

 

[Lee Enfield]

So, let's start from Deck 1 and let's build the bridge.

This is a rough mash up. Still, took me a couple of days. I'll replace inferior objects once I've made better ones.

Square angles. Do you see them? Right, I don't see them either. And that's where the effort starts.
Usually I find it easier to build something from pictures, if there are square angles present. They'd guide me through scaling and proportion of the structure. This process would, then, even be more straightforward, if there were any measurements I could rely on.

But the TNG bridge consists of a tremendous amount of organic an irregular shapes. Round, organic objects mean a lot of polygons. And there are no reliable measurments for the structure. That's what I know outright. It means, I will need a lot of time to, not just, to get the geometry in the correct shape, but that I have to invest even more time to make the object as low polygonal as possible - without endangering the accuracy of the shape <- work work work. That's why the process of building the bridge will be slow.

I know I can solve my measurement and proportion problem with a lot of time and all the screencaps available at trekcore.com.
Each object has to be checked frequently against others - that is why I will build most of the bridges objects simultanously, while progressing at the whole bridge. This is necessary, to understand all the lines ( outlining, forms, twist, starts, ends, thickness ...) that appear on the sreencaps.
Some Rules:
-Reference-Rule : If looked at an object from different angles one can start to assume its shape
-Definition-Rule : The shape of one object only works in collaboration with all the others

And since the bridge contains a lot of (semi-)organic shapes, it will take even more time to alter the shape, the more polygons are involved. But I hope it to be accurate, in the end. And though a lot of the objects need to progress anyway, feel free to critizise, when you assume I wouldn't notice some detail that needs to be in it. I constantly coming back to an object and ask myself "why didn't I see that before"?

From her on I start to color objects in correlation to their progress. Green objects are very early in the process. Beige objects are further down the process. I'll try to make it the standard coloring in the future.

Ah, ^^ just one note: forgive me for my dramatic lighting from time to time. It actually helps me to detect a lot of the meshs' problems. For each mistake you see in the mesh, I already corrected 50 you don't see.

 

[Talos]

Very nice work so far! I've wanted to do something just like this for the same game engine ever since I saw Havoc's TOS plans. Still trying to learn 3D modeling, so most of my time has been brainstorming and pouring over the blueprints and trying to rationalize and visualize things.

I'm liking what you've done though. The idea of having a duty room for the relief officers is a good one and very sensible. I think the angle for the starboard ramp down to the lower deck is fine, but the port one looks a little steep. I almost wonder if it would do better as a low-slope staircase with wide steps. As it stands, it doesn't look very fun to walk up.

I had lined up the Sternbach schematics of Decks 1-2 and 3-5, which were pretty interesting to look at, but I don't think I can attach or link anything yet.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with more. I did have some thoughts for other areas when you get to them that I'd be happy to discuss. I think this is going to be amazing when it's done (not that it isn't already!).

EDIT: Looks like I can link things. Good.

http://imgur.com/a/kdKug

 

[Lee Enfield]

Thanks! And yes. Port side is strange. The problem is Picards Ready Room. And I remember that there is not much space to work with.
But, it didn't even occured to me treating the two sides differently ^^- I always thought "if there is a ramp on one side, there should be one on the other side. So, I'll definitively look into your idea of low-slope staircase with wide steps for the port and test it. Thanks and I'd be happy to discuss more of those things!

 

[Talos]

Thanks! And yes. Port side is strange. The problem is Picards Ready Room. And I remember that there is not much space to work with.
But, it didn't even occured to me treating the two sides differently ^^- I always thought "if there is a ramp on one side, there should be one on the other side. So, I'll definitively look into your idea of low-slope staircase with wide steps for the port and test it. Thanks and I'd be happy to discuss more of those things!

It would capture the asymmetrical nature of the entire bridge model as well, I think. When you get to the proper deck 2, I hope you include the enclosed lounge and the opened areas around the life boats (and the emergency lockers). It makes sense for a rallying point for all the people who will fit in five lifeboats, especially in an emergency.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you work out for the two bridge WCs too.

 

[Lee Enfield]

The lounge on the front of Deck 2? It will be there.
And I already did some estimations of the life boats and there sorrounding. Basically, the way the hatches for the life boats will open, decides how much space is availabe in front of them. This would have influence on the evacuation tactics. But I haven't decided on this topic yet.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you work out for the two bridge WCs too.

^^ Believe it or not. But I always wondered what a 24th century toilet would look like and work. I indeed have some ideas for the design and how the devices should work.

 

[Ziz]

EDIT: Looks like I can link things. Good.

http://imgur.com/a/kdKug

You're new. When you get past 50(?) posts, you'll be able to do inline images. It's a security setting they use around here to keep spammers under control.

 

[Talos]

The lounge on the front of Deck 2? It will be there.
And I already did some estimations of the life boats and there sorrounding. Basically, the way the hatches for the life boats will open, decides how much space is availabe in front of them. This would have influence on the evacuation tactics. But I haven't decided on this topic yet.

The view out of that lounge is going to be amazing, with those skylights and the view out over the saucer...

^^ Believe it or not. But I always wondered what a 24th century toilet would look like and work. I indeed have some ideas for the design and how the devices should work.

Haha, good. I'm not the only one who has always wondered that. We do see the bridge one being used a few times, such as a pair of Bynars coming out of it in 11001001. It's kind of weird that Picard's replicator is in his bathroom too. Efficiency, I guess...

You're new. When you get past 50(?) posts, you'll be able to do inline images. It's a security setting they use around here to keep spammers under control.

That is what I assumed, I just couldn't remember the specifics, particularly the post count needed. (Finally got around to making an account, but I've been reading posts here for a long time)