3DPilot's Chair

Kai Dovak

Here's my latest WIP. Been months since i posted anything so i figured i should.

This is the beginnings of a starship bridge. To get my scale down, I'm starting with the pilot's station.





The cylinder at the back of the arm is going to be the level of the floor.

JamesApril

Looks good.
Is the pilot gonna sit in a glass dome?

Kai Dovak

JamesApril wrote: »

Looks good.
Is the pilot gonna sit in a glass dome?

He/She will have a set of displays set up for navigation data surrounding the chair. I'm currently leaning toward a combination of transparent display "windows" and holographically projected interface elements.

Berkut

looks like a good start, holographically projected displays ftw :thumb:

Tochiro76

Needs a headrest and tilt the seat forward just a bit so the back of their knees don't get irritated by the edge of the seat after sitting there for a long time.

Kai Dovak

Did some more detail modelling. The glass displays are in place though the texture is obviously a placeholder. (Unless y'all think the battleships of the future should run on linux :P)

Next up is a headrest and armrests. I'm thinking i'll put a status display on the back of the headrest so the officer on deck can check up on the helmsman at a glance.

Melak

Nice work!

Kai Dovak

New update: Headrest and armrests are in place. I'm going for a combo of automotive and office in the styling, seeing as a large starship is like an office building you can drive.


The area around where the pilot's feet will rest will have multiple foot pedals for when manual control is needed.

Aresius

Well, I've got no issues with Linux for the future warships...
Nice work anyway.

Kai Dovak

Time to update after a hard day's work.


Here's a quick mockup of a bridge layout using this station. The bridge is situated inside a 100 meter sphere at the center of mass of the ship. The interior surface of the entire sphere will be an active display showing a composite image from cameras distributed across the exterior.


Cranked up the render settings on this to see how the lighting works out. I'm fairly happy with that, but not so much with the console around the rim of the station. May redo that from scratch, possibly in inventor for better precision.

Tochiro76

Maybe if the glass could slide closed in the front? it would be easier for the pilot to look at instead of having to look left and right a lot.

Aresius

I do agree, or make a full 3/4 glass-casing. By the way, how is the pilot supposed to get into the seat that way?

Kai Dovak

I'll have to do a render from behind to show the mechanism for entering the seat. The whole chair is on a swivel mount which is in turn on the end of an arm that can pilot up to deck level. When in position, the pilot can use the wall display for eyeballing manual angle adjustments in combat (thus the gap in the displays in front.)

Starship

ItA’s to much impressive!

Freak

Very cool looking chair and console.

lennier1

Amazing!

Reminds me of the Seaquest bridge but her pilot seats were enclosed vertically instead of horizontally.

Pagrin

I like the idea, and I'm glad to hear your bridge is in the center of the ship where it should be in a warship. However just how does your pilot, pilot. That is he needs to e able to control the ship somehow, but so far I can only see ways of monitoring whats going on. If the displays are interactive, they seem a bit far away to be comfortable to use. They look to be almost at arms length. If you hold your arms out that way in anything other than zero-g they will get very tired very quickly.
Controls need to be close at hand. Al the more so on a warship where even a second delay could mean you're all toast.

Aardwolf

@Pagrin: Maybe it's got motion tracking, and you can just "point" at the button for the action you want and have it do it? Tech-wise, that doesn't seem too far off nowadays... although I've got no idea if a person could have as much precision with such an interface as with a conventional input device... or how long it would take to learn, coming from what exists now.

homerpalooza67

pretty cool mate!

publiusr

Quite advanced. If the JJ prise bridge were even more spacious, I can see this being a central captains chair, and the recessed vulcan school domes in the floor surrounding it perhaps...

Kai Dovak

Minor update: I've started work on the holographic UI elements used to actually control the ship. The concept is somewhat inspired by the ring used to control the spin of a tilt-a-whirl carnival ride. The pilot uses gestures to spin holographic "compass wheels" to set the ship's orientation in three dimensions, with an indicator of actual orientation compared to the set heading sweeping across the ring like an egg timer as the ship adjusts.

Melak

Course heading change, captain! 37 mark 8.

Aresius

Nice, that really looks cool.

BorgMan

That's a really kick-ass bridge you're building there dude, it's got win written all over it ^_^

eracoon

best bridge and pilot seat I have ever seen... more logical than any ST bridge

BolianAdmiral

I love the 3D compass/wheel idea... very inventive and fresh!

Kai Dovak

This project has taken on a life of its own and become an inside-out ship build. More pics will follow when I'm able. Currently moving to a new apartment and my modelling rig is there already but no internet until the girlfriend and our cats are settled in. The general concept is for a modular ship with distinct functional units, branching out from the control center at the ship's center of mass.