Nice to see Bradbury-tech making its way elsewhere! ^_^
Funnily enough, I had a similarly evolved Galaxy design among my pixel scribbles years ago, including the Bradbury/Sovereign mashup consoles - but mine had the gap between the supports enclosed and filled with glass
@Vortex5972: Thanks! Indeed part of the idea here was to better integrate the curves of the TNG consoles to the more angular approach the E had.
@prisioner881: That's certainly true, but as it's an element that's lifted directly from the TNG bridge, I'll leave the thickness as it is.
@mdta: Just like the E consoles, no light here. Still, there's plenty around them, given the iluminated steps and the added small lamps at floor level near the forward alcoves.
@Starscream: Ohh, glass on a bridge, that sounds interesting!
I've changed the color of the vertical light fixtures to a warmer, almost yellow orange. I've also started UV mapping the consoles and re-adding the LCARS, with a new color pallet that's based on the Insurrection consoles (that is, the consoles that were made specifically for the movie, not those reused from First Contact). The MSD at the back has its background elements as metallic decals with the same color as the small labels spread across the bridge, just like the Ent-E had.
Also, after trying a different arrangement, the conn/ops consoles are now swapped in position and further apart from each other.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
It's looking really good, I think its better than the Sovereign Class bridge design. The only reason why I mentioned the light was because the Galaxy Class consoles had a light at the base of the consoles, and so if you wanted to preserve the light levels, you could have put them under the chairs. But it looks fine as it is. One other thing regarding lights. Is it intentional that the ceiling lights are of a warmer tone, compared to the floor level lights?
@Rekkert The almost yellow orange lighting looks perfect, great work! I think too much green was showing through before.
Could you move all three of the command chairs forward about 15 centimeters? Maybe it's the angle, but I feel like the two side command chairs are too close to the horseshoe.
@Rekkert well, transparent aluminum, at least It was confined to the gaps under the standalone consoles, and encapsulated by their support struts.
Regarding the yellow lights, they're definitely improved now that they're warmer, but to me the underlights are both a bit much (ie better off blue or white), and also too dim - makes them look a bit redundant, yknow?
The LCARS look good; they remind me quite a bit of the Engineering color scheme (it looked less garish than the bridge ones appeared in INS) I think maybe the metallic elements on the rear console could stand to look shinier though, as they appear indistinguishable from the bulkhead material right now.
Glad you reversed the struts under the Conn/Ops stations too, they look much better angled towards the front struts!
On a side note, it occurs to me that if the production team had kept the Ent-D for subsequent movies, we might have ended up seeing a bridge quite like this.
Rekkert. fantastic bridge. This may be my favorite one so far. One technical question: do you use cycles for rendering? If you do, how do you avoid the noise? I remember when I was using cycles, interiors would be really problematic to render smooth. In the end I just gave up and bought V-ray for blender.
I'm not really sold on the yellow light columns, but I have to say that I LOVE the general color scheme of this bridge - the reddish-brown chairs and the bronze-like consoles.
@mdta: Thanks! Yes, it's intentional as the floor level lights were usually neon on the sets and those had a slight blue tone, while the set lights used for overhead illumination and on the ceiling had a very slight red tint to them.
@JMP11: They didn't touch, but they were close. I moved them a bit forward now.
@Starscream: The step lighting is indeed very subtle, a lot more than on the Generations or Ent-E bridges, it's intended mostly as decoration, not really to serve as ilumination, but it's true that being so similar to the bulkhead color, it gets lost a bit, so I might try to increase it a bit and see how it looks.
Regarding the color of the metallic elements, they're actually quite shiny, the problem is that there's no lighting directly on top of the consoles, so there's no light to reflect.
Keeping the TNG bridge and heavily modifying it for First Contact would've been 1000 times better than what they did, but oh well.
@I14R10: Thank you! Indeed I use Cycles. For 'in progress' renders such as these, I usually render at about 256 samples, which would be really noisy, but the built in denoiser they added for 2.79 really cleans up a lot of it, even if you lose some finer detail as well. For the renders I do to display the finished meshes, I usually go with 1024 samples, so that produces a far cleaner image to begin with.
@BolianAdmiral: I know a lot of people don't like it, but I love the general Enterprise-E color pallet as well.
More progress on the MSD area, I've added the small monitors below it, as well as all the metallic golden decals around the area.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
That's a really nice color combination on the LCARS! Shame they never looked as good as that on the movie set
As far as having the E-D bridge vs the Ent-E one, I totally agree - but then I wanted an upgraded D exterior, too (and somewhere among my old scribbles I did just that lol)
Where the bronze pallet is concerned, I found the more muted gold hues of Nemesis easier on the eye - plus bronze seemed ideal for a "lesser" sister class to me. I think subconscious association played a role in that though, due to the (gold) "Sovereign" class, plus the heirarchy of gold, silver and bronze. *shrug*
Well, it is supposed to be muted gold, as far as I know the metallic decals were never replaced during the movies. I've modified the color a little bit to be slightly less reddish.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
Actually I was referring to the bridge colors overall - in Insurrection they appeared to have shifted towards a slightly more golden hue (most noticeably on the reworked standalone consoles), while on Nemesis the colors became more muted - though in NEM It's arguably due to lighting. If I get time later I'll do a swatch comparison.
As far as the metal decals are concerned though, every screencap I have (thankyou Trekcore!) shows them as unmistakeably gold - the only variance being that negative effect when they're seen from a sharp angle, as with the silver decals on Voyager.
Actually I was referring to the bridge colors overall - in Insurrection they appeared to have shifted towards a slightly more golden hue (most noticeably on the reworked standalone consoles), while on Nemesis the colors became more muted - though in NEM It's arguably due to lighting. If I get time later I'll do a swatch comparison.
As far as the metal decals are concerned though, every screencap I have (thankyou Trekcore!) shows them as unmistakeably gold - the only variance being that negative effect when they're seen from a sharp angle, as with the silver decals on Voyager.
The movies could be colour graded differently, or using different lighting. Apart from the LCARS colours, I am not aware of the set's being repainted deliberately.
The movies could be colour graded differently, or using different lighting. Apart from the LCARS colours, I am not aware of the set's being repainted deliberately.
Logically, they'd need a certain amount of repainting for each movie, at the very least for cosmetic touch-ups after pulling everything back out of storage (this is certainly evident in NEM when you look at the turbolift alcoves, for example), so It's not inconceivable that they'd respray the entire bridge as one and the resulting color be slightly different either by accident or design. And, we know just by very quick examination that there were other changes introduced for INS and NEM both. The standalone consoles are without a doubt a different hue after FC - probably having to be repainted after removing the heavy-handed black taping applied for FC. (A note on that also, Rekkert's taping is nicely understated here :cool: )
I agree you could also blame an element of it on color grading (the difference is a lot more visible on DVD caps back in the day vs HD), but then I'll reply with the same argument as regards LCARS: What's important is how it appears onscreen, because that was how they intended the universe to be depicted. Otherwise fans would all be going to Conventions dressed in bright green command tunics
Touch ups and repainting scuff marks, and tweaking is inevitable, but I wouldn't call that a deliberate repaint. I know the TNG sets were repainted to achieve an aesthetic look, and I know the director asked for the LCARS panels to be given a new colour scheme, and some bevels to appear 3D.
Without flatly lit photos of the sets for the 3 films, its harder to determine exactly what paints were changed. But in the end, it comes down to personal choice.
Oh, I agree re personal choice - like I said, my own stance on it is undoubtedly "colored" lol
And on color sampling, it certainly is harder. For example, if you try to take a color swatch from the Insurrection standalone consoles, half the scenes you'll get everything from stark magenta, blue, through to lime green because of how much more reflective the new paintjob was My point on the touch-ups for INS was that it may have been easier to simply respray the entire background set during reassembly to avoid any visible color variations, and that either through accident or design the new paint may have been slightly different. As it happens, this seems not to be the case (see below).
The bridge LCARS were changed between each of the films (presumably through stronger backlighting for INS), though I assume you're referring to the NEM adjustments, bearing in mind your comment on Bevels?
FWIW, I've gone back and done a swatch grab from all three films, from my HD copies for INS and FC, and DVD for Nemesis (I'm not buying that mess again lol). I've tried to grab from darker areas, to avoid undue influence from localised lighting. The results were surprising, notably in that the FC paint is substantially less red than it appeared on DVD, but also in actual fact less than it appears onscreen on HD still. I'll chalk it up to the purple-orange LCARS having an effect there... Further to which, the bulkheads between all films appear to be near-identical hue when you avoid ambient lighting. Have also grabbed a swatch from the Insurrection LCARS metal decals, since as Rekkert points out, they went unchanged between films: EE Color Swatch.png
Certain colored elements were indeed changed, such as the carpet (which not also changed color but also shape), but I'm pretty certain that the color of the consoles remained consistent, once you adjust for set lighting changes.
I've been further adjusting the UVs so not much in the way of visible progress, but more LCARS were added, along with a new dome light similar to that on the Ent-E to add some more light to the bridge, and the dedication plaque was added near the Ready Room door.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
@Rekkert we'll have to agree to disagree The standalone consoles are the one element I've been absolutely certain all along were changed after FC; as far as I can tell this is born out by the sampling. you're absolutely right about that carpet though - I hadn't realised just how turquoise it is in FC until the other day
The new Ready Room door location is a surprise, I quite like it (better than the canon one, tbh)! The additional LCARS are looking great too.
Great work, I love how the LCARS are coming together.
@Starscream The main reason I wanted the Ready Room moved (and the Conference room) is to allow its access to the Conference Room corridor and the aft sections of deck 1. I hope to eventually to have Rekkert create La Forge's Ready Room as a future project, based on the little we saw of it in "Timeless." I never liked how Picard's Ready Room required him to cross the bridge to access it and preferred Janeway's Ready Room with the second door leading out.
I have to say I'm liking much of what I see so far with this bridge. The one thing That's kind of nagging me, is the position of the CONN/OPS consoles - they seem to be further forward than on the Enterprise-D, like much closer to the viewscreen. At least That's how it looks to my eyes... it could just be an optical illusion, due to the wider feel of the new bridge steps and whatnot. I'm still not sold on the columns of yellow light, either. To me, it just seems that there should be something more "substantial" there, like LCARS or something. Maybe It's because the yellow light is segmented like it is, and not a solid line of light, which IMO, would look a bit better. But other than those minor quibbles, I'm loving what I see so far. I love the color combinations being used. This is seriously making me consider doing a "wartime" refit or a "2.0" version of the Quasar's bridge in the near future.
I've requested a variation of this bridge for when the USS Galaxy is upgraded to Battle Group Omega Edition, though Rekkert does have other stuff in the pipeline.
@Rusty0918 I look forward to seeing to your take on it!
@BolianAdmiral It's funny that you're considering a "wartime" refit of the Quasar's bridge. Originally, when I talked to Rekkert about the design it was for one of the many "background" Galaxy class starships seen in Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War. Rekkert's first draft I requested was much closer to a Yesterday's Enterprise style than ST: Insurrection meets TNG. But, those elements clashed and we moved to more of a Enterprise-E style for a refit of the Challenger post Dominion War. I think Rekkert's work does the Challenger name proud. I'm hoping, although the odds are small, that Picard can bump into his old friend, now Captain La Forge, and the Challenger in the new series... I can dream right?
@JMP11 I definitely agree with your Ready Room idea! I too preferred the secondary access that both Janeway and Picard on the Ent-E had - much more sensible when dealing with difficult guests or situations...
I do agree still with @BolianAdmiral regarding the lighting; especially since as you say, you're going to be doing the Ready Room itself at some point (where it'd make more sense to have slightly different, warmer lighting than the norm).
As far as the overall bridge style is concerned, personally I've long imagined a subtle Enterprise-D exterior refit, in place of the Ent-E (Not least because Generations was a mess!). As such the refit bridge evolves the Generations version, to include -subtle- Voyager-esque touches as well as fixing some issues I've long had with the basic design. Like @BolianAdmiral's, it too is a more capable wartime vessel, though not a warship, per se.
The alternate Ent-E version then comes along by the turn of the century, and is substantially cleaner and more advanced in appearance... One day I might actually complete the concept enough to commission @Rekkert on that one
@mdta: I'm always thinking about how each alert would look on each bridge, but IDK at this stage if I'll actually be doing them
@BolianAdmiral: Glad you're liking it! Indeed the conn/ops consoles are a bit closer to the viewscreen, however they're still some 3 meters (10 feet) away from it, more than enough room to allow the officers to comfortably see it.
@Starscream: Hahaha, that sounds like quite the alternate timeline. Still, I'd love anything that destroys Generations . Regarding the lighting, we can certainly do some last minute changes or tests there once everything else is in place, at JMP11's discretion, of course.
I've done some more work on the LCARS, finishing up the panels for one side of the bridge.
Tangentially to the Challenger commission, JMP11 and I had been talking for a couple of days about fleshing out the Parallels combadge style, and he commissioned me to create this showcase of all the ranks, as a little side project:
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
@Rekkert yeah, there's plenty to fix out of the TL we got IMO
Speaking of which, I love those combadges - I always admired that set of different designs you drew up, and I've favoured the Parallels version over the TNG standard ever since we saw it. (It's like, we get it, the Enterprise has an oval saucer. The entire universe doesn't suddenly need to be made of ovals, dammit!) AFAIC the oval one doesn't exist lol
Interestingly, I thought of a Starfleet post-Dominion War variation of uniforms, based off of the unused Generations designs - the exception is instead of by department color the uniforms are are navy blue (a la Discovery) with the necks being of appropriate department color (a gold/silver/bronze deal a la DSC). These would be worn mainly by Battle Group Omega officers.
Eh, TBH I'm not a fan of Discovery's uniforms - too much flash, not enough substance IMO; as with the rest of the show's designs. I always liked the idea of taking the wraparound approach with a future version of the FC/DS9 uniforms though, as the Generations uniforms tried to.
@Starscream: lol yeah I don't care much for the oval TNG combadge myself, both the Parallels and the Generations badges look a lot better on the TNG uniform IMO.
@Rusty0918: Mmm, That's quite an interesting design!
I do like the Disco uniforms myself, though both department and rank are extremely hard to see, I'd change those two things if I could (then again, That's also true of the FC uniforms).
I've finished the replicator for the bridge, so the crew can get their coffee now, no need for a Starbucks on board. Should I add cup holders to the consoles?
I've also added in those little golden stripes on the doors that the Ent-E bridge had in Insurrection.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
Posts
Funnily enough, I had a similarly evolved Galaxy design among my pixel scribbles years ago, including the Bradbury/Sovereign mashup consoles - but mine had the gap between the supports enclosed and filled with glass
@prisioner881: That's certainly true, but as it's an element that's lifted directly from the TNG bridge, I'll leave the thickness as it is.
@mdta: Just like the E consoles, no light here.
@Starscream: Ohh, glass on a bridge, that sounds interesting!
I've changed the color of the vertical light fixtures to a warmer, almost yellow orange. I've also started UV mapping the consoles and re-adding the LCARS, with a new color pallet that's based on the Insurrection consoles (that is, the consoles that were made specifically for the movie, not those reused from First Contact). The MSD at the back has its background elements as metallic decals with the same color as the small labels spread across the bridge, just like the Ent-E had.
Also, after trying a different arrangement, the conn/ops consoles are now swapped in position and further apart from each other.
Could you move all three of the command chairs forward about 15 centimeters? Maybe it's the angle, but I feel like the two side command chairs are too close to the horseshoe.
Regarding the yellow lights, they're definitely improved now that they're warmer, but to me the underlights are both a bit much (ie better off blue or white), and also too dim - makes them look a bit redundant, yknow?
The LCARS look good; they remind me quite a bit of the Engineering color scheme (it looked less garish than the bridge ones appeared in INS) I think maybe the metallic elements on the rear console could stand to look shinier though, as they appear indistinguishable from the bulkhead material right now.
Glad you reversed the struts under the Conn/Ops stations too, they look much better angled towards the front struts!
On a side note, it occurs to me that if the production team had kept the Ent-D for subsequent movies, we might have ended up seeing a bridge quite like this.
@JMP11: They didn't touch, but they were close.
@Starscream: The step lighting is indeed very subtle, a lot more than on the Generations or Ent-E bridges, it's intended mostly as decoration, not really to serve as ilumination, but it's true that being so similar to the bulkhead color, it gets lost a bit, so I might try to increase it a bit and see how it looks.
Regarding the color of the metallic elements, they're actually quite shiny, the problem is that there's no lighting directly on top of the consoles, so there's no light to reflect.
Keeping the TNG bridge and heavily modifying it for First Contact would've been 1000 times better than what they did, but oh well.
@I14R10: Thank you!
@BolianAdmiral: I know a lot of people don't like it, but I love the general Enterprise-E color pallet as well.
More progress on the MSD area, I've added the small monitors below it, as well as all the metallic golden decals around the area.
As far as having the E-D bridge vs the Ent-E one, I totally agree - but then I wanted an upgraded D exterior, too (and somewhere among my old scribbles I did just that lol)
Where the bronze pallet is concerned, I found the more muted gold hues of Nemesis easier on the eye - plus bronze seemed ideal for a "lesser" sister class to me. I think subconscious association played a role in that though, due to the (gold) "Sovereign" class, plus the heirarchy of gold, silver and bronze. *shrug*
As far as the metal decals are concerned though, every screencap I have (thankyou Trekcore!) shows them as unmistakeably gold - the only variance being that negative effect when they're seen from a sharp angle, as with the silver decals on Voyager.
The movies could be colour graded differently, or using different lighting. Apart from the LCARS colours, I am not aware of the set's being repainted deliberately.
Logically, they'd need a certain amount of repainting for each movie, at the very least for cosmetic touch-ups after pulling everything back out of storage (this is certainly evident in NEM when you look at the turbolift alcoves, for example), so It's not inconceivable that they'd respray the entire bridge as one and the resulting color be slightly different either by accident or design.
I agree you could also blame an element of it on color grading (the difference is a lot more visible on DVD caps back in the day vs HD), but then I'll reply with the same argument as regards LCARS: What's important is how it appears onscreen, because that was how they intended the universe to be depicted. Otherwise fans would all be going to Conventions dressed in bright green command tunics
Without flatly lit photos of the sets for the 3 films, its harder to determine exactly what paints were changed. But in the end, it comes down to personal choice.
And on color sampling, it certainly is harder. For example, if you try to take a color swatch from the Insurrection standalone consoles, half the scenes you'll get everything from stark magenta, blue, through to lime green because of how much more reflective the new paintjob was
The bridge LCARS were changed between each of the films (presumably through stronger backlighting for INS), though I assume you're referring to the NEM adjustments, bearing in mind your comment on Bevels?
FWIW, I've gone back and done a swatch grab from all three films, from my HD copies for INS and FC, and DVD for Nemesis (I'm not buying that mess again lol). I've tried to grab from darker areas, to avoid undue influence from localised lighting. The results were surprising, notably in that the FC paint is substantially less red than it appeared on DVD, but also in actual fact less than it appears onscreen on HD still. I'll chalk it up to the purple-orange LCARS having an effect there... Further to which, the bulkheads between all films appear to be near-identical hue when you avoid ambient lighting. Have also grabbed a swatch from the Insurrection LCARS metal decals, since as Rekkert points out, they went unchanged between films:
EE Color Swatch.png
I've been further adjusting the UVs so not much in the way of visible progress, but more LCARS were added, along with a new dome light similar to that on the Ent-E to add some more light to the bridge, and the dedication plaque was added near the Ready Room door.
The new Ready Room door location is a surprise, I quite like it (better than the canon one, tbh)! The additional LCARS are looking great too.
@Starscream The main reason I wanted the Ready Room moved (and the Conference room) is to allow its access to the Conference Room corridor and the aft sections of deck 1. I hope to eventually to have Rekkert create La Forge's Ready Room as a future project, based on the little we saw of it in "Timeless." I never liked how Picard's Ready Room required him to cross the bridge to access it and preferred Janeway's Ready Room with the second door leading out.
@BolianAdmiral It's funny that you're considering a "wartime" refit of the Quasar's bridge. Originally, when I talked to Rekkert about the design it was for one of the many "background" Galaxy class starships seen in Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War. Rekkert's first draft I requested was much closer to a Yesterday's Enterprise style than ST: Insurrection meets TNG. But, those elements clashed and we moved to more of a Enterprise-E style for a refit of the Challenger post Dominion War. I think Rekkert's work does the Challenger name proud. I'm hoping, although the odds are small, that Picard can bump into his old friend, now Captain La Forge, and the Challenger in the new series... I can dream right?
I do agree still with @BolianAdmiral regarding the lighting; especially since as you say, you're going to be doing the Ready Room itself at some point (where it'd make more sense to have slightly different, warmer lighting than the norm).
As far as the overall bridge style is concerned, personally I've long imagined a subtle Enterprise-D exterior refit, in place of the Ent-E (Not least because Generations was a mess!). As such the refit bridge evolves the Generations version, to include -subtle- Voyager-esque touches as well as fixing some issues I've long had with the basic design. Like @BolianAdmiral's, it too is a more capable wartime vessel, though not a warship, per se.
The alternate Ent-E version then comes along by the turn of the century, and is substantially cleaner and more advanced in appearance... One day I might actually complete the concept enough to commission @Rekkert on that one
@mdta: I'm always thinking about how each alert would look on each bridge, but IDK at this stage if I'll actually be doing them
@BolianAdmiral: Glad you're liking it! Indeed the conn/ops consoles are a bit closer to the viewscreen, however they're still some 3 meters (10 feet) away from it, more than enough room to allow the officers to comfortably see it.
@Starscream: Hahaha, that sounds like quite the alternate timeline.
I've done some more work on the LCARS, finishing up the panels for one side of the bridge.
Tangentially to the Challenger commission, JMP11 and I had been talking for a couple of days about fleshing out the Parallels combadge style, and he commissioned me to create this showcase of all the ranks, as a little side project:
Speaking of which, I love those combadges - I always admired that set of different designs you drew up, and I've favoured the Parallels version over the TNG standard ever since we saw it. (It's like, we get it, the Enterprise has an oval saucer. The entire universe doesn't suddenly need to be made of ovals, dammit!) AFAIC the oval one doesn't exist lol
@Rusty0918: Mmm, That's quite an interesting design!
I do like the Disco uniforms myself, though both department and rank are extremely hard to see, I'd change those two things if I could (then again, That's also true of the FC uniforms).
I've finished the replicator for the bridge, so the crew can get their coffee now, no need for a Starbucks on board. Should I add cup holders to the consoles?
I've also added in those little golden stripes on the doors that the Ent-E bridge had in Insurrection.