Since I know I'll do other versions of these, I may as well start a general corridor [edit: Stage 9] WIP thread, but this one is nearly done, just some more parts and building out the other segments. This is a rebuild of the TMP corridor set that I did as my first big Blender project back in July/August. I've obviously learned a lot in the few months since, so I decided to basically start over, though there are a couple of less significant pieces that have carried over.
Holy Jesus! Sean, these look f****ing amazing man! Like, they look like REAL sets. I can literally picture the crew suddenly appearing around the corners, going about their duties. "Learned a few things" you say? Looks like you've learned to be a top-rated CGI artist. CBS/Paramount needs to hire you to do all future Star Trek sets. Brother, these are bloody brilliant. Congratulations on a JAW-DROPPINGly beautiful set!
Lot of details missing of course, but I'm getting there. I don't have a lot of references for those, unfortunately - the corridors really only appear briefly in the movies despite being such fantastic sets. The last segment on the right in the middle shot is unfinished, but close enough for that angle to look right. Once I finish that, it has a matching pair on the other half of the ring, so that'll allow me to finish that end of the set.
@Donny did a really good job with his corridors of this era. He might have some refs or be able to point you in the right direction
I've been admiring his work for some time and actually just sent him some refs I got from a guy here in Brooklyn for one of his sets (I found a guy on eBay who has one of the items used for parts in TUC and he lives in my old neighborhood!). I've definitely referred to his stuff, but really as a last resort or to view his interpretation of the original, except where he's got actual photos (the fire extinguishers come to mind, which I have yet to do).
Thanks! For the curious, the red alert set up ising driver from a couple of world properties to turn it on and off and cycle through the running lights:
The first of those properties at the lower right is basically which movie I'm doing, since the lighting has different sets for each of the three movies these appeared in. The second is whether red alert is on or not, and the third is which group of running alert lights is lit at any given point in time (this can be animated to cycle from 0-2 on a loop) using the object ID seen in use in the second screenshot above. The fourth property is just static in this set, but could be set up to have the alert bars pulse instead of cycle.
While we're at it, here's a new render, with the values as shown in those screenshots:
I'm starting to build this out into the rest of Stage 9. I haven't decided yet how far I'll go with that or how true I'll stay to the canon sets. I'm thinking about bailing on canon at this point and building it all out as a Lost Era ship or something.
Well these are amazing... My Blender keeps 'closing' when I'm putting not much pressure on it. You appear to have quite juicy nodes and models here, what sort of set up are you running? Just thinking of what type of spec I'm looking at for my next PC.
I think they should have better disguised the TNG transporter room when it was used for TFF/TUC. What I would have done in that movie would be at the very least replace the TNG back panels with the honeycomb back panels used in TMP-TSFS or something like that.
Well these are amazing... My Blender keeps 'closing' when I'm putting not much pressure on it. You appear to have quite juicy nodes and models here, what sort of set up are you running? Just thinking of what type of spec I'm looking at for my next PC.
Thanks! I'm on a mid-2015 15-inch MacBook Pro maxed out to 16GB of RAM until about Wednesday when a brand new 16-incher with 64GB of RAM should arrive.
I think they should have better disguised the TNG transporter room when it was used for TFF/TUC. What I would have done in that movie would be at the very least replace the TNG back panels with the honeycomb back panels used in TMP-TSFS or something like that.
I wholeheartedly agree and something like that is infact on my list to do, essentially a blend of this set and the TUC style. My intention is to build out as much of Stage 9 as I can manage, placed in the immediate post-TUC era or leading into the Lost Era (Ent-B/C timeframe).
Your style of lighting a scene is breathtaking. Back in the day, you did wonders with truespace and now you make it tempting to get into Blenderforartists.
How do you do the lightpanels in your corridors? It is a backlit milkglass material, yes?
I still remember old 3d scenes from your HP and a comparison render between... Truespace and Blender Daedalus bridge would be a
priceless view.
I originally did them as actual backlit panels the first time I did the corridor set in Blender back in July, but this time around, I decided to do them purely as materials. I really didn't game anything but doing it with actual lights behind the panels and it was a pain in the ass to manage. Doing it all via materials is much more manageable (you only need to change a single material rather than dozens of lights) and can be easily switched between the lighting schemes (I use drivers and a couple world properties to set which movie lighting version I'm rendered and whether red alert is on or not). My scenes generally have very few actual lights in them, mainly just a couple of spotlights and in this case some point lights for the data conduit lights (one slightly above the conduit and one in the hole for each of them). All the rest are emissive materials like the one in that screenshot.
I originally did them as actual backlit panels the first time I did the corridor set in Blender back in July, but this time around, I decided to do them purely as materials. I really didn't game anything but doing it with actual lights behind the panels and it was a pain in the ass to manage. Doing it all via materials is much more manageable (you only need to change a single material rather than dozens of lights) and can be easily switched between the lighting schemes (I use drivers and a couple world properties to set which movie lighting version I'm rendered and whether red alert is on or not). My scenes generally have very few actual lights in them, mainly just a couple of spotlights and in this case some point lights for the data conduit lights (one slightly above the conduit and one in the hole for each of them). All the rest are emissive materials like the one in that screenshot.
An issue with using an emissive material rather than a light is that it throws out a lot more noise, meaning that you have to increase your light samples and subsequent render times. I don't know if you have experienced this?
Here's the full node setup for that honeycomb material:
The glass panel in front of it is a separate object with a pretty straight forward glass material. There's a spot behind the camera and a couple of point lights off to the left behind the honeycomb object. The Hexagon Tiles node is coming from FXNodes.
Now moving away from canon and doing my own Lost Era version of the Stage 9 set - could be Excelsior or some other ship shortly after TUC:
Here are some viewport renders showing the corridor design - it fits in the same frame as the original, but uses the radial corridor's side walls for the outer wall of the concentric corridors giving a bit more head room, but not going fully flat like TNG's do:
I accidentally did the same thing on the corridors I was doing. Then I got way too lazy to fix it and so they stayed. I think mine aren't as wide though.
LOL, nice. Mine are based on the actual sets as near as I can reconcile the reference material. All of the Stage 9 corridors from TMP through Voyager used the same underlying structure so their outer dimensions are the same.
Great progress!
Once I'm back home from the hospital I wanted to make something with a transporter alcove on the bridge, as was planned for Phase 2, but didn't come to fruition until the DS9 Ops set, maybe that's something for you as well?
Posts
Updates to the TWOK version:
Lot of details missing of course, but I'm getting there. I don't have a lot of references for those, unfortunately - the corridors really only appear briefly in the movies despite being such fantastic sets. The last segment on the right in the middle shot is unfinished, but close enough for that angle to look right. Once I finish that, it has a matching pair on the other half of the ring, so that'll allow me to finish that end of the set.
I've been admiring his work for some time and actually just sent him some refs I got from a guy here in Brooklyn for one of his sets (I found a guy on eBay who has one of the items used for parts in TUC and he lives in my old neighborhood!). I've definitely referred to his stuff, but really as a last resort or to view his interpretation of the original, except where he's got actual photos (the fire extinguishers come to mind, which I have yet to do).
Here's a new update:
Awesome. Looks almost like the real deal.
The first of those properties at the lower right is basically which movie I'm doing, since the lighting has different sets for each of the three movies these appeared in. The second is whether red alert is on or not, and the third is which group of running alert lights is lit at any given point in time (this can be animated to cycle from 0-2 on a loop) using the object ID seen in use in the second screenshot above. The fourth property is just static in this set, but could be set up to have the alert bars pulse instead of cycle.
While we're at it, here's a new render, with the values as shown in those screenshots:
I wholeheartedly agree and something like that is infact on my list to do, essentially a blend of this set and the TUC style. My intention is to build out as much of Stage 9 as I can manage, placed in the immediate post-TUC era or leading into the Lost Era (Ent-B/C timeframe).
How do you do the lightpanels in your corridors? It is a backlit milkglass material, yes?
I still remember old 3d scenes from your HP and a comparison render between... Truespace and Blender Daedalus bridge would be a
priceless view.
https://forums.scifi-meshes.com/discussion/comment/2028339#Comment_2028339
I originally did them as actual backlit panels the first time I did the corridor set in Blender back in July, but this time around, I decided to do them purely as materials. I really didn't game anything but doing it with actual lights behind the panels and it was a pain in the ass to manage. Doing it all via materials is much more manageable (you only need to change a single material rather than dozens of lights) and can be easily switched between the lighting schemes (I use drivers and a couple world properties to set which movie lighting version I'm rendered and whether red alert is on or not). My scenes generally have very few actual lights in them, mainly just a couple of spotlights and in this case some point lights for the data conduit lights (one slightly above the conduit and one in the hole for each of them). All the rest are emissive materials like the one in that screenshot.
An issue with using an emissive material rather than a light is that it throws out a lot more noise, meaning that you have to increase your light samples and subsequent render times. I don't know if you have experienced this?
Here's the full node setup for that honeycomb material:
The glass panel in front of it is a separate object with a pretty straight forward glass material. There's a spot behind the camera and a couple of point lights off to the left behind the honeycomb object. The Hexagon Tiles node is coming from FXNodes.
Here are some viewport renders showing the corridor design - it fits in the same frame as the original, but uses the radial corridor's side walls for the outer wall of the concentric corridors giving a bit more head room, but not going fully flat like TNG's do:
I accidentally did the same thing on the corridors I was doing. Then I got way too lazy to fix it and so they stayed. I think mine aren't as wide though.
Very nice work.
Thanks.
Once I'm back home from the hospital I wanted to make something with a transporter alcove on the bridge, as was planned for Phase 2, but didn't come to fruition until the DS9 Ops set, maybe that's something for you as well?