sorceress21

Part of the issue too is he's assuming uniform dimensions for each deck.

Deck 24, especially, doesn't need to be a full height deck at all, nor do a couple of the decks on the connecting dorsal. That reduced deck height spread out over the remaining decks along with his scale/length miscalculation gives plenty of room to make it work.

The other issue is recognizing the little known production fact that, with few exceptions such as the transporter pad, TOS sets did not have ceilings. That was a production cost savings measure and if you really pay attention when watching the show, where a ceiling would be is always slightly out of frame. Therefore one really can't use something like the image above to justify a standard deck height as you have to dismiss production limitations out of the equation and go with more sound "hypothetical engineering."

For the image above, you just have to "assume" the compartment's overhead is just an inch or two above the top of the door alcove. Had they made ceilings for the sets, that's about where it would be.

Basing deck height off images of TOS sets is really the most widely mistaken assumption by artists who have attempted to justify the TOS interiors against the outboard design of the Enterprise to make deck plans. It's why it never works out.

Scirocco in normal space

BolianAdmiral wrote: »

Hey, all...

So, I've decided to do a full rewatch of all the "Prime" universe Trek TV shows and movies. I've decided to start with Star Trek: Voyager. Below, is my review and thoughts on the pilot episode, "Caretaker". Enjoy!

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STAR TREK: VOYAGER - "CARETAKER"

snip -

As of the ship's departure from DS9, the Voyager has a crew compliment of 141, and her deck count is established as 15 decks. I love the Mess Hall food replicator wall, and wonder why they got rid of it for Neelix's kitchen, when they easily could have had both at the same time. IMO, dismantling those replicators is a waste of resources.

snip

Actually, the space Neelix took over for his kitchen was the Captain's private dining room just to nitpick.

Tralfaz wrote: »

WOW!! I must have missed this the first time around. These are absolutely beautiful. I always thought Sketch Up was a toy for kids, but you have shown it is no toy!

Thank you!! This model has been evolving for a long while now..I'm very close to being totally done with the exterior.

Sketchup is a far more powerful modeling platform than reputed and that's really what it's all about..Reputation. Because it's rarely used for film and TV production it's simply overlooked. I have 3DS Max but find the modeling work flow is far more "technical" than SketchupPro and I've honestly given up trying to learn it...without a class to understand the software and all the terminology and back end function it would take me years to self teach the application to be able to produce the same quality of work I'm already making on an open GL platform.. A lot of the things I can do in SU I do in real time directly on the mesh with a wide range of scultpting tools both native and plugin, whereas with Max some things require a "setup" before it can be executed vs. just cutting right into the model.

Texturing in SU is far easier then in MAX as well..I don't have to create "shaders" and I can literally draw markings directly onto the mesh using vertex lines to divide the material. I have a good UV mapping plugin and one thing you don't have to do with SU is UV unwrap a mesh just to skin it though if that's your preferred technique there is a plugin app that does that quite well.

One day I do want to learn a pro-application and be able to animate and elevate my work to studio compatible standard but for now this is a hobby and I don't have time to take a class on Max.

Typical Corridor, both variants.

Scirocco in SQC Flight

Thanks for the solid feedback, its all VERY helpful and yes, this is far from a finished product. Render time was about 8 hours.

Overall I'm going for a realistic lighting setup vs. a pretty one. The one thing I don't do with my art is practice presentation for the sake of aesthetics. In sci-fi I feel strongly there is way too much of that which spoils suspension of disbelief. For example putting a magic light source on a ship in deep space which is common place and nearly standard. I mean space is a dark place. The best IRL lighting setups I've seen in sci in my opinion have been 2010: The Year we Make Contact and The Expanse. Also look at the many images out there of Starfleet vessels inside the spacedock. Those images the ships all blend in as well and in my opinion are some of the best realistically lit scenes in scifi. That being said one thing I've going to play with is to add spotlights in the dock to better illuminate a ship that is "docked" like those spacedock scenes from trek. I'll play with global medium to get the beams to slightly show up a bit though in a vacuum unless there was dust or a gas present that wouldn't be present IRL. But one could say it was some kind of venting from the ship's ECS.

So yes, the ship is blended with the dock background a lot I agree. However, that's what it would really look like. The hull of the Destroyer is also non-reflective and has a sprayed on thermal coating. That's knocking down the contrast quite a bit.

Now along with the main dock lighting which I already know how to fix (I think), the big work lights definitely need help too and definitely look too CG insofar as the structure. Right now I'm not sure how to go about fixing it so idea are welcome. They are not just in how much I need to adjust the projected light but in the texture of the surfaces, especially the tube rails they're mounted on. I may just do away with them and go with something else as they are heavy poly anyway.

This scene is actually meant to sort of show the ship about ready to depart which is why all the running lights are on and the work lights are dimmed and turned off where there are no other ships docked.

Freak wrote: »

My God that was such a great episode.
It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time.
This show just keep get better and better.

Me too!