From: Christian Froeschlin
Subject: Re: Every ship needs a parrot
Date: 10 Dec 2011 20:18:47
Message: <4ee404f7$1@news.povray.org>
Ive wrote:
> ...and from the port outside.
nice one
> And yes I know, doing Star Trek in the 21st century is so retro.
Of course it's not - that would mean I'm old.
From: Ive
Subject: Re: Every ship needs a parrot
Date: 11 Dec 2011 00:10:37
Message: <4ee43b4d@news.povray.org>
With a wide angle camera even more of the Big E.
Long ago, the refit Enterprise NCC-1701 (as seen in the first three
movies) was my first *big* POV-Ray project.
My main reference was a collection of photos from the real thing (the
3-meter-model used for the shooting) found at William McCullars
IDIC-page - but the site has meanwhile vanished into digital nirvana.
As far as I remember it did start with POV-Ray version 3.0 and did
continue until version 3.5 when I lost interest - mostly because at this
time the model did take ages to render. As POV-Ray tells me there are 90
light sources (when all are switched on) and most of them need to be
area-lights, also many parts of the hull use blurred reflections.
But with POV-Ray 3.7 (and a fast machine) it renders even with radiosity
turned on pretty fast. And using radiosity gives a nice touch due
internal diffuse reflections from the ship-hull.
Well the source code is a mess and I didn't want to touch it besides of
replacing "ambient" by "emission". But I did add the arboretum that was
meant to be within the secondary hull and was actually never seen in the
movies. So I had total freedom when making it and was at first tempted
to create something very exotic by e.g. designing plants from alien
planets but then I figured: when actually going boldly where no man has
gone before, you would take a bit "earth" with you. And some earthly
wilderness did make a nice contrast to the clean "Star-Trek-Look" that
also has to be present.
Lighting the arboretum was quite difficult as it should look natural
*and* artificial at the same time. And without requiring HQ radiosity
settings to keep rendering time reasonable. It is mostly faked by a
spotlight with a soft falloff and projected_through the ceiling dome.
Thanks for watching and reading and I'm quite happy that I can put at
least one of my numerous unfinished businesses aside.
-Ive
From: Thomas de Groot
Subject: Re: Every ship needs a parrot
Date: 11 Dec 2011 02:54:08
Message: <4ee461a0$1@news.povray.org>
On 10-12-2011 17:59, Ive wrote:
> Inside the arboretum...
Very nice indeed. I think StarTrek will never be retro, at least not
before the 25th century. :-)
Thomas
From: Christian Froeschlin
Subject: Re: Every ship needs a parrot
Date: 11 Dec 2011 15:47:36
Message: <4ee516e8@news.povray.org>
Ive wrote:
> My main reference was a collection of photos from the real thing (the > 3-meter-model used for the shooting) found at William McCullars > IDIC-page - but the site has meanwhile vanished into digital nirvana.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071202124000/http://members.aol.com/idicpage/main.html
Vanishing into digital nirvana isn't quite so easy nowadays ;)
From: Ive
Subject: Re: Every ship needs a parrot
Date: 11 Dec 2011 16:54:46
Message: <4ee526a6$1@news.povray.org>
Am 11.12.2011 21:49, schrieb Christian Froeschlin:
> Vanishing into digital nirvana isn't quite so easy nowadays ;)>
I see ;)
But note that the pictures found there are taken from the NCC-1701-A
(introduced at the end of the 4th movie) while I'm referring to the
original Enterprise (without the 'A') as seen within the first three
movies and destroyed at the end of the 3rd (Kirk: "What have I done").
So either parts of the IDIC-page are missing or my memory is wrong -
most probably the latter.
While the used studio model was the same it was painted differently.
And I for one always preferred the lighting design done by Douglas
Trumbull for the first movie where the ship does illuminate itself and
so there is a reason why it is actually partial visible when it travels
in deep space.
The later 1701-A was lit by ILM in that typical Star-Wars-plain-white
manner that I do not find very interesting.
BTW here is some interesting reading from Paul Olson who did the paint
job an the Big E.
http://www.olsenart.com/strek.html
-Ive
From: Dre
Subject: Re: Every ship needs a parrot
Date: 12 Dec 2011 16:37:21
Message: <4ee67411@news.povray.org>
"Ive" <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote in message news:4ee39072@news.povray.org...
> Inside the arboretum...>
Awesome! How did you get that real nice blue light to work??
Cheers Dre
org> wrote in message news: