With the recent release of the SG-1 and Atlantis Stargate desktop models from Master Replicas, I’ve seen more than a few people asking for images of the puddle effect they can print and insert into their model to make it appear to be active.
While a production-used animation loop of the puddle,1This video was included in a large library of leaked video playback, and was used for the rear-projection puddle screen used to show the Stargate active in the background of scenes when people weren’t walking through it it’s compressed and relatively low-resolution. I rendered off a 4K image of my version of the puddle effect which should look a bit better printed .
This video was included in a large library of leaked video playback, and was used for the rear-projection puddle screen used to show the Stargate active in the background of scenes when people weren’t walking through it
I’ve been working on a model of the White Star from Babylon 5, and have gone down the rabbit hole of cataloging and recreating the sets (at least, the one that’s visible through the ship’s forward windows). I’ve already done a post on the celtic knot designs decorate the bridges of the White Stars in season 4 and 5, so this is an overview of the design variations on the bridge set overall.
I’ll be illustrating each variation with a cutaway CG model of the bridge. To be clear, this version of the bridge has been modified to fit within the exterior shape of the bridge module on the ship, so it isn’t intended to be a perfect match to the original sets. That’s another project.
White Star 1
Throughout season 3, we only see the bridge of the original prototype White Star.1The White Star Fleet was introduced three episodes before the end of the season in 3×20 “And the Rock Cried Out, ‘No Hiding Place,'” but while we saw the other White Stars on the outside, there were still only scenes set on the original ship in the subsequent episodes. The bridge evolves over the course of the season, settling on its final form in 3×18 “Walkabout.” As it is a prototype that’s being tested in use, it does make sense in-universe for the bridge to be constantly modified.
This diagram is circa 3×08 “Messages From Earth,” the ship’s third appearance, but is consistent with its layout for the rest of the season.Continue reading →
The White Star Fleet was introduced three episodes before the end of the season in 3×20 “And the Rock Cried Out, ‘No Hiding Place,'” but while we saw the other White Stars on the outside, there were still only scenes set on the original ship in the subsequent episodes.
A few days ago, Marc Bell released his CG model of the Titan-A/Enterprise-G from the final season of Star Trek: Picard. I’ve been acutely aware for the past… fifteen years… that I don’t just hop onto the computer to mess around and make some fun spaceship pictures like I used to. Despite my attempt to get back into the groove a few years ago, it didn’t quite take, possibly because I was scratching the 3D itch at my job at the time, and then Lightwave 2018 came out and my library of models assembled over the years and tweaked to my liking became more-or-less useless.
I recently started rebuilding a new, PBR-based set of models in Lightwave 2020, mostly thanks to the models of Chris Kuhn, Marc Bell, and Alexander Klemm, but I hadn’t really done anything with them yet. This new model was a good chance to, and since it hadn’t been officially converted into Lightwave, I got to dip back into my roots a little when I had to convert anything I wanted to use. Downloading a cool new model that was just mesh and textures, and really digging into it to get it to look right. I spent the weekend building out the lighting rig and doing various minor modifications and tweaks, like breaking out the formation lights and impulse glows so they could be animated, and found picked an angle to run a test render (a good thing, too, I found a tiny sliver of window-box sticking out of the hull). I thought it looked pretty good, so I did a final version adding a basic Sun/Earth/Moon three-point light setup, and that was that.
I tried to think of something more dramatic, and thought up a concept for another image, with the Enterprise-G over the Founder’s Homeworld seen in Deep Space Nine, returning the renegade Changelings who’d infiltrated Starfleet to their own people. Luckily, my prep came in handy, and I already had a Jem’Hadar fighter and a Defiant ready to go for a suitable escort. I spent a bit of time making new decals for the Defiant-A (I know in-canon the second Defiant had the same markings as the first one, but Ron Moore wanted it to be the Defiant-A, I wanted it to be the Defiant-A, so I made it that way). I was pretty far along before I remembered the Defiant was a museum exhibit now, so I just went with it, not having any better idea what ship Deep Space Nine might have assigned to it in the PIC era (or if there’s even still a DS9 at all). Maybe they flew it out as a goodwill historical thing.
“Repatriation”
Enterprise-G by Marc Bell, Jem’Hadar Fighter by Chris Kuhn, Defiant mesh by Chris Kuhn, textures by Marc Bell, and Lightwave conversion by Matt Christou.
After a year and a half, I’m running out of steam on the Stargate project for now, so I pushed myself to finish up the part I was currently working on, the version of the “kawoosh,” “strudel,” and “puddle” effects as seen in the movie.
After over a year, I’ve reached the end of my 2020 pandemic modeling project with the completion of the version of the stargate used in Stargate Atlantis. Alongside the movie and SG-1 versions, that makes a complete set for this basic design.2The Universe version being a totally different design, and the Origins version being intended to match the movie version, even if it didn’t quite hit the mark perfectly. While I don’t think I’m quite done with Stargate just yet, I’m probably done with modeling actual stargates for a while.
The Universe version being a totally different design, and the Origins version being intended to match the movie version, even if it didn’t quite hit the mark perfectly.
An animated version of my February 2016 image in the Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendar, with the newly-refit U.S.S. Enterprise parked alongside the soon-to-be-refit U.S.S. Endeavour in drydock over Earth.Continue reading →
Continuing with my work on building a new stargate model, and in advance of the Atlantis-style ‘gate, we have the flagship version, the stargate as it appeared in the series Stargate SG-1, give a take a few alterations and enhancements.
As a quick little side-project, the other night I built the SGC Plaque. Joseph Mallozzi, who was a writer and producer on the TV shows, has been posting high-res behind-the-scenes photos, concept art, and documents since the shows were still on the air, and recently posted a construction diagram of the plaque, which made it pretty easy to model in only an hour or two, most of which was spent squinting at the measurements and comparing with some photos of the finished plaque to see how things changed between the drawing and the actual piece.
There was also a 3D rendered version used on the show as a screensaver and decorative element on computer displays which was colored differently, so I made both versions. I didn’t sweat getting the textures exactly right (and there were some shape differences with the digital version I didn’t bother changing), just going for the spirt instead of a perfect duplicate. The gaudy ’90s texturing is pretty rough, and now we’ve entered a glorious era where flat color in CGI actually look okay.
The physical and digital versions of the plaque on the showMy 3D model in both color schemes
