Enterprise F Bridge Updated Oct. 12

[Excal_Luke]

Could be better.... NOT!
Really nice work DJ
(- whats the current poly count?)

[rengers]

wow, this is really a nice bridge, and she fits perfectly to the century class

only thing I have to agree with the others is that the viewscreen is very small, but otherwise
excellent job!

cookie!

[Barihawk]

an excellent start DJ. though i think it would benefit from the addition of an XO's chair and a 2nd Officers chair

What if DJ feels that the XO and 2nd should work for a living like the good ole' days .

It seems rather redundant to have an XO and 2nd just sitting around like Troi and Riker did. With the exception of Voyager (with Chacohtay or however you spell it) all the other shows had the XO and 2nd having a responsibility at one of the stations. Trip at Engineering, Spock at Science, Kira at Tactical/Ops, etc.

When I saw the renders in the first post, I was "WTF" but now with the colors, it looks rather good. Small bridge, too.

[DJ Curtis]

Ok, I've taken all your advice on the viewscreen and made it a lot bigger.  the area above it will eventually display an msd.  I also experimented with adding a second and third chair to the command area, and it didn't look good, so I'm gonna leave it as is.  As far as the size goes, Barihawk, it's actually bigger than it looks.  Probably about the size of the Enterprise D.

[JimmyB76]

it looks great so far!!  and i agree in that an XO and Guest chairs might have made the bridge overall look a bit too cluttered...

[Aeries]

Ahhhh, much better viewscreen. With that MSD there it almost reminds me of TMP bridges in some ways. Cool.

[DJ Curtis]

I'm actually going to redo that msd area to make in fit better with the rest of the design.  It looks out of place to me.

[Aeries]

Maybe have it a little more rounded? Perhaps wider rather than square-ish... Hmm... 

[DJ Curtis]

i know exactly what i'm gonna do with it.  It'll look good.  pix late tonite, though any suggestions are welcome.

[Mark Nguyen]

Hi everyone, I'm the mook whose work DJ is graciously turning into polygonistic poetry. If you wanna see more of my ancient sketches, feel free to check the site in the sig.

I wholeheartedly approve of the work DJ's done so far! Making a lot of good choices which, among things, help open up the bridge a lot more than the original sketch. I really look forward to future pics, especially of those sexy consoles.

Regarding the XO chair, I took a page from an idea in "Yesterday's Enterprise", which had Riker assisting the tactical officer at the horseshow station. Even Sternbach noted that the horseshoe was really designed for security AND tactical, and it was mostly Work who was JUST THAT GOOD so he could handle both at the same time. Anyway, I always thought that a big starship should have more than one person handling all the tactical duties AND pulling the trigger on the guns, regardles of how automated the TNG era is. So, in most of my designs there IS a place for the XO to sit or stand when he's on the bridge, at a station which would allow him to monitor ship's status, have access to the information that would let him deliver typical Riker-esque lines, and to do it within earshot of the Captain. In this case, it's a second tactical station, but sometimes it's a second ops or mission ops station

Mark

[DJ Curtis]

Thanks for popping your head up, Mark.

I've done a pile of work to this tonight, mostly in terms of changing and refining what already exists.  I decided that the bridge was just too crowded and the sight-lines were inadequate, so I removed the inner set of pillars.  That's helped a lot.  I also redid the entire ceiling to be a lot smoother, and raised it up about 30%, to also help with opening up the room.  I think it worked.

I also made some small alterations to the floor plan, making the rear alcoves symmetrical and lengthening while narrowing the captain's platform.  I also adjusted the steps all around to be smoother and more proportional.

The two middle consoles have also been given their own stands, instead of being connected to the pillars that no longer exist.  The big station behind the captain's chair has also changed a lot.  It used to connect two pillars, but now is free-standing with two posts wrapped around the captain's chair.  It makes the chair seem less stuck in the middle of nowhere.

I'm also trying to nail down a rough color scheme.  I really like the idea of a red carpet, I don't think that's been done before, and here at least, I think it looks really spiffy.  Also added the egress doors and the aft alcove stations.  Viewscreen is bigger again too.

Suggestions?

(btw, Aeries, I wasn't trying to tell you to shut up )

[Weasel]

Observers chairs, and auxiliary stations? Security station? Replicator, emergency gear locker, first aid station.   

[Darkthunder]

 :shock:

Mightily impressive. Removing the inner columns made a huge difference to the bridge. Keep up the good work.

[Mark Nguyen]

Personally, I liked the inner columns. The general concept was that a battle-ready starship should have more holding up the ceiling than the scaffolding around the set. Also, the columns are partially obscuring te "outer" stations on purpose, to give a sense of depth since you can't plainly see all point on the bridge. In practice, the perimeter stations would only have ND extras there, of course.

For gaming use, I agree however that the main POV should be able to see all the stations possible. I might ask DJ to have a version of the finished bridge with the columns, fo the sake of this old goat. Keep it up, man!

Mark

[Jeffery_Hawkins]

Personally, I liked the inner columns. The general concept was that a battle-ready starship should have more holding up the ceiling than the scaffolding around the set. Also, the columns are partially obscuring te "outer" stations on purpose, to give a sense of depth since you can't plainly see all point on the bridge. In practice, the perimeter stations would only have ND extras there, of course.

For gaming use, I agree however that the main POV should be able to see all the stations possible. I might ask DJ to have a version of the finished bridge with the columns, fo the sake of this old goat. Keep it up, man!

Mark

I agree with you on that one, the Columns did add some of it's own style, just like the Century class is a unique ship, it needs an unique bridge.
You could also add some mini-consoles to the columns making them less useless. 8)
As Mark said you could do 2 versions.

But besides all that it's a great bridge. :mrgreen:

[Aeries]

I liked the columns, too, but I agree that they made the room look way too crowded. Hmm... OH! A quick thought. Maybe have the smaller, sovereign-style columns that had the lights in theM? They were closer to the wall and didn't really clutter the bridge that much, imo. Of course the columns here would be very different, but... I think something similar could very well work...

Hell, even if it doesn't work out, this bridge is coming along beautifully. Awesome work so far, I'm totally stoked.

~Aeries.

Edit: Nevermind, I had a closer look at the pics. Not sure any more pillars would really add to this without cluttering it all up... Eh, it's up to you.

[Rat Boy]

Mind if I make a radical suggestion?  Make the displays on the consoles be three-dimensional; floating above the consoles like in Mass Effect, since it was implied in that DS9 episode partially set in the future that flat displays were going out of fashion by the early 25th Century.

[Weasel]

You blatantly stole my idea, I saw you do it! I was also going to suggest holographic displays. 

[cpthooker]

I like the ideas so far

[DJ Curtis]

I've been trying hard to open the bridge up a bit, but maintain a strong sense of battle ready rigidity that Mark originally intended for this bridge.  As you can see, I've rebuilt the lateral columns so that they are strong arches that go directly to the center.  In doing both these things, I ended up making the floor plan a lot rounder than was originally intended, by moving and stretching the forward p/s work areas, and pushing the doors out away from the center.

Obviously, there are still tons of details left to do, but I think I'm getting closer to a layout that will really work well for the Century.  I even took this whole bridge and plunked it into the top of a century mesh to see how it would fit, and it fits really well.  (remember that on the century, there is a corridor that runs on either side of the bridge, so the actually bridge itself needn't fit the exterior shape of the hull.

I've started work on the roof, in combination with the aforementioned pillars, but it's still a work in progress.  In stretching the forward wok areas, I also wanted to make room for more people to work on the bridge.  As it was, there were only eight stations, whereas I imagined the bridge would be a busier place than that.

Like I said, still a lot to do.  Keep the ideas coming.  Mark, any direction you want to give?