The core of the model revolves around a basic cylinder, worked on from the inside and broken down into its three logical components - ceiling, wall and floor. From there surfaces could be extruded and manipulated, and colours and textures applied. I always intended the design to be a fusion of a few different vessels seen over the ages, bringing the spaciousness of Enterprise-D and panel designs from Enterprise-B, with the moodier tones of the USS's Vengeance, Voyager and Enterprise-E. Speaking in context I suppose this may be considered a possible progression up to Picard's time from the POV of the Kelvin timeline? It struck me that between the Next Gen episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the movie "Generations", these were really the only times that we got to see the set lighting toned down (I believe the reason the Enterprise-D set was so well lit was to accommodate exposure limitations of the filming media for the series?). Wherever the overall aesthetic would go, the more serious tones were of immediate interest to me. My initial design thoughts encouraged me to place a bold, imposing central position for the captain's chair, akin to the original Excelsior bridge, but this was quickly eliminated as I leaned in favour of the more open plan Enterprise-D design.

As with all the portfolio pieces to date, all assets would be modelled in house - no importing! So this meant I had to improvise the seating arrangements. I believe I based the command chairs broadly upon the seating design from Enterprise-E, combining the basic topology construction and some sculpting brush work to render the undulations and moulding. By comparison the peripheral station seats became more prosaic.

Each chair design was built from four main pieces:

- Base and stem

- Alloy frame which acts as a platform for the seat and moulding to the arm rests

- Arm rest pads

- Seating pad, moulded as one 

The only exceptions to the overall design were a little creative flourish that gave the command chairs some underlighting from the stem, and the classic control panels for the Captain's chair.

Since the overall design was something of an improvised construct (I made about four attempts at creating the base form before I was happy, and even then there were problems to be solved.. lol!), the lighting emerged from the convenience of the various extrusions and symmetry. Sections were duplicated and isolated, and emission values replaced the usual sprite-like ghost scaffolding lighting which I tend to use, in order to be able to see what I'm doing! By scrapping the placeholder lights in favour of actual in situ lighting, it helped the design by forcing me to place it where it made most sense. With a design such as this you also come to realise there are inherent dark corners which may or may not demand some practical lighting. Down facing lights under the peripheral control panels are a good example of this, imagining how annoying it would be trying to work on a service panel, or find something dropped on the floor, without it.

Since we have the large screen and overhead portal, the exterior environment too needed a little work, and I took the time to create a visual HDRI, stitching together over twenty relatively high resolution images from a starfield I'd previously created for a 2d piece of art, blending them as seamlessly as required for the depths of space. It seems to work quite nicely. 

Next up is a shout out to Frankie Cao for his random but valuable contribution to my instant gratification for a test wall panel! After the previous effort to create an illuminated screen for the POS terminal in the cosy café project, I knew this would be the best approach for creating the ubiquitous control stations. My initial thinking (which I now generally consider an incidental failure) was to take the same approach I used on the POS model, employing a mapping node and x/y coordinates to align the image, and it was only later I discovered that the more conventional UV unwrap was on the whole a much more efficient and controllable way to scale. Nevertheless it did work and I was happy to see it in action as I ploughed my way through what would become the most challenging detail part of the project. With Frankie's proof of concept it was just a matter of crafting something which seemed appropriate, utilising Affinity Designer to craft the various panels, with its scaling strength as a vector graphics package.. meaning that resolution scaling, and subsequent file sizes, wouldn't be much of an issue. Below are some samples..

I could have plumbed endless depths of pseudo-reality to create these, but I elected to sidestep the technical manual in favour of graphics which would present an impression.. I know, I know, that's a stoning offence in some corners. Believe me when I say I have the utmost respect for those going that extra mile for the sake of the fandom and movie design - from Ron Cobb and his industrial functionality for ALIEN through to the more relevant likes of Michael Okuda. As far as this project is concerned however, I really didn't want to have it held up by hours of contemplation, eschewing these meditations for something that appears sufficiently authentic.

To buy myself some time to craft these displays I took a parallel approach to the project, tinkering with these on a whim whilst continuing to model the bridge. Next up came the helm/navigation station, to the front of the set.

This involved a few attempts.. about five if I remember rightly. It wasn't so much a problem to get the basic design down as much as ensuring that the topology was sound. I was reminded as I played how easy it is to be pulled down a dark alley with an idea, with no obvious misstep until a few too many have been taken, by which time you're either too committed to be able to undo, or you find you've started from the wrong basic principle. This is part of the learning curve for modelling. When you start out, HOW you create something quickly becomes a pretty fundamental truth. Taking the time to experiment and play is an important part of learning the overall skill involved. It's a duality of imagination and insight/foresight. This is why I generally refuse to allow myself to use imported models in these efforts. When working on a customer project (and there are no bespoke requirements) it's accepted practice that you use imported models to avoid wasting the client's time and money. When you're learning, well that's a different matter altogether.

but I digress..

In addition to the station itself I had to modify the original command chair design to present something that would fit the same flow but could be more functional for the presence of the console.

You'll notice in addition to isolating the chair model for modification I also crafted a few extras. I was playing with the notion of providing the seating positions flanking the Captain's chair with control consoles, and even created a couple of assets which would've provided some theoretical engineering access. I elected to remove the arms of the chair for the helm/navigation station, and removed the tall panel units altogether - they felt too boxy and out of place in the flow of the overall design once I came to craft the tactical bay. The floor cover and right angular assets did however find a use around the helm/nav station.

Initially the helm/nav station had been the most interesting piece to sculpt, until I decided that the tactical bay was still probably a good choice for the bridge design..

Crafting this sweeping chunk of material was, believe it or not, another cylinder. It was the easiest way to begin with the hardest part of the model - the general curve profile of the object. The cut outs beneath the panelling gave the command positions a little more aesthetic breathing space. The upper panelling body was a simple series of extrusions, and the touch panels themselves were, as with their wall counterparts, a series of duplication/selections with their own material and a little depth applied. I imagined that their curved surface might present a problem when it came time to applying the images to them, and this was when I discovered the value of UV unwrapping over texture coordinates, which didn't seem to want to cooperate.

At this point the bridge was finally coming into focus. My first panel samples made their appearance around this time and there began a bit of a learning curve, crafting these with sufficient detail. As mentioned this took the lion's share of the time from this point onwards, although it didn't stop me from playing in some minor ways with the general topology, putting a panel here and a hatchway there, refining the Captain's ready room door frame, playing with the lighting temperature.. little bits crept into the design as a way of balancing the work flow out against the "grind" of panel creation.

I finally called time on Ralph's assistance as perspective placeholder - thanks Ralph. As the screens became more prolific, so too did the need to focus upon the lighting levels. The choice of a general blue was not a coincidence. Though they had used this motif on Enterprise-B it is a very sensible choice. Unless you've experienced it, it's perhaps not an obvious thought that when you shine light on light at the red end of the spectrum (say for example a red stage light shining upon a red on/off LED on a guitar pedal), it cancels it out - until the stage light goes away there's no telling visually whether your pedal is on or off! That doesn't happen at the blue end of the spectrum. This is kind of on par with the moment you hold a lit candle to a wall and shine a light on it, realising that a flame itself doesn't cast a shadow.

Anyhow with the panelling complete, and subject to the usual stipulations of revision and playtime after the fact, the bridge was sufficiently finished.