Spaceship Bridge or Command Center
Mortze
Posts: 184
Hello fellow Renders.
I'm looking for a spaceship bridge, or command center, that is along the lines of Alien and Prometheus franchise or Event Horizon. Nothing like StarTrek.
All I've found is like Star Trek or are small cockpits, not command bridges for a space haulker or dreadnaught.
For DAZ aplication. No Carrara.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
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This is the closest item I could find: http://www.daz3d.com/kibarreto/commander
Yeah. Too much treky yet... But that is a great help anyway, thanks. I'll consider it, maybe playing with textures and loading other material in the scene to give it a more dark ambiance.
How about the Control Room (Fast Grab).
Way more in touch of what I pretend. Don't like the consoles but it would be great with http://www.daz3d.com/dystopian-console-station
Maybe I can merge both?
completely forgot about the Control Room set
I purchased the Control Room and played a little with other stuff I had. It looks close to what I expected but not quite there.
Looking at the two sets, there is a key difference to them, aside from one being"clean" and the other "well used"; that being that the "control Room" set is designed more as the bridge or cockpit of a light freighter (something about the size of a 747 airliner) whereas the Kibarreto set is the bridge of a large capital ship, equivalent to a Battle Ship or Aircraft Carrier. So, it's really the size of the ship that determines what bridge you need. If you're concerned about the Kibarreto set being too "clean", try modifying the textures in a photo manipulation programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, to look more distressed, or use some seamless "distressed metal" textures on various parts. There area lot of ways to make something like that look "less Star Trek".
My intentions lie in between. Although it is a capital ship, a big hauler, it is a sleepr ship, where 99.99% of the passengers are asleep and the story revolves around the necessary crew that is awake. Kind of like the movie Alien where there was a crew of 8 for all the Nostromo. There is no need to have a big bridge. I was thinking of a small one like the one proposed here for the manouvers of aceleration, turn-off and deceleration. The rest of the time the ship is on cruise control.
That's what I noticed. Too much spread out space in Kibarreto's. Since I pretend some more realistic hard sci-fi aproach space in the habitat is precious. That explains the Nostromo's tight bridge. Kibarreto's bridge is great, but I don't think it fits a civil hauler like I pretend. I managed to put a crew of 5 in the Control Room; a comander, a pilot, a navigator, an engineer and another one whose role I have to think about.
One thing about the Nostromo bridge is that it was from the small ship towing the big capital cargo one. That small ship was intend to atmosphere flight and landing, wich requires a lot more care and crew than a capital ship who only do space travel and not atmosphere, or big manouvers. That is the case here. The ship is just for transportation in space, acceleration, turn and decelaration. Most of the personel would be engineers tending to the reactors and engines, not the bridge or cockpit actually. The exploration and atmosphere landings would be done with a more smaller ship, freighter style.
But yeah, the Nostromo's crew were 8, counting the cat.
http://www.ncc-1701-a.net/gallery/aliens/nostromo-bridge-interior-LG.jpg
http://www.propbay.com/attachments/original/5637d1341831836-nostromo-bridge-dyline-prints-bridge-06.jpg
http://johneaves.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/alien1.jpg?w=655&h=642
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080125104141/annex/images/9/99/Ron_Cobb_Nostromo(Bridge)_Book_of_Alien.jpg
As you can see, while it is a bit more compact than the Kibarreto set, it's nowhere near as cramped as the Control Room set. The Control Room set was designed to be the cockpit for a very small freighter, such as the Millennium Falcon, or a shuttle craft, not a capital ship (even a relatively small capital ship).
There are tricks to "dressing up" a set to make it more "lived in", "cluttered", and "confining". There are things you can do with a set like the Kibarreto set to "fill it up" and thus make it less spacious and more "industrial". Among them is adding ductwork, pipes, and other greebles. Use the Dystopia Console Station as well. If you wanted to reduce the number of "Crew" that operate the bridge, you could probably turn off some of the stations you don't want, and fill up their spaces with other "gadgetry". Above all else, weather it. Make the textures of the various consoles dirty and distressed. You can do this by either modifying the existing mapped metal textures, or use seamless distressed metal textures (many of which can be found as freebies on sites such as ShareCG.com.) It's called kitbashing. Simply put, you have many more options with the larger Kibarreto set than you do the Control Room to create a large (capital class) freighter's bridge. The Control Room is simply not designed to be the bridge of a large ship. It's a shuttle's bridge, not a capital ship's bridge.
What if I resize the Control room?
Another problem is the shape of the consoles themselves. Their "quarter circle" and "semi circle" layout is fine for a small cockpit, but it's not really suited for a larger bridge, especially the way you have them laid out. Your layout makes very poor use of space, making it even harder to maneuver around the room than necessary. For starters, the two control consoles on the starboard side, were designed for the port side (or are they copies of the central console?). By having the consoles just out 90° then arch around parallel to the wall, you make it harder for the crew to get to and from their stations. They need to be set up so that the console starts running along the wall and then arching out 90°, just like the promotional images show. As it stands now, those two crew members will have a very hards time getting to their stations, especially the one further back. They're blocked in. They also block access to the front of the cabin from the starboard side. The central rear consoles too. The semi-circle configuration was designed to fit the nose of the cockpit, for a single individual, not two people towards the back. If you look at the Kibarreto set, their is only one console station set up in a somewhat "semi-circle" configuration, and it's placed at the very front. All of the other stations tend to be straight so that the people have better access to their stations. Whether your ship has a large bridge or a small cabin, idea is efficient use of space maximizing crew maneuverability within the room. It's not simply a matter of cramming as many seats into as small a space as possible.
If you look at the this image and this imageof the Nostromo's bridge, you'll notice how easy it is to move around the cabin, despite the smaller space. There are two aisles giving every crew member easy access to his or her station. All of the stations (whether centrally located or against the outer wall) open out to one of those aisles. You've designed an even larger bridge, with a lot of open space up front, but made it far more difficult for crew to access their stations in the back and starboard side.
Of course you could use the Sci-Fi Construction Set to build one to you specifications. Plus Davorama also makes the Modular Command Chair which goes with this rather well. Most his stuff has several textures available.
I do agree. Consoles and stations should be designed for crew manouverability. I do not like the consoles here, but neither I do from the Commander set. The chair u asked is from Stonemason Moebius87 - Cyber Seat, which link is no longer valir at Renderosity I don't know why. It fits well with the Dystopian Console Station. That is the kind of consoles I would like and lack to find.
Of course, wheeled chairs are poor choices for space vehicles, but this chairs can be simply put down on the Y axis so they seem welded to the ground. The Modular Commmand Chair is way cool and I'll acquire it. That kind of chairs fits well with the 2 I have in the front - for the pilots, who got jacked to the chair and to she ship providing more intuitive piloting.
I am not happy with the other consoles the Control room have. I jungled with them just to see if the new Control Room area was ok, and by my standars it seems ok, area considered, for a Nostromo kind of bridge. Of course I would prefer other type of consoles.
Depends on your tastes. I've used the SFCS with Davo's Equipment Packs (which don't seem to available anywhere at the moment) and the aforementioned Command Chair to make some cool bridges of various sizes (I'd post examples but I can't access the drive they are on right now). I would highly recommend it, especially when those console sets become available again.
You know you both sets are modular, so you can kitbash both sets together to create a bridge. As for chairs, they should be welded to the floor, that's my point. The wheeled chairs simply don't suffice, and, regardless, all of the chairs should match to begin with. You could also take elements from this set, such as the console and seat, and the hoio-table. Granted, the set as a whole is designed mainly as a command bunker interior, rather than a starship's bridge, but there are definitely elements which could be kitbashed from it. There is also this freebie command chair from ShareCG.com. There are also a ton of freebie scifi "gadgets" to be had here including a console construction kit (16 down on first page), and two more five-monitor console stations on the second page (12th down and 23rd down), as well as a "wing console" at the very bottom of the second page.
I just reminded something inportant. If the main thrusters are in the back of the ship, the induced gravity should point in their direction, which is, in all this sets, including the Nostromo, at the back of the characters, not down at their feet. So we have to think of a bridge or cockit in a vertical point-of-view, not horizontal like in most movies, unless there is some kind of gravitic simulation technology, fit to more opera or fantasy sci-fi. As I intend something more hard sci-fi I have to rethink the structure of the bridge. I see two solutions. One is that we take the Nostromo kind of structure, flip it verticaly 90ª and instead of ailes we add ladders. The access to the bridge will be by lift or ladders like most of all other levels of the ship, not simple halls and doors. The second option would be that only the pilot would be vertically fliped and all other crew will stand normal, with their consoles and digital visualisations if need. Only the pilot, and to a certain extent, the baptain, would need to have visual access to the outer space. For all I know, the cockpit could be as small as in an airplane, for pilots visual access, and most of the other crew would be in an adjacent room - the main bridge, with no windows. You don't need to see the outer space when you have cameras and sensors that simulate, with more accuracy what's out there. That seems correct for navigation, engineering, comunications and life support crew. Battlestar Galactica has such a bridge (even if it is on an horizontal plane).
With that I would maintain the Control Room at its original size, fit in two pilots and one or two aditional chairs for any observors.
What do you think?
I would love a set which was high resolution which didn't have large colorful buttons and looked better for closeup work. Some sets look fine for distance work (they are large environments ), but look a bit blocky and lo rez up close. When I do renders, it tends to be closeup so I can really see the need for more models of this type which have a bit more detail.
I agree with that SereneNight. There are too much 60's style of technology and not enough practical modern or near-futuristic ones. Nothing wrong with the 60's, but it should be more balanced.
Well, first of all I really do apreciate your interest in my doubts. I thank you all for that!
Power Member, thank you also.
I think I need to specify what my project is, concerning ship and crew so we can talk in the same direction.
It is a capital ship alright, a cargo hauler transporting equipment and hundreds of colons in stasis capsules. The voyage is to a near star. The thrusting is by nuclear pulse propulsion enhanced with anti-matter, with a constant 1G acceleration, and maximum speed about 10% speed of light. By amateur calculations the trip is about 14 years. So I decided it will have 3 crew shifts, first during the start of the acceleration, second during the turning of the ship, and the third during the end of the deceleration. The story revolves around the third crew. The ship I have is no ring-ship - like Space Odissey - or a Taurus, but something more akin to Galactica, so artificial gravity cannot be made with centrifugation force. The only gravity aboard will be the one caused by the acceleration/deceleration of a constant 1G. There is no steady speed when you have a constant 1G. You have a constant 1G, sitting by your computer, and you are acelerating towards the Earth center, but the chair you are sitting on stops you. In a ship this means you need something to stop you from falling and that is something in the direction of the thrusters. If you want it to be like a floor, so you stand down, you need a vertical-leveled ship. The NASA Space Shuttle had an horizontal bridge to facilitate atmosphere landing. normally the crew would leave or enter the bridge at almost 0Gs, and when they were manouvering at the bridge the Gs were felt on their backs, as the thrusters starded. Someone standing by their side would imediately "fall" at the back of the bridge instead of down. So crew walking around the bridge in those conditions is impossible without artificial gravity. And you need a constant 1G acceleration to reach the hour neiboring stars in less than hundreds of years. That is, with the Nuclear Pulse propulsion I intend do have in this story. Other more exotic propulsions might change all those factors.
The ship is constructed by vertical levels, from bow Level 1 to Stern Level 96 (for example). All important technology and engines will be centered on the ship and less important materials, like cargo and passangers, distributed near the hull.
As for the crew, each shift would have about 13 members (shift officer, pilot, navigator, engineers, technicians, med staff,...). There is no need of a permanent staff by the engines, like Scotty in Star Trek. Most of them would be at the command room/bridge, and going to repair or attend issues by the engines when needed.
The mission dicates that when the ship arrives at the edge of the star system it decelerates 99.9999% and begins to awake all the necessary crew and staff for the exploration/colonization process, which will be done with a much smaller ship capable of atmospheric travel and not subject to heavy planets grvitational tides as a capital ship is (regarding mass/escape velocity).
So I think a vertical-leveled ship seems the more realistic in this scenario.
"When accelerating, you don’t want the G-forces puling the blood down to your feet" That would be true with accelerations higher than 1G, which is the acceleration human body is acostumed at 1 atmosphere. But in this story there is a constant 1G acceleration and 1 atmosphere pression so the body is totally fine.
"You also want the seats pointed in the direction of travel (forwards)". Agreed. The pilot should be in horizontal position for a more natural manovering. The rest of the crew will rely on instruments and consoles so their relative position to the direction of travel is irrelevant.
" If you used a vertical deck set-up, once you started your deceleration, your floor would end up being your ceiling, thus, you’re just compounding the problem." Not when the deceleration process is done by fliping the ship around, the thrusters pointing at your destination.
I understand all your points, and artificial gravity that counters the thrusters G might be invented by that time, but I do not want to rely on a Deus Ex Machina explanation. I am trying to keep it the most realistic possible considering actual physics knowledge. I do not know how magnetics can simulate artificial gravity without hurting the human body. I do not say it is impossible, I am just ignorant in that field.
I simply fail to see any obvious horizontal-leveled advantage other than it is easier for the crew to walk around than to climb up laders (but there would be lifts). The ship will never land or be too close to a planet and when not traveling it can easily be docked to a ring space station to get centrifugal induced gravity.
The only reason for horizontality would be for piloting or direct observation method because it is easier to look at the front than to look up.
The problem with "flipping the ship around" makes the pilot or helmsman (in the case of a capital ship) face the wrong way too, so it solves nothing. A vertical payout is simply not practical. It does not work. the other problem is that having different people oriented differently created disorientation. They all need to have a common "up" and "down", otherwise it creates serious problems. Simply put, the entire bridge crew needs to face the same direction, not just the helmsman. Thus, the horizontal layout is still more practical.
You are totally right in 99% of what you said. I am just discussing physics here (because I like physics). The plot is not oriented into gravity technology at all (even if there will be scenes with such tech failing). It is not a physics essay and the story is not about scientific realism. so I will not be adamant in logic and physic realism (not for this story).
You are also right about the disorientation. the only movie scene I see about orientation flipping is in the Millenium Falcon dorso and belly turrets and Star Wars is way wrong in the realism department.
My opinion (scientificaly) is that for long interstellar travel, with technology and physics we know, a 1G constant acceleration is the fastest and securest way to do it.
For this story specifically, that is not a major issue and I do not want to crack my head over it. This was just a pleasant talk about physics.
The other point is, praticality speaking, there are not much environments with vertical space out there. All the sci-fi environments are mostly horizontal, so it would be a pain in the ass to stick with my realism idea, having to figure and made out laders and ceiling/floor hatches.
And as, plotwise, the crew will not spend much time in the bridge it is not a major issue I want to resolve.
What grinds my gears is mostly the art and design of the bridge. The Modular Command Chair is perfect so that is resolved. But considering consoles and instruments I fail to find something along my needs. The Commander bridge is great for other settings, but if I can change the lighting and textures to fit my needs I do not have the technical skills to change geometries and in Commander the consoles feel much more like military-star trek kind of theme than Alien or Event Horizon. Changing the color and texture of the consoles won't change its design...
Yeay I did. It's not as much as industrial as it is in Alien's. I do not know how to qualify it. Currently I am mounting the bridge with Stonemason's Modular kit, wich is proving to be really fun and it's in the style I want, with dark blue lighting and texture. It reminds me when I was a kid making ships from Legos. I'll post the result here when I'm done, probably by Sunday.