Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Scaling! Scaling! Scaling the Cardie Shuttle!

This is topic Scaling! Scaling! Scaling the Cardie Shuttle! in forum Starships & Technology at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/6/193.html

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

You may hum the above to the tune of "Harvey the wonder shuttle". Honest.

Thanks to the wonderful folks, um folk, at Alidar Jarok's we have some juicy images of the Cardie fighter docking at the funky-doodle Cardie station.

Ahem...
1/2/3/4/5

And the one we're really concerned with...

It's about one tenth as wide as the Bug, which is about 17m wide (well, Frank will tell you otherwise, but he probably used the calculator on a Mac, and we know how accurate those are...)

So, Macs aside, that makes the shuttle c25m long. Big for a shuttle, but if you look at a diagram, it makes the notch in the nose just the right width for a cockpit.

------------------
"I haven't done any research, but I think the Defiant is 170m."
-Frank Gerratana

[This message was edited by The_Tom on May 23, 1999.]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

17m wide. And you're the one complaining.

Of course, it's Intel chips with the math problems...

Anyway, the bug is at an angle here, and the back of the ship is closer to the camera than to the front, making scaling rather difficult.

------------------
http://frankg.dgne.com/
"CORUSCANT...DOES NOT COMPUTE...I mean, uh, you're under arrest." - Anonymous battle droid

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

This coming from the same guy who scales an Akira and a Steamrunner in the corner of a shot with no evidence how close one is from the camera relative to the other

------------------
"I haven't done any research, but I think the Defiant is 170m."
-Frank Gerratana

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

They were within 200m of each other. The camera turned to show this.

------------------
http://frankg.dgne.com/
"CORUSCANT...DOES NOT COMPUTE...I mean, uh, you're under arrest." - Anonymous battle droid

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

even though this is spoiling me - that cardie station that whole pic looks farking beautiful! wow - DS9 effects are SO cool.

------------------
"I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die, while you discuss this invasion in a committee" Queen Amidala - Star Wars: Episode 1, The Phantom Menace

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Actually, the image #4 is also imperative, since it allows us to determine the width of the station's docking bays with respect to the bug. The bug is 4.6 times the width of a bay *at the most*, since the former is closer to the camera, while the bay is about 2.1 times the width of the shuttle (again, at the most, since the shuttle is a distance away from the doors). Thus the fighter would be a maximum of 9.5 times as wide as the shuttle, probably a few times less than that.

Now as far as the width of the bug is concerned, I don't want to argue about this one. My preference is about 110m wide (scaled by the Defiant at 110-120m long), which gives us a width of about 12 meters for the shuttle. Of course, this is only a lower limit, so it could just as well be 17 meters wide.

However, it would be much more interesting to learn the size of the shuttle through independent means and use this to scale the fighter, since a shuttle cannot change size that much.

Boris

[This message was edited by Boris on May 23, 1999.]

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, I don't trust VFX scaling except for extreme approximations. Therefore, if we use sizes for the bug which were obtained through VFX scaling, and we then use VFX scaling between the bug and the shuttle. I wouldn't trust any size for the shuttle to necessarily be within 50m of the right size.

I've forgotten what size the DS9TM gives for the two ships. Do they even come close to agreeing w/ this picture?

------------------
"There's always a bigger fish..."
-Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Not at all... it has the Bug as something ludicrous like 50m.

------------------
"It makes Star Trek look like Shakespeare."
-Rex Murphy on The Phantom Menace

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

TSN: you are implying that the "actual size" is the one intended by the person building the model, which later governs deck spacing and similar details; however, the way this size is determined is through *visual* comparison charts with other ships, not the other way around. For example: "this is the way it looks perfectly next to the Ent-D, but it's too big for the Miranda, so we'll have it somewhere in the middle. Good, let's have Rick draw the final blueprints, windows and the rest".

The process usually runs smoothly, but in some cases there simply isn't enough time to sit down and draw tons of comparison charts and think about all the implications of a certain number before nailing it down. Doesn't matter at all. The model goes to the VFX team (fortunately without a lot of detail , which then determines the scale in exactly the same trial-and-error fashion, the difference being that this doesn't take place on paper, but rather in a finished episode. In order to come up with this perfect size, we have to become a part of the process and finish the job by finding a suitable average.

Problems arise, however, when the size has been decided quite nicely, the details worked out etc, but then somebody decides to change the size later on and stays with it onscreen. Now on one hand, I don't want to have details with a nonsensical scale, but then who really cares about the details on the TV screen? Window sizes (not spacing) on ships are never to scale anyway. What we really have to do is stretch the details as much as possible to fit the average VFX, something Rick Sternbach had to do with DS9, for instance.

Feel free to argue, I love this topic.

Boris

[This message was edited by Boris on May 24, 1999.]

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I'm not saying that the designer's intended size is always right. If two ships were designed to be 100m and 200m, but the 100m ship is consistently shown to be larger than the 200m ship, at least one of the sizes is going to have to be changed...

That's pretty much all VFX shots are good for. Example: in this case, it's been determined that the Cardie shuttle is about one-tenth the width of the Jemmie bug. Now, if we ever get a concrete width for the bug, we can then say that the shuttle is somewhere around one-tenth that width. However, any number we get from that will be worth little more than jack ****.

------------------
"Although I'm so tired, I'll have another cigarette. And curse Sir Walter Raleigh; he was such a stupid git."
-the Beatles, "I'm So Tired"

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Well, here we come to the whole intentions vs. empirical evidence issue once again. Do we accept the producers' numbers simply because they are *likely* to be confirmed onscreen, even if that never takes place. Do we play against the perceptions of viewers or use the numbers that are consistent with what we see from our side of the screen?

It does make for a more ordered universe to use sizes that are empirically determined; while sticking to real world production habits and tendencies can help us predict what we're gonna see onscreen better, it is more difficult to do so within the framework of the Star Trek universe. It really depends on whether one's goal is to find these bits and pieces of "truth", or create a model which may not be truth from the other side, yet be perfectly consistent with what we see onscreen and useful in predictions. Even if that means contradicting a clear statement of length by saying the person doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

Boris

[This message was edited by Boris on May 25, 1999.]