posted
Lol. It's not the length of the nacelle that matters...
Well, a lot of these models are old. I haven't had the chance to update any of them these last few days, so some details are not going to precisely match these new, and far more detailed captures. Also the spin/attitude of the models was difficult to replicate. The Buran though does need tweaking, as MM said.
SM. On my Freedom model it is a torpedo launcher. Its not possible to tell what the structure is for sure on the Firebrand picture.
Cpt. Kyle Amasov - I haven't updated that page since I made these cgi comparison pics. Now that I know it's the Chekov (or at least convinced it is), and shall now be referring to it as the Springfield and not a query.
Dr Phlox - The engine does appear to be missing on the model photo, you're right. But judging by the capture of the footage, it does appear to be present. I'm going to speculatively call it an Impulse Engine and not a random shadow. It has to have them somewhere...
AndrewR - Maybe, if time permits... It would be quite difficult to set up.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
I must first say that your screencaps are quite superior to anything we've seen before. Very nice!
I also agree with most of your analysis, with the following exception being the Buran:
-In the cap you refer to as "Buran 2" (the viewscreen shot), you have your CGI model in a dorsal-view orientation. The actual shot is of the ship at a ventral view.
-I won't elaborate further right now, but suffice it to say that your GGI model of the Buran's top view isn't quite precise. Not your fault; you were working from a diagram of the ship that wasn't precise also. In a nutshell: The Buran's secondary hull is not the angular piece that is shown on the diagram at EAS & Copernicus Yards. Rather, it is a more curved piece, which tapers off at the end right around where the nacelles end. The submarine tower pylon is also positioned farther back on the top nacelle, and is not as long as you make it.
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
It occured to me that the Buran may indeed have been upside down here, and I experimented with inverting the cgi model as well to reflect it. But I rejected the idea in the end, and put the inherent inconsistencies down to the fact that my model was simply inaccurate due to lack of precise reference material. But you might be right, it could very well be the ventral side we're seeing.
I'm thinking of remodelling the Challenger to try and get it a little closer to what it actually might look like. It's frustrating - we have several good photos of these studio models now, but teasingly we haven't seen the Buran yet, not a good one anyway.
Oh, and the screencaps were done by Starship Millennium, I simply enhanced them, and wrote an analysis.
-------------------- "To the Enterprise and the Stargazer. Old girlfriends we'll never meet again." - Scotty
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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