Just some thoughts on Spaceship Designs in Films

I did some research on spaceship designs in films and I got a few ideas that I wanted to share:-) When people design spaceships and shuttles for films nowadays, they usually follow a similar pattern. It is basically more about recreating the spaceships and the mood from other films that we love, rather than to find new ways to tell a story. For AION, I always wanted to use the spaceship as an homage to other movies, but there is also the danger of making it too clichéd. The last hours, I have looked through actual NASA footage and what came to my mind was that we could probably achieve the mood of the film with a more current, more scientific and sterile look, something that doesn't look like something from ALIEN or STAR WARS, but gives it a new direction...These places are often sterile, laboratory-like, tiny rooms, packed with things - always giving a new depth to what intimacy means. They also don't have to been darkly lit, necessarily, but could be bright and still intimidating. What if we make the sets as tiny as possible, but extend the workspace into the height of the room? What if the actors could hardly move? wouldn't make it the whole experience more exciting, rather than using the ship like an old-school terror castle?

Random Surface/Texture Drafts

I scribbled down a few walls, doors, pipes etc I might have met on my way through AION. Maybe this is inspiring for someone. I suppose more is to come.

Rough sketch of the Corridor area

Rough BW sketch of the corridor area to get the feeling. I've posted this quite a some time ago to Anil allready, but though that i should put it here too.

Von Braun/Rickenbacker

You might want to check out Michael Jones' art.
Linked is his portfolio. He designed what the Von Braun/Rickenbacker would have looked like if System Shock 2 would be made into a movie.
http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?individual_id=109607&set_id=176485

AION Blueprints v1

i made a rough mockup of what the layout of the scenes might look. I read thru both docs and tried to take a notice in the details, it is possible (and propably likely) that i've missed some key elements.

And now for some explanations what was going in my mind here.->

First if all i picked simple geometrical shape to act as "Master" shape for AION architechture (it would be the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octogon ). I chose this because it is box and circle at the same time. As you can see 3 of the rooms (Oxy room, ROT and Command( are of similar shapes, i thought if they can be in equal scale for each scene, then maybe you'd just need to build only one octogon structure and just refurnish it for differend sets? Ofcourse if say Oxyroom is way much larger than ROT (as i might imaginei it could be) this does not aply ofcourse. But still i liked the idea of Octogon shaped rooms.

LABORATORY
It consists of two Octogons sharing one edge, to make this cramped looking room, as i understood. It also has this strange another dimension to it when part of the displays and equipments seem to go inside the walls (the middle section). I left enought room in the middle so the actors have free reign to smash it pieces for the breaking scene.

the ROT
i was not sure would they be using the sleeping beds in this room, so i left two of them rather uncluttered, but if necessery they can be filled with the repair junk. I placed the repair desk and some additinoal tables next to in a bit frantic order to enforce the idea that this is "improvised repair shop". Behind the tables and on the other side of the room we see loads of boxes and crates full of wiring and mechanical stuff. The other bedsides and remaining deskspace is filled with clockworks.

COMMAND
I made the command this bit of "MOTHER" like feeling from Alien 1. In this however instead of computer surrounding the captains seat, he is surrounded by the staff. How ever in this sense i felt that this way we could underline the loneliness in the ship, since all of the surrounding chairs EVERYWHERE around are empty.

OXYGEN ROOM
Yet another Octogon shaped room. In here i placed rows of machines (3 for now on each side) to form this "Column" walkway sort of templish feeling to it. Like the machines are colums of temple you see. Also on the Pane side of the room, on the tilted walls we would have loads of pipes running towards the glass to perhaps give it feeling of "heart / center of everything".

CORRIDOR / THE HATCH
I imagined this needing to be done in modules. Like one piece of the corridor is same for every room (just change the doors to get feeling of differend rooms). Its rather straightforward really. Yet again we see the Octacon shape recurring here.

CATACOMBS
as the catacombs is so large, there was not really a place for Octagon here, but it will be concidered in the finer details. i imagined that there is this pathway and in middle of it is group of sleeping pods, Perhaps the command staffs pods? Rasputins and the womans pods would be in this row. In either end (placing them next to eachother for convenience). Ofcourse the setup of the pods can be easily arranged into anything really.

Other notes on design:
The octacon design would recur in the shape of the corridor itself. In doors (everything Octagon shaped).

Encounter by bl33d

Here's one spaceship from a guy who I know via #blender.fi channel. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=165067